Neverwinter Nights included the game server with the game (nwserver.exe). I never played Ultima Online, but it definitely has ways to host your own server now. A lot of MMOs from that era also had self-hostable servers at the time. Pretty much every MMO prior to WoW had some way to run your own server.

As for the existence of bad games prior to the internet, I’m not arguing that bad games didn’t exist then. I am arguing that there were fewer of them as a percentage of the total games market because it was a lot of work to patch a game after release, and unless you could tie in to an existing popular IP it wasn’t worthwhile to release something you knew would bomb.

I’m also arguing that there were fewer (as in near zero) games that engaged in predatory practices like selling lootboxes, or worthless in-game items, or otherwise using micro transactions to boost revenue, because it would be too inconvenient to buy for the player meaning there was no market for it.

It would be harder to express that misogyny if you’re playing offline with the boys, or at least harder to express it in the presence of women.