On a crisp fall evening in 1991, an excited crowd packed into London’s Wembley Stadium, the storied venue that had previously hosted the 1966 World Cup final and 1985’s Live Aid concert. That was in the past. This night, about 2,000 people gathered to stare directly into the future.
Inside the cavernous stadium stood a line of a dozen large, gray pods. From the outside, it looked like dystopian science fiction: people in pods, their heads sealed in helmets. Inside, though, they were flying in a cutting-edge virtual reality flight simulator that networked all the players into a single, computer-generated world. The launch event celebrated the first time the public could buy all-inclusive VR. People played all night. Orders were taken then and there.
Behind the scenes, the team that’d built the machines, an upstart British company called Virtuality, struggled to hold things together. They’d never attempted to link that many systems together; Virtuality’s engineers were literally writing code on the spot, hoping everything wouldn’t crash and burn. The result—chunky graphics and simple gameplay—would seem primitive today, but in 1991, it was a revelation.
Jonathan "McSleuthBurgur" Lindahl, 19, a freshman in computer networking, practices League of Legends and other video games in the video game practice space of Robert Morris University's athletic department in Chicago, March 18, 2015. The university recognizes video games as a varsity sport under its athletic department and has been offering sports scholarships to video gamers to play League of Legends. The team practices four to five nights a week in a $100,000 classroom outfitted for video gaming. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEChris "STARS FourEyes" Broadnax, 21, a graphic design major, plays video games in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMERachel "Razur" Zurawski, 20, plays League of Legends and other video games in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEStudent video game athletes play League of Legends and other games in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEDerek "Zig" Shao (left), 20, and Blake "Oberan" Soberanis, 22, play League of Legends in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Shao and Soberanis are two of the best members on the school's video game team. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEChris "STARS FourEyes" Broadnax (right), 21 and Mario "ThirstDrinker" Huang, 26, practice League of Legends and other video games in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMERachel "Razur" Zurawski, 20, practices League of Legends and other video games in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015.Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMERobert Morris University associate athletic director, Kurt Melcher (second left), Jonathan "McSleuthBurgur" Lindahl (right), 19, and Dean "keyboychespin" Mitchell (second right), 18, watch others play the game Heroes of the Storm in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEDerek "Zig" Shao (left), 20, and Zixing Jie (right), 20 play League of Legends in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIMEMario "ThirstDrinker" Huang, 26, a sophomore studying Drafting Technology, practices League of Legends and other video games in Robert Morris University's video game practice space in Chicago, March 18, 2015. Kitra Cahana—Getty Images Reportage for TIME