Kesmai

Kesmai was a pioneering game developer and online game publisher, founded in 1981^[1] by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor. The company was best known for the combat flight sim Air Warrior on the GEnie online service, one of the first graphical MMOGs, launched in 1987. They also developed an ASCII-based MUD, Island of Kesmai, which ran on CompuServe.

The company was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 1994.^[2]^[3] 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.^[4]

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.^[5] The suit was settled out of court with undisclosed terms.^[6]

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.

Flinn selected the name Kesmai from a set of names that were output by a random name generator that he wrote for in-game use.

Games

References

↑ http://www.mobygames.com/company/kesmai-corporation
↑ Pattie Joy (April 27, 1994). "NEWS CORP. BUYS KESMAI". USA Today.
↑ Ben Potter (April 27, 1994). "News buys top US online games maker". The Age.
↑ John Voland (November 24, 1997). "GAMERS GANGING UP: Four online companies team in GameStorm". Daily Variety.
↑ Craig Menefee (September 30, 1997). "Gamer Firm Kesmai Sues America Online". Newsbytes.
↑ Bob Woods (July 7, 1998). "Kesmai, America Online Settle Lawsuit". Newsbytes.
↑ http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/07/27/gdc-online-awards-recognize-kesmai-founders-as-legends

Electronic Arts

Employees

Founder	Trip Hawkins

Current	Larry Probst (Executive Chairman) Andrew Wilson (CEO) Peter Moore (COO) Patrick Söderlund (EVP) Will Wright Joe Ybarra

Former	Bing Gordon Don Mattrick Jeff Green Ralph Guggenheim Robin Hunicke Greg Kasavin John Riccitiello

Subsidiaries

Current	BioWare Criterion Games EA Canada EA DICE EA Mobile EA Montreal EA Salt Lake EA Singapore EA Sports EA Tiburon European Integration Studio Firemonkeys Studios Ghost Games Maxis Motive Studios PopCap Games The Sims Studio Visceral Games

Defunct	Bullfrog Productions Danger Close Games EA Black Box EA Bright Light EA Chicago EA Phenomic EA UK Kesmai Mythic Entertainment Origin Systems Pandemic Studios Playfish Victory Games Westwood Studios

Franchises

Category

MUDs

Major branches	AberMUD DikuMUD LPMud LPC MU*

Minor branches, codebases, libraries	DGD GodWars Merc MOO Mudlibs MudOS MUSH Talker TinyMUD TinyMUCK

Concepts, terminology	Alternate character Avatar Avatar customization Bartle taxonomy of player types Buff Camping Computer game bot Consider Cybersex God Gold farming Gold sink Griefer Grinding Hack and slash Immortal Implementer Kill stealing Lag Looting Mob / Monster MUD client Comparison MUD trees Mudflation Nerf Online creation Online wedding Persistent world Player character Player versus environment Player versus player / Playerkilling Powerleveling Quest Remort Rent Spam Spawning spod Social verbs Syntax guessing Tank Twinking Virtual good Wizard Zone / Area

Publications	Designing Virtual Worlds Imaginary Realities Life on the Screen "A Rape in Cyberspace" "A Story About a Tree" Terra Nova A Theory of Fun for Game Design

Companies, organizations	Areae Iron Realms Entertainment Jagex Lysator Kesmai The Mud Connector Mythic Entertainment Plaintext Players Simutronics Skotos XYZZY Award

People	Alan Cox Amy S. Bruckman Andrew Gower Ben Laurie Brad McQuaid Brian Green Bruce Woodcock Cat Rambo Chip Morningstar Christopher Howard Wolf Dr. Cat Edward Castronova Elonka Dunin Espen J. Aarseth Greg Stein J. Todd Coleman James Aspnes Jason Scott Sadofsky John Viega Joi Ito Judy Malloy Julian Dibbell Kelton Flinn Lars Pensjö Lennart Augustsson Lisbeth Klastrup Mark Jacobs Matt Mihaly Michael Lawrie Michael Seifert Mizuko Ito Nick Yee Noah Wardrip-Fruin Paul Barnett Pavel Curtis Randy Farmer Rich Skrenta Richard Bartle Sherry Turkle Stephanie Shaver Steve Yegge T. L. Taylor Wes Platt

MUDs	3Kingdoms Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands Alter Aeon AmberMUSH Ancient Anguish Armageddon ATHEMOO Avalon: The Legend Lives AVATAR BatMUD BurningMUD Castle Marrach Costello Dark Age of Camelot Darkness Falls: The Crusade DartMUD Discworld MUD Diversity University Dragon's Gate DragonRealms DragonSpires Dune II Elendor Empire EverQuest Federation II Furcadia FurryMUCK GemStone IV Genesis LPMud Genocide God Wars II Habitat Holy Mission ifMUD Infinity (AberMUD) Infinity (LPMud) Island of Kesmai JediMUD LambdaMOO LegendMUD Lost Souls MAD MOOSE Crossing MUD1 MUD2 Medievia Meridian 59 MicroMUSE MorgenGrauen Muddy Waters NannyMUD Nightmare LPMud Northern Lights Nuclear War MUD PernMUSH Ragnarök The Realm Online Realms of Despair The Ruins of Cawdor RuneScape The Shadow of Yserbius Shattered World Star Wars MUSH Threshold TinyTIM TorilMUD TriadCity TubMUD Ultima Online Wyvern Xyllomer

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