If we were to conduct a survey asking about the most famous online game of all time, the most likely result would include three titles: ‘Minecraft,’ ‘Fortnite,’ and ‘World of Warcraft.’ However, years before these games, a small Spanish title emerged and showcased originality, fun, and above all, a great deal of chaos in the gaming world that was not prepared for the improvisation of a small group of developers. Are you ready? Leave your personal belongings here: we’re opening the doors to ‘La Prisión.’
Pressure in prison
Not all great projects have an epic start. In this case, in 1998, the owner of Dinamic, a Spanish video game company, seeing the success of ‘Ultima Online’ and ‘Everquest’ in the United States, decided to venture into the online world. The problem? Spanish modems were only 56k, the internet was still in its infancy, and the programmers had no clue how to do what was being asked of them. But as they say, when the boss makes a request, there’s no other choice but to find a way.
The first step was deciding what the game would be about: considering the limitations of the time, having large maps and fantasy settings was out of the question, especially with the computers most of Spanish society had. So, what now? Suddenly, a light bulb went off in their heads: of course. A prison that would always be the same setting but where players could do different things. Perfect. Well, sort of.
And the next step was the truly difficult one to solve: if it’s a prison, that means the goal of the game is to escape, right? And what happens when you escape? Is there an ending? Does it turn into ‘Prison Break’? Pondering over the matter, they came to the conclusion that it would be a game without an ending, where the novelty would be in interacting with other players: when they introduced the ability to fight and create clans after a few months, the real adventure began. And what they thought would be their biggest disadvantage became their distinguishing factor.
Twitter? What’s the point, having a jail
‘La Prisión’ was released in 1999. Six years before Twitter, five before Facebook, and even four before MySpace. It quickly became a sort of social network where people could meet, complete missions together, and chat every afternoon, depending on what the modems of the time allowed. As it didn’t have a real objective beyond passing the time, the game became a vital part of the Internet’s genesis for many millennials.
Millennials with money, it must be said. After all, the game cost around 4000 pesetas (24 euros at the time) and, for the first time, required an additional monthly payment of 1000 pesetas (6 euros) to continue playing. Nowadays, it seems normal to pay for Netflix, HBO Max, Game Pass, and even for fruit delivery to our homes, but back then the idea of having to keep paying for an unfinished game was strange. It seemed like a recipe for disaster.
But no. 20,000 people bought the game in the first few days and flooded the servers… Although ‘La Prisión’ couldn’t prevent the downfall of Dinamic. With the company going bankrupt, the same developers ended up creating the first expansion (‘La fuga de Don Vitto’) at Cryo Networks, which also went under quickly. It’s now 2003, and the chaos has been so great that all players have lost their accounts. Now, is it finally the end of the game, or what?
Always locked up
The developers, now free from publishers, promised to take care of the game more than ever for those who wanted to create new characters from scratch. It even started selling again on CD-Rom under the name ‘La Prisión Online: Reincidentes’. For ten years, there were more or less regular updates until, finally, one day in 2018, the servers were shut down and never turned back on.
The original developers wanted nothing to do with a reboot or a sequel: ‘La Prisión’ had been defeated by the MMORPGs we all know, and towards the end, it was just a small club of friends who had found their niche in the uncomfortable cells. But with a niche, there’s no business (unless you’re an undertaker), and neither attempts to create a spiritual remake called ‘Imprisoned’ nor accumulated nostalgia have yielded results.
‘La Prisión’ opened many doors in the gaming industry that weren’t even considered before: patches, updates, monthly payments, online gaming, social networks… The gaming world of today was already present in a game from 25 years ago, created by a group of developers with little idea of what they were doing. It’s something to be proud of to have shared a cell with these comrades, isn’t it?
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