These games wouldnt exist without the Multi-User Dungeon, otherwise known as MUD.
Several companies looked at MUDs and said: Playing games online - what a neat idea!
and tried to make money off the concept, as they are wont to do.
What a concept, but itll never catch on.
Not yet, that is.
Garriott himself coined the term MMORPG.
The best MMORPGs foster a very unique kind of online community.
Inhabiting a fantasy world online, even if it only comprised 2D sprites and backgrounds, was startlingly fresh.
And so a genre was born, and it wasnt long before Ultima Online had competition.
vied for supremacy in the genre.
MMOs were oversaturated in 2001.
And now were in the big leagues.
The Big Five, and what comes next
The Big Five is a malleable thing.
In 2022, Lost Ark might make the list.
A few years back, The Elder Scrolls Online might have taken up a spot too.
The genre isnt evolving as rapidly as it used to, but its still changing.
