At 1:50 in the morning, in an empty engineering building at Colorado State University, a student commanding a Federation starship watched the last Romulan cruiser explode. Then a message flashed across his screen: “PLATO DOWN IN FIVE MINUTES.” The game was Empire, his terminal was connected by telephone to a PLATO computer in Minnesota, and, as he told JoyStik magazine in 1983, there were “hundreds of other PLATO terminals all over the country, many with dedicated Empire-playing users”. He reckoned he had spent 2,000 hours on it during college.
Online multiplayer began like that: on university and commercial networks, years before most people owned a computer, at prices only enthusiasts would pay. Each step after it, from the modem to the internet to the console with a network socket, made it cheaper and faster, but the step arrived in different countries at different times, and it was not always the technology that held it back.
Fast facts
- Mainframe networks: Empire (1973) and other games on the PLATO system of the University of Illinois; MUD at Essex University from 1978.
- Paying by the hour: DecWars on CompuServe from 1979, later MegaWars; the pay-by-the-hour worlds in the MMORPG entry.
- Modem to modem: Dan Bunten’s Modem Wars (Electronic Arts, 1988); BBS door games, played one caller at a time.
- The PC’s decade: Doom (1993) over office networks and modems; dial-up services such as DWANGO; Quake (1996) and QuakeWorld over the internet; Blizzard’s Battle.net.
- Consoles: XBAND (1994) for the Genesis and Super NES; Tectoy’s Mega Net in Brazil; the modem-equipped Dreamcast (1998); PlayStation 2’s network adaptor and Xbox Live (2002).
PLATO and the mainframes
PLATO was a teaching system run from the University of Illinois, with terminals spread across universities and learning centres. It also carried games that many people could play at once. Retro Gamer dates Empire, a Star Trek space battle for teams of players, to 1973, and lists after it Airfight (1973), a wireframe flight simulator, Spasim (1974), Panther (1975), a tank game, and the dungeon games dnd and Moria. Wikipedia names John Daleske as Empire’s author and calls it “quite probably the first networked multiplayer arena shooter-style game”, with Maze War as the other candidate.
By the mid-1980s PLATO had been opened to home computer owners. Electronic Games found a player called Stillbreath lost in the corridors of Moria, “perhaps the world’s most confusing and compelling interactive maze game”, until an online friend showed him the way. In England, Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle wrote MUD on Essex University’s DECsystem-10 from 1978, and outsiders could dial in at night and at weekends; the MUD and MMORPG entries tell that story.
Telegaming by the hour
Commercial networks sold multiplayer games to anyone with a modem and a credit card. Electronic Games traced “telegaming” to 1979, “when CompuServe first brought out the infamous space opera, DecWars”, which soon had “some 700 rabid fans” and grew into MegaWars. JoyStik described MegaWars as a game like Empire in which up to eight players at a time, anywhere in the country, fought over the galaxy without needing a PLATO terminal. It was not cheap: in 1985 Electronic Games met devotees “who don’t think twice about their $5,000 a year networking charges”.
Two home computers could also play each other directly, one modem calling the other. Electronic Arts described Dan Bunten’s Modem Wars (1988) as “the first game designed specifically for modems”, and said it was the first to let a Commodore 64 owner play against IBM PC and Apple II owners. It was a real-time battle of infantry, cavalry, artillery and spies. Computer Gaming World’s reviewer thought it closer to a sport than a war game, and noted that its players were already organising on QuantumLink and CompuServe.
Doom and the dial-up services
Doom (1993) made network play something people wanted badly enough to break rules for. Up to four players could hunt each other over an office network, and within weeks, Computer Gaming World reported, Intel had banned it from its networks. The Doom and LAN party entries follow that story. At home, Doom managed only two players over a modem, and dial-up services grew up to do better. DWANGO (“Dial-up Wide Area Network Gaming Operation”) had close to 30 servers in American cities by early 1996, so that players could call a local number and join a four-player Doom match, for $7.95 a month for five hours. Computer Gaming World’s Jeff James tried it on the Denver server and got “a harsh lesson in utter humiliation” from a player called Cleaner.
The internet soon replaced these private networks. Quake (1996) let any owner run a server and let players connect by typing its address, and id Software’s QuakeWorld rewrote it for the lag of dial-up connections; the Quake entry has the details. By January 1997 GamePro counted four American services for internet play: DWANGO, Mplayer, TEN (Total Entertainment Network) and Interplay’s Engage, with play costing “about $2 an hour”. Kali took a cheaper route, making the internet look like a local network so that games written for office LANs could be played across it: Computer Gaming World put its users at more than 50,000 by the end of 1996, at $20 for life. Blizzard built its own free service into its games. Edge reported in 1998 that Battle.net had 1.2 million registered users, making it the largest online gaming service there was, and credited it with the long life of Diablo and StarCraft.
A different timetable in Britain
British players waited longer. In June 1996 Edge wrote that “in America, commercial network companies have been providing multiplayer games for years, while in this country, only those working in offices full of PCs have been able to enjoy the sublime pleasures of multiplayer Doom sessions”. BT’s answer, then in trial, was Wireplay, a dial-up games network that did not use the internet at all: players called BT’s server, which passed messages between them. Its first game was to be Actua Soccer Euro ’96, and it cost £1.50 an hour. By the end of 1998 it had more than 75,000 members, and had exported its technology to Australia. Edge judged it the best place in Britain to play Quake, because its dedicated dial-up network had far lower ping times than the internet.
