MMORPG

Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle · 1978 · Mainframe

The first shared text world, built at Essex University, where players coined the term MUD. Avatars, clans and grinding a...

Origin Systems · 1997 · PC

Thousands entered Lord British Britannia at once, with player housing, emergent economies and famously chaotic early day...

Verant Interactive · 1999 · PC

3D Norrath punished corpse runs and rewarded guild coordination, earning the nickname EverCrack for its grip on players....

Blizzard · 2004 · PC

Blizzard took the MMO mainstream with polish, accessibility and lore at scale, peaking beyond 12 million subscribers. Qu...