DOOM and DWANGO | the early history of online gaming

ah dwango
for 23 years this is a name that's been
a staple of the multiplayer doom
community most tumors today note Dwayne
go is a series of deathmatch packs from
the mid-90s the generally seen is a
relic from an earlier time and do
mapping history some maps from the
dwango series have remained staples and
competitive doom tournaments for many
years and remain so today at its
inception glencoe was much more than a
simple series of deathmatch wads let's
go back in time to the distant year of
1994 the internet was still a new thing
for the vast majority of people despite
31% of American households having a
computer at the time only about 11% of
households had internet access to now a
multi-billion dollar market for
worldwide gaming was still just a glint
in the eye of eager developers two of
those developers were Bob Huntley and ki
Kimball their company interactive visual
systems or IV s provided video training
but the duo is eager to break into the
already booming gaming market and take
players online after some brainstorming
the two came up with the idea for dwango
they developed the basic software that I
would use to connect players globally
naturally since internet gaming did not
exist in any widespread form at this
point the pair thought they had struck
gold not just financially but creatively
the too eagerly pitched their new idea
for the doom wide area network gaming
operation or Lang go-to in software John
Carmack and other edge staff were not
very enthusiastic about the idea they
really didn't see that much potential
for success but thankfully the duo found
support and none other than John Romero
I mean there's no surprise there right I
mean come on this is the godfather of
deathmatch we're talking about here
after Romero pushed and otherwise
reluctant to give dwango a chance J
Wilbur then co-owner of it negotiated a
deal for 20 percent of any profits
Durango might read an excited Romero
could finally sit down and work further
on the concept presented to him by
Huntley and Kimbrough after a bit of
time spent slaving away over a hot key
Ward the first version of Gallego
software was ready to be distributed it
initially came bundled with the
shareware release of heretic now
remember as we discussed before dwango
predated widespread consumer access to
the Internet players had to essentially
make a long-distance call to Houston to
play dwango with other people at this
point
despite this it proved extremely popular
the duo was right they had struck gold
and provided the framework for a market
but is still booming like crazy to this
very day
by the time 1995 rolled around dwango is
reaping quite a nice profit over 10,000
people all around the world were playing
games through dwango despite service
being based in America players were
calling in from all over the world
proving that no matter where they lived
they wanted to get in on some of that
multiplayer gaming action the ability to
play against a real thinking
strategizing opponent amazed players the
concept of gaming internationally built
up a strong momentum that even now shows
no signs of stopping of the excellent
games dwenger came to support the most
popular was doomed too many players
began making their own deathmatch traps
for play over dango some on the Houston
server some on the Washington DC server
some from just about everywhere players
were putting together deathmatch arenas
for more suitable than the default doom
and doom 2 maps to blow each other up in
some of these walls are still played
doom servers.

Source : DoomKid