History
The first version of the site, which was then called "The Village", was founded by Kevin Binkley, Ted Griggs, and Hoon Im. In 1996, Steve Murch, a then-employee of Microsoft, convinced Bill Gates to acquire the small online game site, then owned by Electric Gravity. The site was rebranded to "Internet Gaming Zone" and launched in 1996.
It started with a handful of card and board games like Hearts, Spades, Checkers, Backgammon, and Bridge.
For the following 5 years, the Internet Gaming Zone would be renamed several times and would increase in popularity with the introduction of popular retail- and MMOG-games, such as UltraCorps, Age of Empires, Asheron's Call and Fighter Ace.
Read more about this topic: MSN Games
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