Have you heard the news? Epic Games, the developer of a wildly successful multiplayer game , has just announced a massive $1.78 billion funding round. Want to know what it has to do with collaboration software? Fortnite Well, it turns out, multiplayer video games and collaboration software have much more in common than meets the eye. In fact, it was video games that popularized real-time communication and collaboration long before Google Wave’s debut in 2009. In this article, we wind back the clock and explore this unusual relationship: 🎮 What are “multiplayer” games all about? 👾 When was the first multiplayer game created? 🥚 Who pioneered multiplayer mode in collaboration software? ⚡ Where (and how) do these two worlds overlap? If you’re itching to find answers to these questions, let’s buckle up and dive in. What Are Multiplayer Games? 🎮 In a nutshell, multiplayer games provide the , and that enable two or more players to participate in the same session of a game. environment interface technical infrastructure While most modern games leverage synchronous, real-time gameplay, some multiplayer titles can be played asynchronously, e.g. through a turn-based or “hotseat” system. (1999) by Team17 via . Worms Armageddon Reddit Multiplayer mode is usually implemented as: Players share one computer or console and take turns controlling the game (games like and series) 🔄 Local Co-Op or “Hotseat”. Civilization Worms Similar to hotseat but players participate simultaneously by sharing a portion of the screen (games like for N64) 🔀 Split-Screen. Mario Kart Machines are connected into a local, closed network (games like and ) 🔛 LAN (Local Area Network). Quake Unreal Tournament A dispersed model where players connect to and interact with the game and other players through a server (games like ) 🔃 Online. World of Warcraft One thing to note is that the essence of multiplayer is not really about but rather the experience and with other players. playing games at the same time sharing interacting The Humble Beginnings of Multiplayer Mode 👾 Disputes over “which game was the first?” or “who developed it?” are staples in geeky discussions around the web. The same is true for multiplayer games. On the one hand, we have titles like 1972 which was the first multiplayer game to hit the consumer market. On the other, there’re projects like William Higinbotham’s which introduced multiplayer gameplay as early as 1958 (!). Pong Tennis for Two A game of (1972). Pong Unless gaming historians reach a consensus in that regard, we should better look for the origins of multiplayer mode elsewhere. Play-By-Mail (1950s) 📬 Before video games became a thing, people would gather around their favorite board games and spend hours rolling the dice to their hearts’ content. But gathering several people in the same time (and space) was often a nuisance so players started using snail mail to kick things off. One of the first play-by-mail games was 1954 by Allan B.Calhamer, a strategic board game for 2-7 players set in pre-WWI Europe. The game leveraged communication and collaboration elements and required players to coordinate their actions with each other. Diplomacy A game of via . Diplomacy Haoran Un In a sense, play-by-mail multiplayer was similar to analog or where writers would work on a text together and mail bits of it to and fro. Diplomacy’s collaborative writing co-authoring The PLATO System (1960) 💾 In 1960, professor of the University of Illinois created PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations). An Army-Navy-Air Force subsidized project, PLATO was a terminal-based educational system that ran on universities all across the U.S. Donald Bitzer The capabilities of Bitzer’s system were impressive. PLATO terminals let teachers and students create and participate in multi-discipline educational courses, communicate via chat (called Talkomatic) and share notes, among other things. PLATO’s development continued and more people (mostly students) became aware of the entertainment value of the system. Video games were the next natural step in its evolution. Empire (1973) 🚀 In 1973, John Daleske, a student at the Iowa State College created , one of the first fully-fledged multiplayer games. In own recollection of the events: Empire Daleske’s “(Empire) started out as a final project for an education class I was taking at Iowa State University, Spring Quarter of 1973. It evolved over the course of many years providing the base and inspiration for many spin-offs including Xtrek, Netrek, Conquest (PLATO), and Galactic Attack.” opening screen with a PLATO V terminal on the right via John Daleske. Empire IV Considered the , involved several interesting mechanics like messaging (DM, team-wide and global) and “monitor mode” that let players passively participate and observe the gameplay unfold. first multiplayer shooter Empire multiplayer sessions could handle 30 players (one ship per player) in four teams at the same time, all connected to a host system via PLATO terminals. Empire IV Spasim (1974) 👨‍🚀 Another interesting PLATO title was developed by . In the words of its creator, was “the first multiplayer online game (MOG) with 3D,” which put it just behind Daleske’s achievement the previous year. Spasim Jim Bowery Spasim To some extent, followed in footsteps and included similar game design as well as team-building mechanics. The game took advantage of the Talkamatic chat and stressed the importance of teamwork as teams had to manage resources and control