Virtual Society, Blockchains, and The Metaverse

Andreessen Horowitz October 9, 2022
Elena Burger

In 1986, the early internet provider Quantum Link and the entertainment company Lucasfilm Games released what might be considered the first ever MMO: a social, avatar-based world called Habitat, which could be accessed via a 300-baud modem ($0.08 per minute) and a user’s Commodore 64 ($595, or roughly $1,670 in today’s terms). Habitat was a departure from text-based MUD games (which were multiplayer but lacked graphics) and free-ranging USENET forums (which of course were text-based but lacked formalized gameplay) that dominated the early net-connected market at the time.

In short, Habitat was a virtual civilization, with real-time player chat, trading, and interaction. Habitat was also arguably a forebear of what the now-contested (both definitionally and territorially) “metaverse” may one day...

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