# Turbine - House: Developer - Date: Founded 1994 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/turbine/ > The Boston-area studio that built Asheron's Call, put Dungeons & Dragons and then Middle-earth itself online, and kept The Lord of the Rings Online alive long enough to outlast its own name. **Why it matters:** Turbine made three of the first generation's defining MMOs, including the only long-running online world licensed from Tolkien's books and the first built on D&D's Eberron, and helped pioneer the free-to-play model that rescued Western MMOs after World of Warcraft. ## Quick answers **What is Turbine?** The Boston-area studio that built Asheron's Call, put Dungeons & Dragons and then Middle-earth itself online, and kept The Lord of the Rings Online alive long enough to outlast its own name. **When was Turbine founded?** Turbine was founded in 1994 and is based in Needham, Massachusetts (earlier Providence, Rhode Island, and Westwood, Massachusetts). **Who founded Turbine?** Jeremy Gaffney, Jonathan Monsarrat, Kevin Langevin and Timothy Miller, founded as CyberSpace, Inc. **What is Turbine known for?** Asheron's Call and The Lord of the Rings Online. **What happened to Turbine?** Bought by Warner Bros. in 2010; handed LOTRO and DDO to the spinoff Standing Stone Games in 2016; renamed WB Games Boston in November 2018. ## History Turbine was founded in April 1994 in Providence, Rhode Island, as CyberSpace, Inc., by Jeremy Gaffney, Jonathan Monsarrat, Kevin Langevin and Timothy Miller, some of whom had come out of Brown University's artificial intelligence lab. In 1995 it became Turbine Entertainment Software and soon moved to Westwood, Massachusetts, to hire engineers from Boston's colleges. Its first great project was a persistent 3D online world, which Microsoft signed to publish. [*Asheron's Call*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/asherons-call/) launched on November 2, 1999, months after [*EverQuest*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/everquest/), on the island continent of Dereth. It was an odd, inventive world: no rigid [classes](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/character-class/), a skill system players shaped themselves, allegiances that linked players in feudal chains, and a monthly storyline that changed the world through live events. A sequel, *Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings*, followed in 2002, and in December 2003 Turbine bought the franchise outright from Microsoft. ## Notable work Turbine then took on the two most famous names in fantasy. *Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach*, published by Atari on February 28, 2006, adapted [D&D's 3.5 rules](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dnd-3rd-edition/) to real-time action in [Wizards of the Coast](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/wizards-of-the-coast/)'s Eberron setting, with instanced adventures and a narrating Dungeon Master voice; it won the 2006 BAFTA for best multiplayer game. [*The Lord of the Rings Online*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings-online/), released on April 24, 2007, with Midway publishing in North America and Codemasters in Europe, brought [Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/)'s Middle-earth online. Players did not play the Fellowship; they walked beside it, through the Shire, Bree and the ruins of Eriador, in a world that took the geography of [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings/) seriously. Both games struggled with subscriptions in the years after [*World of Warcraft*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/world-of-warcraft/), and Turbine's answer became an industry template. *DDO* relaunched in 2009 as *Eberron Unlimited*, free to play with a store, and subscriptions rose 40 percent within months; *LOTRO* followed, going free-to-play in North America on September 10, 2010. ## Legacy Warner Bros. bought Turbine in 2010, reportedly for $160 million, and increasingly pointed it toward licensed and mobile games. In December 2016 development of *LOTRO* and *DDO* moved to a new independent studio, Standing Stone Games, with Daybreak Game Company, the successor to [Sony Online Entertainment](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/sony-online-entertainment/), as publisher. *Asheron's Call* closed on January 31, 2017. In November 2018 Turbine itself was renamed WB Games Boston, a Warner Bros. Games studio in Needham, Massachusetts. The name is gone, but the worlds are not. *The Lord of the Rings Online* has continued to add regions of Middle-earth, from *Corsairs of Umbar* in 2023 to Near Harad, and in 2025 moved its players to new 64-bit servers; *DDO* released *The Chill of Ravenloft* in August 2025. Together they are among the oldest continuously running fantasy [MMORPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/mmorpg/), and a reminder that Turbine, not a film studio, gave most players their first chance to walk through a Middle-earth of their own. ## Facts - Turbine began in April 1994 as CyberSpace, Inc., founded by four people, some of them students from Brown University's artificial intelligence lab. - [Asheron's Call](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/asherons-call/) launched on November 2, 1999, as a Microsoft title; Turbine bought the franchise from Microsoft in December 2003. - Dungeons & Dragons Online, set in the Eberron world and published by Atari, launched February 28, 2006, and won that year's BAFTA for best multiplayer game. - [The Lord of the Rings Online](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings-online/) launched April 24, 2007; its free-to-play option went live in North America on September 10, 2010. - Warner Bros. bought Turbine in 2010 for a reported $160 million. - Asheron's Call's servers closed on January 31, 2017, more than 17 years after launch. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WB_Games_Boston) - [The Lord of the Rings Online (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Online) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.