Kesmai was a pioneering game developer and online game publisher, founded in 1981 by

Kelton Flinn Kelton Flinn is an American computer game designer who is a major pioneer in online games. He is a co-founder (with his University of Virginia classmate John Taylor) of the seminal online game company Kesmai, which they began in 1982. His ...

and John Taylor. The company was best known for the combat flight sim '' Air Warrior'' on the

GEnie Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources) – are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic myt ...

online service, one of the first graphical

MMOG A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...

s, launched in 1987. They also developed an ASCII-based MUD, ''

Island of Kesmai ''Island of Kesmai'' was an early commercial online game in the multi-user dungeon (MUD) genre, innovative in its use of roguelike pseudo-graphics. It is considered a major forerunner of modern massively multiplayer online role-playing games ...

'', which ran on CompuServe. The company was acquired by

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

's News Corp. in 1994. The company continued to develop massively multiplayer games such as ''Air Warrior 2'' and ''

Legends of Kesmai ''Island of Kesmai'' was an early commercial online game in the multi-user dungeon (MUD) genre, innovative in its use of roguelike pseudo-graphics. It is considered a major forerunner of modern massively multiplayer online role-playing game ...

''. They distributed their games through AOL and eventually a new gaming service formed with three other publishers, GameStorm. AOL purchased CompuServe in 1997 and retooled its AOL Games Channel in a way that placed Kesmai unfavorably compared to its own games division, WordPlay. Kesmai sued AOL for monopolistic practices. The suit was settled out of court with undisclosed terms. In 1999, the company was sold to

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

, and the company's studios were subsequently closed in 2001. Upon closure a number of the Kesmai staff went to work for Lodestone Games, also located in

Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

; while others remained in the former Kesmai offices but became part of EA.com and later Maxis East. Flinn selected the name ''Kesmai'' from a set of names that were output by a random name generator that he wrote for in-game use.

Games

References

Defunct video game companies of the United States MUD organizations Defunct companies based in Virginia Video game companies established in 1981 Video game companies disestablished in 2001 1981 establishments in Virginia 2001 disestablishments in Virginia Electronic Arts {{MUD-stub