IIRC Blizzard auctioned these off (or at least sold them) back in the day when they upgraded things.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
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yeap. I worked at a colo datacenter where they had a bunch of racks. Right next to them were google search appliances (rebadged Dell pizza box 1u servers, yellow faceplates) which also got resold.
The Matrix Online was better
I'm pretty sure they got it for free.
Then it's an ♾️% increase! In only ten years! Sounds like a great investment.
WOW was one of the first games to run on a subscription model... So it should be smashed to pieces. It trained a generation to pay to play, and was the top of a slippery slope.
Ultima Online and Everquest came out in 1997. 7 years before WOW.
Man, I wasted soooo much time on UO back in highschool.
Tibia was also released in 1997.
And then Asheron's Call came out in 1999 and used the subscription model to have month updates and an actively involved storyline for years.
There were some early benefits to the subscription model when those games were still trying to innovate.
Everquest was the top MMO in 2000, and so virtually every MMO has been an Everquest clone since.
Runescape burst my subscription cherry. I know Everquest was popular at the turn of the millennium.
Now that I think about it, Zoobooks or Highlights might have been my first subscriptions.
I've never paid a subscription to play a game, and never will. Decided that a long time ago.
So how does one provide MMORPG online services without paying for maintenance, servers, bandwidth and electricity? I think subscription based online games are the only transparent way of providing such services.
Or are you just against the idea of multiplayer games with centralized servers?
If it can be done by users it should be, because they're always more dedicated than corporations.
I think that argument definitely has some power, as some people do want dedicated servers, but some people do like a third party hosting the servers as a way to provide integrity.