If there is a game that qualifies as the Neanderthal game (Neanderthal being the spot in human evolution in which Homo sapiens were indisputably human) in MMOG evolution, it's Meridian 59, which was released in 1996. Originally developed by an outside firm, Meridian 59 was the first game to incorporate large numbers of players in a single world, a persistent world, and many of the other identifying elements of MMOGs. Like many experimental games, it was not corporate sponsored, and was created under unusual circumstances.