Preserving Worlds

WorldsChat is a social virtual world that was launched in 1994, and is still online today. Users can equip avatars and hang out in 3D spaces, conversing with each other over text-based chat. WorldsChat allowed users to create their own spaces and avatars. Over the years, they transformed it in a way its developers could never predict. Today, it is not just a time capsule of the early 90's utopian web; it also contains a vast labyrinth of outsider art that has arisen within its fringes. We spoke with GradualDIME, an amateur archivist documenting WorldsChat's user-created art and environments. He gave us a tour of his favorite places in WorldsChat, and told the story of what happened when 4chan's paranormal board discovered it.

In 1991, 21-year-old game developer Tim Sweeney launched a simplistic, already-outdated MS-DOS game that would become, entirely by accident, the most popular hobbyist game development tool of the 90’s. ZZT's free, robust, and easy to use level editor allowed players with no money or programming experience to create their own complete, easily sharable games. A large and enthusiastic community blossomed, and today there is a vibrant kaleidoscope of ZZT games out there, and new ones are still being released. We spoke with Dr. Dos, the proprietor of the Museum of ZZT website, where he documents, preserves, and makes available a vast collection of user-created ZZT games from the community’s storied history to ensure that they can be enjoyed and studied for years to come.

In the mid-2000’s, Cyan Worlds, creators of the massively popular adventure game Myst, released an ambitious online sequel that never caught on the way they'd hoped. Myst Online: Uru Live sought to translate the single-player puzzle-solving experience of the Myst series into a collaborative, massively multiplayer online game. The game had a rocky reception and its online component was compromised from the beginning. It underwent a series of cancellations and relaunches, but in the end it only survived thanks to its dedicated player base. Players carried the game on their backs for years, hacking together fan servers to reimplement much of the online experience the way it was always meant to be. They even formed their own in-game governance structures to improve the player experience. These efforts were so successful that they eventually drew the support of the developers themselves.

The first person shooter Doom launched in 1993 and quickly secured its place in popular culture. The game’s creators were unusually mod-friendly, and they set the game up so it was easy and legal for fans to create their own Doom level packs (known as WADs) and distribute them online. Players took full advantage of this aspect of the game, and BBSes were soon flooded with custom Doom levels. 27 years later, Doom still has a thriving modding community. We spoke with writer, musician, and game designer Liz Ryerson, who gave us her historical and critical perspective on player-created Doom maps.

Habitat, the first ever graphical massively multiplayer online game, emerged on the Commodore 64 home micro computer in 1986. The game shut down after only two years, but it survived for a time in the offshoot game Club Caribe. In 2017, the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment partnered with a few of Habitat’s original creators to bring the game back to life, 30 years after its demise. It was completely unprecedented for a museum to revive an online game and make its servers publicly accessible. Today, the revived Habitat (referred to as NeoHabitat) can be played in a web browser for free, and anyone can easily log on and socialize in this time capsule of the late-80’s. We spoke with Steve Salevan, one of the main software developers on the project, to learn about Habitat’s history, and how its revival was accomplished.

Arguably the most well known social virtual world, Second Life started in 2003 and it’s still online today. The software is extremely flexible, and users are able to customize almost every aspect of the experience. They can create their own avatars, clothes, props, and decorations. They can even build spaces (called Sims) to hang out in. Almost every object in the game can be bought and sold using a currency called Lindens that is backed by real money. The world of Second Life is deeply marketized to the point that it threatens its own long-term preservation. Second Life sims are treated like virtual real estate, and they cost a weekly rent to maintain. When the owner can no longer pay, the sim is taken offline permanently. For this reason, even the most beloved parts of Second Life have a rather short expiration date. However, even this deeply constrained social space contains a fragment of a better world.