Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII! I was lucky enough to live in Japan when it came out, and bought a phone specifically to play it (I didn't own a cell phone before this point). I didn't and still don't read Kanji, but playing a game on a phone was such a novelty for me at the time that I played the crap out of it whenever I could.
Looking back, it was pretty far ahead of its time in the worst ways possible. It was a subscription service instead of a one-time purchase, the story released in episodes instead of all at once, and now it's a cautionary tale because when the servers were taken down there became no way to play it, legally or otherwise.
I think the earliest Live Service Video Game was the Super Nintendo Sattelaview. They would broadcast the games over radio from a satellite, and then people who were subscribed could receive it and play it from a special cart.
Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII! I was lucky enough to live in Japan when it came out, and bought a phone specifically to play it (I didn't own a cell phone before this point). I didn't and still don't read Kanji, but playing a game on a phone was such a novelty for me at the time that I played the crap out of it whenever I could.
Looking back, it was pretty far ahead of its time in the worst ways possible. It was a subscription service instead of a one-time purchase, the story released in episodes instead of all at once, and now it's a cautionary tale because when the servers were taken down there became no way to play it, legally or otherwise.
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I think the earliest Live Service Video Game was the Super Nintendo Sattelaview. They would broadcast the games over radio from a satellite, and then people who were subscribed could receive it and play it from a special cart.