October 1998: Dial Up Wide Area Network Games Operation (DWANGO) shuts down.
In the days before the Internet (yes, there were days before the Internet), how in the heck did people play games together across the expanse of this great nation? Well, if you enjoyed DOOM in New York, you might have connected to your DOOM-playing friends a few states over via DWANGO. Originally called the DOOM Wide-Area Network Games Operation, this fee-based system initially had players dial into servers based in Houston, Texas, in order to access DOOM‘s multiplayer features. DWANGO proved popular enough that its creators eventually set up almost two dozen servers across the county.
