Oakland, CA – September 26, 2014 - The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (The MADE) will be spending Sunday, September 28^th, attempting to resurrect the world's first massively multiplayer online game, Habitat. The project seeks to relaunch the Habitat server on original Stratus Technologies hardware from 1989, and to allow users on the Internet to connect to the game server for free using a Commodore 64 emulator.

The MADE is the first videogame museum to attempt such a relaunch. In fact, there has never been an attempt to relaunch a 28 year old, dead MMO before, primarily because MMO's are mostly a phenomenon that has existed only over the last 15 years.

As the first MMO, Habitat invented a lot of the terms used today, such as Avatar. The game was hosted on the Quantum Link service, which eventually became America Online. Other companies involved in our Habitat resurrection project include Fujitsu, which owns the rights to the game, KIXEYE, the leader in online and mobile combat strategy games, which is sponsoring the effort, and Stratus Technologies, which donated the vintage server.

Habitat will remain online and playable, provided the hackathon to bring it online on September 28^th is successful. Given a successful relaunch, Habitat will remain online until we are able to replace it with a modern code base and modern server hardware. More information about the technical efforts involved in this work are online at:
http://themade.org/posts/552
http://themade.org/posts/732

“Lucasfilm Games, and the work of Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer on Habitat were extremely far ahead of their time. In an era where the online service that hosted the game was only available on evenings and weekends, these two men built a completely new type of online interaction, and they built it in such a robust way that we anticipate, almost thirty years later that this 1989-era server hardware can support up to 10,000 users,” said Alex Handy, founder and director of the MADE.

Henry Lowood, Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections at Stanford University Libraries and founding member of The MADE's board of directors, said that "Digital games without a doubt have become one of the central creative media available for entertainment, art and other forms of expression. So much so that contemporary cultural history is difficult to talk about without including digital games. As a result, not only will the history of this medium be lost if we do not preserve the history of digital games, but there is more at stake: we will be unable to provide a complete cultural history of our times.”

Donors interested in supporting the MADE can donate at http://www.themade.org

About The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (MADE)

Founded in 2010, The MADE is an all-volunteer organization, entirely open to the public. The MADE features free programming and technology classes for adults and children, and hosts an all-playable videogame exhibition on the history of the medium. The MADE is an IRS recognized 501c(3) not-for-profit organization. It’s EIN number is 26-4570976 .

Submitted by: E. Thomas

“Educators increasingly use video games to create new and exciting ways for their students to learn and to foster their development of valuable 21st century skills,” said Jenny Lai, vice president of ESAF. “We are proud to support these schools and look forward to seeing the results of their innovative programs.”

This year’s Education Challenge Grant winners were selected by a distinguished panel of judges, who chose schools based on the creativity of their proposals to integrate video games and technology into their curricula.

Now in its third year, ESAF’s Education Challenge Grant is the result of a partnership between the Federation of American Scientists, the Association for Middle Level Education, and The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop. The grant is part of ESAF’s efforts to help promote video games and game technology as educational tools.

2014 ESA Foundation Education Challenge Grant Recipients

Bronx Compass High School
Location: Bronx, NY
Project Title: Serious Video Games Development
Students in grades 9-11 will work with mentors to design and produce computer games that address real world issues. By integrating humanities and technology curricula, the program will challenge students to communicate and empathize with the daily challenges faced by inner city youth.

Dunlap Community Schools
Location: Dunlap, IL
Project Title: Simulating STEM with SimCity
Students in grades 7-8 at Dunlap Middle School and Dunlap Valley Middle School will useSimCity to understand the core elements of science, technology, engineering, and math topics by conceiving, designing, building, destroying, and eventually rebuilding a virtualcity. Students will work in small groups to identify problems that arise during the design process and develop solutions, leading to a successfully operating city. The game will be fully integrated into the class, and students will be evaluated based on the number of achievements earned throughout the game.

Jefferson Middle School
Location: Jefferson, WI
Project Title: Minecraft Government and Economics
Eighth-grade students will use Minecraft to construct their own civilization while developing a greater understanding of American government and economics. Throughout the course, students will blog about their settlements and attempt to persuade their fellow classmates to adopt certain economic ideas.

About ESA Foundation 
Created by the American entertainment software industry, the ESA Foundation (ESAF) works to make a positive difference in the lives of America’s youth by providing scholarships to the next generation of industry innovators and supporting charitable organizations and schools that leverage entertainment software and technology to create educational opportunities. ESAF is primarily supported by proceeds from its signature annual fundraiser, “Nite to Unite – for Kids” and other charitable initiatives. For more information about ESAF, please visit www.esafoundation.org or follow us on Twitter: @ESA_ Foundation.

Submitted by: E. Thomas