HISTORY
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Microsoft Ants was a (RTS) strategy multiplayer (2-4 Players) PC game. It was one of the highly marketed PC games on MSN Gaming Zone. The game primary objective was to obtain the most points at the end of the game. Whichever player or team obtain the most points at the end of game, wins. To accumulate points you had to collect food scattered across the map. But not all food had the same value points and there were limited amount of food, meaning Ants of different colony (colony were differentiated by color of the ants) had to fight each other for the limited resources (food and powerups). The powerups gave ants special power such as a Combat Ant that can fling opponent's ants. Swim Ant that can go in the water and build a bridge on water. Fire Ant that can build and extinguish fire. A Bomb Ant that can set and diffuse bombs and a Thief Ant that can steal points from the opponent. Players would strategicially execute their game plan on assault, defending base, and even their food supply. You can play this as a single player, but the game was meant for multiplayer. Typical Microsoft Ants games were 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 match, which were typically top vs bottom matches. Of course there were other type of matches like Free-For-All games and very rarely side vs side games, varying on the map. The most popular map was Treasure.
Ants actually debut with Spike's World (also known as Spike's World Online Game Magazine) in 1996. Joshua Howard, who was an employee of Microsoft worked in the MSN Gaming Zone (also known as the Zone) department, designed and developed Microsoft Ants. Joshua and his team wanted to attract the young adults demographic despite that the game was marketed for kids in Spike's World. Joshua received Zone's approval of moving the game from Spike's World to MSN Gaming Zone (later changed to the Internet Gaming Zone).
MSN Gaming Zone was looking for new games to expand their gaming library. Internet Gaming Zone offered a variety of multiplayer games such as Age of Empire, Mech Warrior, Checkers, Bridges, Rainbow Six, and many other games. All these games were popular, but Microsoft Ants was gaining massive attraction. Ants population was surging in the late 90s. There were 4 Standard Rooms (Ants And Uncles, King of the Ant Hill, Clan Wars, and Picnic Lunch) and the most popular gaming lobby was Ants And Uncles. The Ants And Uncles gaming lobby` would sometime have over 250 active players (I believe the max capacity was 300 per room). Somedays Ants And Uncles would be full and other players would be forced to play in King of the Ant Hill.
During this early stage of Ants it was hard to get a game if you were a newbie. Many players would play favoritism, playing those who they believe were experts or on their level. It was very competitive to get a game in the late 90s/early 2000s, which I find this comical today! In the mid 2000s the population tanked below 60 players and players of all level, experts to newbies, even players who never play the game would all play in a single game without any protest!
Microsoft Ants was created in 1996. It was a popular PC multiplayer game and made its debut on MSN Gaming Zone (Zone.com) in 1998. Ants was a fun entertaining simple game to play.
LSF_Nickz2000
This screenshot was taken by LSF_Nickz2000.
So what happened between the early 2000s to mid 2000s?
How did Ants population declined drastically from 250 to 50? There were various reasons. One was speeding (Speeding is a form of cheating in the game, making their ants move slighlty faster) and there were many types of hacks such as hexed map and iced map users. Many Anters were frustrated playing the game because of these new hacks and Anters would argue and accuse each other of speeding. They just could not tolerate with the speeding, accusations and the constant arguments. Not to mention the bug issues and router issue. Most Anters just had enough of it and moved on to other PC games.
There were still Anters in the lobby that supported the game and the community, but the profound reason why Ants population decline and eventually led to its demise was Joshua Howard's announcement. There were rumors circulating that Joshua Howard was making an announcement on Ants 2, but many knew that this announcement was about Ants coming to an end. You can read the entire chat transcript here (I acutally offered $10 Million to Joshua Howard for the game lol). You can also read the first chat transcript here (left) which took place in March 17, 2004 (aMiNo basically hijacked the chat, but he was onto something there).
According to Joshua Howard he did everything he could possibly do to keep the game alive for the community in Zone.com, but from my personal standpoint (and many other opinions) Joshua seem very unmotivated on resolving any issues Ants had at the time. He appeared to want to to move on from Ants and focus his attention on other works rather than resolving speed and bug issues or working on the sequel Ants 2. Although Joshua did not give us a certain timeline when our beloved game will no longer be accessible in Zone.com, he made it very clear that it will eventually be taken down. Many tried to reason with Joshua and some even have attempted to gain access to Ants source code to replicate Ants or recreate a better Ants game (Ants 2) and especially resolve the current bug issue(s), but Microsoft threaten lawsuits on copyright infridgements. Microsoft would not allow licensing rights to any one individual. And because of no advancements, changes to the game, and lack of support, Zone.com officially retired Ants on January 31, 2006.There was a loophole in MSN Gaming Zone website where Anters were able to play Ants, but eventually Zone got rid of the game for good.
Although Ants was officially off the Zone market, many other gaming websites picked up the game. Such as IGZones, WGCenter, and Voobly (Maybe WePlayGames? I don't know if JC ever feature Ants in his gaming host). World Gaming Center (WGCenter) was the first to host the game Ants, but it was very short lived. International Gaming Zone (IGZones) launched in 2007 and hosted most of MSN Gaming Zone's games including Ants. Microsoft Ants debut in IGZones in 2008 and over 100 players joined for its debut! IGZones was a success, however, many players had issues playing the game due to router issues. Many new and old Anters were frustrated with this issue. dAwGy and others made articles on how to port forward routers (there was even a YouTube video how to port foward your router), but many did not bother to play the game. Most were there for nostalgia and to reconnect with the community. Ants did remain a lot longer with IGZones than WGC, but it still lacked players and eventually the gaming website shut down. Ants was also available in Voobly, similar features and games like IGZones.
2015 to Present time.
Many Anters migrate to Voobly after IGZones, which was the last gaming host. Ants had even a smaller community in Voobly (35-20 players), but when Windows 10 came out in 2015 that drove what was left of the community.
There was a bug issue that made Ants crash. This issue was reported to Voobly multiple times, but they have yet to fix this bug issue. As of May 2025, Microsoft Ants remain on Voobly's website, however, the game was unable to run on Windows 10 OS (and higher) and Voobly has yet to fix this bug issue. Despite the Voobly bug issue this didn't stop some individuals wanting to play the game. There were (are) a few that privately play Ants through GameRanger or GameLaunch.exe which was designed by Garbage. You can still download Ants and play as a single player, even multiplayer if you can organize a game. However, several has voiced their frustration on Ants being unplayable, the motion and transitioning with the mouse was not smooth. I tried to play this game with Shad and a few other Anters in 2016 (I think), but the game just did not flow well for any of us.
Is this the end of Microsoft Ants?
Unfortunately it is. Unless Voobly decides to fix this bug issue I just don't see the community coming back. Even if you were able to bypass the router and bug issue, it's just not playable. I wouldn't want to play Ants. It's just too damn choppy. But this game will always live on in our memories. As the creator has said, "Ants is a legacy game." Joshua Howard to me is the Jerry Krause* of Ants, he built and destroy the community, but I do appreciate the game after all these years.
Credit to Lima for confirming a few sources.
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