Multiplayer gaming dates back all the way to the advent of the home computer, the 1980s. The first popularized LAN game was "Snipes" released in 1982-1983 and ran on a Novell NetWare system, one of the earliest LAN networking systems of the time. Snipes was text-based, but they were able to make it graphically work as it was a 2D top-down maze-based shooter game. It was also LAN multiplayer (not dual player on the same machine).

Fast forward years later to the 1990s, and LAN gaming totally took the scene. This was the time when games like Half-Life/Team Fortress, Quake, DooM, and Unreal Tournament ruled the LAN party days. Then came the LAN gaming and Internet Cafes of the 2000s, where LAN parties kind of crossed over to these computer rental shops, and the pre-MOBA (Multi-player Online Battle Arena) time period began.

When LAN Ruled The Gaming World

Probably the most significant development in the realm of multiplayer gaming. Even without the Internet, gamers could duke it out in a local gaming arena. Technically, multiplayer LAN gaming became so successful because it originated from, and included the pre-online gaming crowd, the gamers used to single player gaming, and playing co-op, or dual-competitive on a single machine.

These were the days when "Defense of the Ancients" (DOTA) and the forever lasting (till today) CounterStrike, ruled multiplayer gaming in almost every way. A few more years, and things started to shift with the access and availability to the Internet and its gaming servers. Multiplayer Internet gaming had begun.

Everything Goes Online

By the mid to late 2000s, almost everything gaming was an online thing. Of course, people played the best of the best game experiences solo, and LAN party events had evolved into the realm of eSports, where LAN gamers were considered professionals, and teams competed for millions in prize earnings. LAN multiplayer was thriving, though in a different and much bigger way.

Esports aside, the rest of the world practically moved online, not just in games but also in other everyday activities from office work, banking, commerce, and even love. The era of the MMOs, which began around the turn of the century, late 1990s to 2000, was at its full swing. MMORPGs practically dragged gamers into the realm of "Massive Multiplayer Online" gaming. You've got EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Dark Ages of Camelot, City of Heroes, and the list goes on and on.

DOTA and the rest of the Warcraft crowd moved online as well, and the MOBA generation was established. DOTA evolved into League of Legends (LoL) and DOTA 2; what's more, Starcraft had not relinquished its throne either. Online servers that catered not only to the three major games, but to other MMORTS games played on such massive online gamer bases sprouted up and started to blend with the eSports gaming world. After 2010, eSports were practically at their peak with online and eSports MOBA very much alive and well.

The FPS platform has always had a huge, huge following and player base. CounterStrike and other similar games took hold of online FPS gaming, and servers were swamped with FPS afictionados where teams competed round after round around the world. Also, FPS was the first game genre to ever bleed into eSports, and the trend continued on.

One could find awesome multiplayer gaming platforms online, not only from the West, but also from other countries in Asia as well. Online multiplayer gaming could be described into the following major categories. These are MMORPG, MMORTS, MMOFPS, and MOBA (which is actually a competitively focused variation of MMORTS).

Gamers Were Already Busy

The greatest impact on gaming over the years was the reality that gamers could play with each other, not just two or four, but "Team vs. Team". This was the big game changer, but with access to internet servers where hundreds (or even thousands) of gamers competed with each other on a day-to-day basis, this was definitely the Magalodon of game changers. Gamers were not the only ones busy, but the developers and publishers were as well. The free2play platform of gaming commercialization had sprouted an entire innovative gaming industry of its own.

So as you can see, even if considered "Retro" by today's standards, gamers the world over were busy, very busy. So when PUBG came to the scene and gamers started to play all-out deathmatch with a touch of scavaging and survival, online multiplayer gaming was already pumped up and way due for something new. The "Battle Royale" genre added a significant innovation to the old deathmatch gameplay found in founding FPS games like Unreal Tournament, but with the added pressure of a shrinking map area at every turn.

Battle Royale added innovations to competitive gameplay, but let's all be reminded that the "Core" principles of gaming, even today, originate from the "Retro Gaming" world.

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