DWANGO is a popular online gaming service developed by Interactive Visual Systems. Located in the United States, Bob Huntley, Kee Kimbrell and John Romero are the founders of the service. The Dial-up Wide-Area Network Game Operation was developed in the upper part of 1994. DWANGO worked extremely well with Doom, a well recommended video game. The game was a science fiction horror-themed first-person shooter version. The two were compatible, due to the fact that it operated as a matchmaking service for online multiplayer. The service also worked with Id Software, Doom II, Heretic and many others. Originally players would pay a small fee, then run the DWANGO client software which would dial into a DWANGO server. A phone number would then be dialed into Houston, Texas. However, later on as the company prospered servers were set up in other states also.
In the beginning the owners were only Mr. Huntley and Mr. Kimbrell. However the founders wanted to make some changes to the company. At that time it was a video training company. The owners wanted to make it an online gaming service. John Romero, unlike others, supported the idea and, eventually, joined them. By the beginning of 1995, the company had over ten thousand subscribers. Each subscriber was paying $8.95 a month. Eventually, the company arranged a franchise system. By 1997 the company had systems in 23 cities around the world. A flat fee of $35,000 was charged to set up a server and the franchise could keep the rest of the profits.