Consoles go online
Console online play began with add-ons. Catapult Entertainment’s XBAND modem plugged into the console’s cartridge slot, with the game cartridge plugged into the modem. The Sega Genesis version went on sale in five American cities on 17 November 1994 at $69.95, with a subscription of $7.95 a month. Players could fight Mortal Kombat or play NBA Jam against a stranger across town. The modem synchronised the two consoles by sending each player’s controller data down the phone line, and a Super NES version followed in 1995.
The same idea reached Brazil through Sega’s distributor there. Tectoy launched Mega Net for the Mega Drive at the end of 1995, at R$79.99, with e-mail, chat and an online magazine, and in October 1996 Mega Net 2, which, SuperGamePower reported, let players take on anyone in their city at FIFA Soccer 95, Mortal Kombat II and 3, NBA Jam and Super Street Fighter II. Only the second player to connect paid for the call.
Sega’s Dreamcast put a modem in every box from 1998, and games such as Phantasy Star Online and Quake III Arena used it. The PlayStation 2 needed a network adaptor, which by 2002 was on sale in Japan and America while Europe waited. Microsoft took the opposite approach with Xbox Live, launched in America on 15 November 2002: a network it controlled completely, Edge reported, “akin to a walled garden”, open only to broadband users, with a single Gamertag for each player and a starter kit with a headset for $50 or £32. Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software, explained why developers liked it: “I like knowing for certain that every Xbox Live player has a headset. I like knowing that every Xbox Live player has a broadband connection. I like knowing that every Xbox Live player has a hard drive for me to give them free content after launch.”
Guaranteed broadband was also Xbox Live’s limit outside America. In December 2002 Edge estimated that only about four per cent of British homes had broadband. By spring 2003 the service had about 50,000 European subscribers against some 250,000 in the United States, and the magazine ugvm blamed “the low proportion of Europeans who have a broadband internet connection”. The Xbox Live entry follows the service further.
Sources
- JoyStik vol. 1 no. 5, 1983, pp. 57–58: a player’s account of Empire on PLATO (the terminal at Colorado State, the computer in Minnesota, the shutdown message, the hundreds of terminals, 2,000 hours); MegaWars on CompuServe for up to eight players.
- Retro Gamer issue 108, November 2012, pp. 34–35: PLATO and its games (Empire, Airfight, Spasim, Panther, dnd, Moria).
- “Empire (1973 video game)”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): John Daleske; Empire and Maze War as candidates for the first networked multiplayer action game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(1973_video_game)
- Marshal M. Rosenthal, “Modem Madness”, Electronic Games vol. 3 no. 4, April 1985, pp. 30 and 72–74: telegaming since DecWars in 1979; its 700 fans; $5,000 a year in charges; Moria on PLATO.
- Commodore Computing International vol. 7 no. 3, November 1988, p. 8: Modem Wars (“the first game designed specifically for modems”; Commodore 64 against IBM and Apple II; CompuServe and QuantumLink support).
- Daniel Hockman, “A Game By Any Other Name”, Computer Gaming World issue 56, February 1989, p. 32: Modem Wars review.
- Computer Gaming World issue 116, March 1994: Doom review and the Intel ban (see the Doom entry).
- Jeff James, “Your DWANGO Service Offers Multiplayer Doom”, Computer Gaming World issue 139, February 1996, pp. 137–138: DWANGO’s name, servers and prices; the Denver game.
- “Online Gaming 101”, GamePro issue 100, January 1997, p. 34: DWANGO, Mplayer, TEN and Engage; typical costs.
- Computer Gaming World issue 149, December 1996, letters: Kali (more than 50,000 users; $20 for life; LAN games over the internet).
- Edge issue 33, June 1996, p. 16: online gaming in Britain (the quotation; Wireplay’s trial, Actua Soccer Euro ’96, £1.50 an hour).
- Edge issue 65, December 1998, online gaming feature: Wireplay (more than 75,000 members, Australia, dedicated dial-up, Quake); Battle.net (1.2 million registered users, free, Diablo and StarCraft).
- Catapult Entertainment press release, “XBAND Video Game Network on-line Nov. 17”, Business Wire, 8 November 1994: launch date, cities, price, subscription and supported games.
- “Now You’re Playing For Real”, Nintendo Power issue 72, May 1995, pp. 78–79: the Super NES XBAND (the cartridge in the modem; controller data sent over the phone line; the 1995 beta).
- SuperGamePower (Brazil) no. 22, January 1996, p. 67: Tectoy’s Mega Net (price, services, fees). No. 31, October 1996, p. 13: Mega Net 2 (the games; only the second player pays; R$135.99).
- Edge issue 115, October 2002, pp. 7–9: the PlayStation 2 network adaptor; Xbox Live’s launch date, starter kit, broadband requirement, Gamertag and closed network.
- Edge issue 117, December 2002, Xbox feature: Randy Pitchford of Gearbox Software; broadband in “approximately only four per cent of homes in the UK”.
- ugvm issue 5, April 2003, p. 4: Xbox Live’s European launch (about 50,000 European and 250,000 US subscribers; broadband take-up).
- Dreamcast’s modem and online games: see the Sega Dreamcast entry and its citations.