Inside Meridian 59: It's still running, and it still has players

- Matt Dymerski, player and developer on Meridian 59 In 2012, the venerable online game went open source -- but hasn't lost its player base. From its groundbreaking commercial launch in 1996, Meridian 59 staked a claim for the MMO genre with Western players. But it was soon overshadowed by bigger games, and only genre historians still remember it. Well, and its die-hard fans, who are still playing -- and developing -- the game. In a new piece for The New Yorker, Simon Parkin speaks to some of its players who still hang on to the game, like author Matt Dymerski, who also contributes to its ongoing development: "While there are certainly bigger MMOGs, I’m not sure there were ever better games. So we remain on Meridian 59, fighting with the same two hundred people we’ve known all our lives, always waiting for that next big update that might ‘fix the game’ and give us hope again." The full piece is a glimpse into the life an online game can have when it offers something its players can't quite get anywhere else -- no matter what hurdles (including the 2010 closure of its developer) they have to clear to continue to play it.