Great Galactic Conflict

The Great Galactic Conflict, or GGC for short, was a turn based Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) which was available in Australia around 1985.
The game was accessed through a text based dialup service from Telecom Australia (later Telstra Australia) known as Viatel.
Briefly, the game mechanic required players to enter their moves during a one-week period. Once a week the game engine would process all entered moves and compute a result which became the basis for the following week's moves. GGC moves were heavily influenced by negotiation between players which formed a significant portion of the game play. In 1988 the winner of the game was eligible to receive a prize of $2500.
The game was written by Ian Davies for Microtex 666 from 1983 to 1984.
The back-end software ran on DOS-based PCs, using the Viatel "bulk update protocol" to process move outcomes and upload the results. It took several hours to process each move. GGC was engineered to support 1000 players, but peaked at around 600. The game was played approximately three times, each taking around ten weeks.