planets. Spasim Empire’s MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) 🧙‍♂️ Four years after Bowery’s , Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle created a whole new genre of multiplayer games called MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons). The term MUD originated from a text-based game the pair designed called . Spasim MUD1 Here’s account of development: Bartle’s MUD1 “Date-wise, it was Autumn 1978. The game was originally little more than a series of inter-connected locations where you could move and chat. I don’t think it was called MUD at that stage, but I’d have to ask Roy to be sure.” Aardwolf MUD session via Dave Bernazzani. Notice the exclusively text-based navigation and story narration. Trubshaw and Bartle’s game “lived” inside the University of Essex network and let players explore the entirely text-based world full of dungeons and monsters and attain the end-game goal of becoming a Wizard. On paper, MUDs were similar to traditional board games. They involved role-play, randomization (similar to dice throws), in-game communication among players, collaboration, exploration and several other multiplayer mechanics. Modern Multiplayer Games 🎮 It wasn’t long before multiplayer games emerged from a niche market and went mainstream. When titles like (1999) and (1996) rocked LAN parties around the world, another (quiet) revolution started to unfold. Unreal Tournament Quake Beginning with 1991 and six years later developers turned their attention toward the Internet. By 2002, online gaming exploded, in part thanks to services like GameSpy, Blizzard’s Battle.net, Steam and Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Neverwinter Nights Ultima Online , These days, oldies like , and have been joined by casual “battle royale” games represented by , and , just to name a few. World of Warcraft Team Fortress 2 Rune Scape Apex Legends Fortnite, PUBG Rust Yet, despite changing user preferences and technological advancement, the core mechanics of multiplayer mode remain mostly unchanged. The , and are the reasons why we love spending time online. thrill of the competition spirit of cooperation allure of social interactions But multiplayer mode isn’t only the domain of electronic entertainment. Now that remote, real-time collaboration has become a focal point in collaboration software, we should wind back the clock and find out where it all started. So, when did video games and collaboration software cross paths? Multiplayer Mode in Collaboration Software 👨‍💻⚡👩‍💻 “The Mother of All Demos” 🥚 The early bird presentation of multiplayer mode for non-entertainment  applications happened in 1968 during what’s known today as “ .” The Mother of All Demos The 90-minute presentation took place at the Computer Society’s Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco. It showcased the capabilities of the NLS computer system designed by Douglas Engelbart from Stanford Research Institute. During the demo, Engelbart showcased several groundbreaking features, including: 🔼 A working mouse prototype 📝 Collaborative document editing (!) 📹 Teleconferencing features 🎨 Manipulation of on-screen elements The real-time collaborative component was way ahead of its time but Engelbart’s show paved the way for real-time multiplayer collaboration. The Breaking Point: Email and Google Wave 🌊 After an uninspiring romance with enterprise-grade Lotus/IBM Notes (1984), there was little true innovation in the collaboration space. That is until 2009 when Google announced one of its most ambitious projects to date. While email turned out to be a great communication tool, it didn’t (and still doesn’t) pan out for online collaboration. To find a better way for teams to get work done together, Google engineers Lars and Jens Rasmussen set out to answer one important question: “What would email look like if it were invented today?” The Rasmussens wanted to create a that would unify teamwork and communication and simplify the process as much as possible. multiplayer collaboration platform The official lauded the product’s innovative approach: Wave Blog “It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content – it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use”playback” to rewind the wave to see how it evolved.” Google Wave dashboard via . TechCrunch Long story short, after a fairly successful launch at Google’s 2009 I/O conference, Wave started hitting roadblock after roadblock. The platform’s multiplying problems, including poor marketing, inability to scale the infrastructure and lack of vision for the product, effectively stifled its growth. Although Google pulled the plug on the project in 2012, Wave became the first mainstream attempt at implementing real multiplayer mode in collaboration software. Jump over for an in-depth analysis of Google Wave’s story. here Games and Collaboration Software: 5 Mechanics ⚡ 1. Chat/VoIP/Video Communication 📢 Communication is the focal point of multiplayer mode. Channels like chat, VoIP and video amplify social interactions and let teams , and . strategize coordinate debrief In games like CS: GO, effective team-communication is often the difference between winning and losing. As observed by a blog user: Team Dignitas “Communication is an essential skill in the game of Counter-Strike; it is generally used for coordinating strategies, informing teammates of valuable information and enhancing team play/coordination (…).” The same is true for professional multiplayer software. Whether it’s a basic chat functionality, video conferencing or the ability to make calls, most modern collaboration platforms (like Taskade) make communication, and with it the social experience, the essential elements of effective teamwork. 