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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. Between 1996 - 97 , Murch worked on modernizing the site and adding—and sometimes remaking—new games. 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 '' Age Of Empires '' and '' Asheron's Call ''. COMPETITORS Zone's first competitor was AOL Games . The competition between the two sites resulted in the creation of a ''Volunteer Program'' for the Zone, which AOL also offered. The idea was to have volunteers moderating the chat lobbies, hosting Tourney s, offering tech-support, and interact with the gamers. Volunteer Moderators for the Zone were designated 'Member Plus' or more commonly referred to as M+. Because of legal complexities when AOL was sued by their volunteers—and won the case—MSN Games reformed their policy by contracting a third-party company to manage the program. In in November 2004. To-day, the site is competing with other similar free-game sites, such as Yahoo! Games . Both sites often offer the same Premium Games at the same price. SETBACKS
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