Video games are sort of stuck in a kind of temporal limbo nowadays. Live-service games maximize microtransaction revenue with long-term and frequent content updates, meanwhile the AAA machine never stops churning and the profit and popularity surge of a sequel is tantalizing for large publishers. There was a time, however, when things were different.
No, dear reader, this time we're not going to talk about whether or not gaming was really better in the past; instead we invite you on a stroll down memory lane - but this isn't your regular nostalgia fueled reminisce, as the decade-old games on this list are still going strong today. If any of these titles spark an old memory that you'd love to relive, there's nothing holding you back - and we do suspect a lot of you who played some of these might be actively doing so today.
Before we proceed, you might note the lack of MUDs (multi user dungeons) on the list - this isn't because we don't consider them valid or 'real games' or other nonsense like that, but because including them would feel a bit like cheating. There are tons of them, many of which have been up and running for even longer than the oldest game on this list, and they're also less resource intensive to maintain. If anything, they'd deserve their own article.
With that out of the way, let's jump right into the top longest running games, in no particular order.
The Realm (1996)
Recently (as far as the game's lifespan is concerned) renamed The Realm Online, this was an early experiment into what would evolve to be the modern MMORPG. By some definitions a graphical MUD, Sierra On-Line's proto-MMO was groundbreaking, but soon eclipsed by the more technically advanced Ultima Online and EverQuest just one and three years later, respectively.