2. Role-Play/User Roles 🚦 The role-play mechanics may have originated from board games but have since earned a rightful place in the world of electronic entertainment. So much so, the entire genre of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) is one of the most popular types of multiplayer games around. Active MMO Players by game ( ) via MMO Population. 2020 The two key drivers of MMORPGs’ popularity are and, well… ! The ability to assume different roles and responsibilities and coordinate those roles with those of other players make for some very compelling experience. social interactions, player/world progression role-play This mechanics is no different from and in modern collaboration software. For instance, in Taskade, users can be assigned roles such as: user roles permissions 🦸‍♀️ . They’re in charge of assembling and managing teams as well as controlling project and workspace settings. You can think of them as collaboration Admins game masters 🧙‍♂️ They create and edit projects and templates. Editors introduce changes to documents as well as keep a watchful eye on the changes made by others Editors. 🧝‍♀️ They are passive observers that cannot create or edit projects but are able to comment on existing documents and participate in chat discussions Viewers. Each role comes with a unique set of permissions and “abilities” to either actively change the course of events or just passively observe the “gameplay” unfold. 3. Cross-Platform Experience 📲 With the significant increase in the processing power of mobile devices, the world of multiplayer games has moved beyond PCs and consoles. In simple terms, cross-play functionality means that users can enjoy one multiplayer session of a game together, even when they’re playing on completely different devices. Cross-play via Fandom. Rocket League Here are a handful of examples: (cross-play working exclusively between Xbox One and PS4) PUBG (cross-play across mobile, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Mac and Windows) Fortnite (cross-play for major systems include Xbox One, PS4, Switch, PC) Rocket League (cross-play for desktops, consoles and mobile within the same region) Hearthstone Cross-play is also nothing new in collaboration software. Major collaboration platforms like Google Docs and Office 365 let users work, chat and interact with each other regardless of the device they’re using. The cross-platform experience makes modern collaboration software more flexible and removes many workflow bottlenecks. 4. Checkpoints/Persistent World 💾 On the surface, saving in-game progress may seem like a domain of single player or co-op, local games where players advance in a synchronous, linear way. But some multiplayer games, like , offer what’s known as a Eve Online persistent world. According to Richard Bartle (yes, the same guy who co-created ) persistent world “continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it.” MUDS1 A Battle in Eve Online via CCP Games. Sounds familiar? A persistent world is essentially a less flexible counterpart of or in tools like GitHub or Google Docs. version control editing history When you edit a document or code in the cloud, the changes you make will stay there for good. That is until another team member decides to tamper with the project. In a sense, the online “world” changes after you close the editor, but features like version control let you restore its previous state from a certain moment in time. 5. Team Camaraderie 🤜⚡🤛 For many, the allure of multiplayer video games lies in social interactions. Whether it’s assembling teams, building guilds or competing with friends, the collective experience is enough to warrant hundreds or even thousands of hours spent in online worlds. While you can technically “solo” games like or , the real fun begins when others join in. Not only does co-op let you explore larger chunks of in-game content, but it simply makes a game narrative much vibrant. World of Warcraft Guild Wars 2 community activities via NCSOFT. Guild Wars 2 Team-building activities are also a staple in the professional space. Teams with strong internal culture, a spirit of companionship and solid track record can , and work more effectively. communicate collaborate coordinate No wonder many software developers implement gamification elements into productivity and collaboration software. Introducing competitive/cooperation or risk/reward mechanisms into workflows can make teams more engaged and productive. If you’re looking for more ways to engage your remote employees, check our article on the for some ideas. Digital Ikea Effect Conclusion 🐑 Big things have unexpected beginnings. The world of collaboration software owes a great deal to enthusiast developers who pioneered, if only through curiosity, multiplayer games. They combined , and long before it was cool. communication collaboration coordination collaboration software is still very much in the process of change. While perfecting the user experience is going to take a while, here at Team Taskade we’re proud to be part of this (r)evolution. Till next time! 👋 Previously published at https://www.taskade.com/blog/multiplayer-software-history-games-collaboration-tools/

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