The company was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in 1994.[2][3] The company continued to develop massively multiplayer games such as Air Warrior 2 and Legends of Kesmai. They distributed their games through AOL and eventually a new gaming service formed with three other publishers, GameStorm.[4]
AOL purchased CompuServe in 1997 and retooled its AOL Games Channel in a way that placed Kesmai unfavorably compared to its own games division, WorldPlay.[5] Kesmai sued AOL for monopolistic practices.[6] The suit was settled out of court with undisclosed terms.[7]
In 1999, the company was sold to Electronic Arts,[8] and the company's studios were subsequently closed in 2001. Upon closure a number of the Kesmai staff went to work for Lodestone Games, also located in Charlottesville, Virginia; while others remained in the former Kesmai offices but became part of EA.com and later Maxis East.
Flinn selected the name Kesmai from a set of names that were output by a random name generator that he wrote for in-game use.
