Gamesville
From Casual Games Wiki
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 Gamesville Founded: 1996 # Employees: ? full-time, ? part-time/contract |
Gamesville is an online gaming developer and publisher based in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. Gamesville was founded in 1996 by Steven Kane, Stuart Roseman and John Furse. Gamesville was acquired in 1999 by Web portal Lycos for $232 million in stock.
Gamesville’s tagline is "Wasting your time since 1996".
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History
Gamesville's first game, Bingo Zone, enabled hundreds of people to compete against one another in real time, for free, and win up to $20 by getting a bingo. Initially, Kane was skeptical of launching a free online bingo game because bingo is traditionally associated with the elderly rather than the prized demographics most advertisers seek. However, on the day Gamesville.com launched in April 1996, the Wall Street Journal ran a story about Gen Xers playing bingo in bars, and Kane is quoted as saying, "It was as if God had whispered to us."
Company Timeline
- 1995: Company (then called NineCo, Inc.) founded
- 1996: Nineco's Bingo Zone debuts on WWW: Internet's first real-time multiplayer game
- 1998: Nineco's AceyDeucy debuts: Internet's first massively-multiplayer card game
- January 18, 1999: Gamesville.com hosts the largest real-time online game to date: two thousand eight hundred forty nine members played against each other to win $700 playing Catchup Coverall
- March 22, 1999: Nineco changes name to Gamesville.com, Inc.
- November 23, 1999: Lycos acquires Gamesville for $207 million
Games
Gamesville games are best described as massively multiplayer game shows where hundreds of players compete with one another simultaneously. Because these games advertiser supported, their game shows are free to play (so isn't gambling) yet pay winners anywhere from $1.00 US to $4,999 US.
