HISTORY OF IBGAMES AND FEDERATION 2
PART EIGHT
Leaving AOL
We were not the only company affected by AOL's new long-term strategy de jour. Eventually they decided to set up a new premium rate games service but they wanted all-new games in it, and so most of the old games companies were paid to go away.
And so Federation had to set up on the web.
This involved a massive amount of work, and it came at just the wrong time. It was just a bit too early to use Linux running on a standard server - it wasn't ready yet. So we had to go with the more expensive option of Unix running on very expensive boxes in a co-location centre.
We also had to make a decision about the charging structure we would use for Fed and the other games we planned to develop: flat-rate or by the hour?
We chose to go with an hourly charge. Not the right move, with hindsight, but at the time it seemed to make sense.
And so, in October 1999, Federation started to run on our own site on the Internet. For better or worse, we were finally the masters/mistresses of our own destiny!
On the Web
Well, it's been a rocky road, but we're still here. We've been through a complete rewrite of the code, a major meltdown of the whole persona file (backups included) the switch to a flat-rate subscription model, and then to free play funded by selling extras.
All the highs and lows of our time on the web are documented in the Federation archives and in the Fed2 Star, Fed's weekly newsletter.
It's 24 years since Fed DataSpace first opened the space portal... I wonder where we will be in another 24 years?
