1990
Air Warrior was a multiplayer on-line air-combat simulator launched by Kesmai in 1988. It was hosted on GEnie and used that service as a server for client software running on a variety of personal computers available in that era. It underwent continual improvement through its decade-long lifetime with Kesmai, appearing on new platforms and host services. Electronic Arts purchased Air Warrior in 1999, and became provider of the game, but it was discontinued in 2001. Air Warrior was one of the first massive online games, hosting hundreds of users during busy periods. It inspired WarBirds, which in turn inspired Aces High. Today there are a number of similar games, like WarThunder, most of them based on a freemium model.
