Comment by thaumasiotes

My dad worked for a studio that sold a game to WorldPlay. WorldPlay games charged by the hour, but the developers received AOL accounts that bypassed this charge. Theoretically I could play any WorldPlay game for free, but mostly I played my dad's game, which was free anyway as some kind of "check out our new game" introductory promotion.

There was a small regular community which got wiped out when WorldPlay started charging for it. The studio got more free accounts and gave them to regular players so that the game didn't just evaporate immediately, which meant everyone suddenly had a minor name change. After that, the game evaporated.