{"id":713,"date":"2010-11-08T13:23:25","date_gmt":"2010-11-08T18:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=713"},"modified":"2014-06-20T09:47:40","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T14:47:40","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-early-online-game-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/713\/retro-scan-of-the-week-early-online-game-service","title":{"rendered":"<span id=\"retro_color\">[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> Early Online Game Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/gamescomputersplay_large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/gamescomputersplay_small.jpg\" alt=\"Games Computers Play Ad - 1985\" class=\"centered\"\/><\/a><span class=\"freecaption\"><em>&#8220;System Requirements: 48k Atari, 1 disk drive, modem&#8221;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;re looking at an ad for what may have been the world&#8217;s first multiplayer graphical online gaming service, Games Computers Play (1985).  It may also have been the world&#8217;s first graphical multi-user environment, as it predated the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Habitat_%28video_game%29\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Lucasfilm Habitat<\/em><\/a> beta test for the C64 (1986) by six months or more.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know else much about this Atari 8-bit-only service beside what can be gleaned from the advertisement above, a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atarimagazines.com\/v4n6\/GamesComputers.html\" target=\"_blank\">1985 article<\/a> in Antic magazine, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atariage.com\/forums\/topic\/132176-games-computers-play-inc-multiplayer-online-game\/\" target=\"_blank\">this thread<\/a> over at AtariAge.<\/p>\n<p>One of the posters in the forum thread linked above mentioned that he\/she found the creators of the service, whom I&#8217;d love to talk to myself.  I&#8217;m trying to get in touch with that poster, but if anyone knows anything about this service (including info about who created it) or has stories to share, please <a href=\"mailto:editor@REMOVE-STUFF-IN-CAPS-BEFORE-SENDINGvintagecomputing.com\" target=\"_blank\">email me here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>[<strong>Update<\/strong> &#8211; I did get in touch with one of the creators of this service.  More info to follow. ]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><center><em><small>[ From Computer Gaming World, November-December 1985, p.20 ]<\/small><\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong>  What was the first game you played with another human (or humans) over a modem?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;System Requirements: 48k Atari, 1 disk drive, modem&#8221; You&#8217;re looking at an ad for what may have been the world&#8217;s first multiplayer graphical online gaming service, Games Computers Play (1985). It may also have been the world&#8217;s first graphical multi-user environment, as it predated the Lucasfilm Habitat beta test for the C64 (1986) by six [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,7,13,35,27,26,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bbs-history","category-computer-info-and-history","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-internet-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-retrogaming","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}