Kesmai

Kesmai

Kesmai was a pioneering game developer and online game publisher, founded in 1981cite news | title = News buys top US online games maker | work = The Age | date = April 27, 1994 | author = Ben Potter ] by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor. The company was best known for the combat flight sim "Air Warrior" on the GEnie online service, the first graphical MMOG, launched in 1987. They also developed the first ASCII-based MMORPG, "Island of Kesmai", which ran on CompuServe.

The company was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 1994. [cite news | title = NEWS CORP. BUYS KESMAI | work = USA Today | date = April 27, 1994 | author = Pattie Joy ] The company continued to develop massively multiplayer games such as "Air Warrior 2" and "Legends of Kesmai". They distributed their games through AOL and eventually a new gaming service formed with three other publishers, GameStorm. [cite news | title = GAMERS GANGING UP: Four online companies team in GameStorm | date = November 24, 1997 | author = John Voland | work = Daily Variety ]

AOL purchased CompuServe in 1997 and retooled its AOL Games Channel in a way that placed Kesmai unfavorably compared to its own games division, WordPlay. Kesmai sued AOL for monopolistic practices. [cite news | title = Gamer Firm Kesmai Sues America Online | date = September 30, 1997 | author = By Craig Menefee | work = Newsbytes ] The suit was settled out of court with undisclosed terms. [cite news | title = Kesmai, America Online Settle Lawsuit | date = July 7, 1998 | author = Bob Woods | work = Newsbytes ]

In 1999, the company was sold to Electronic Arts, and the company's studios were subsequently closed in 2001. Upon closure a number of the Kesmai staff went to work for Lodestone Games, also located in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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