Longest-Running Publicly Available Online Multiplayer Arithmetic Game With a Shared Game State
Record Holder
Metric
Date Achieved
Location
Atlas Record ID
Abaku / AL.21 s.r.o.
17 years, 3 months, 16 days and counting
Ongoing — public online operation began May 18, 2009
Online / Prague, Czech Republic
20426078
Abaku is a multiplayer arithmetic strategy game in which players interact through a shared mathematical game state, with each move changing the position and possibilities available to subsequent players. Atlas World Records verified a documented public online lineage beginning May 18, 2009 and continuing through multiple platforms and software generations to the current ABAKU PLAY implementation.
Transparent Adjudicator's Statement
Summary of Claim
Abaku submitted a claim for recognition based on the longevity of its publicly available online multiplayer game. The original proposed wording was broader, but following comparative research and category analysis, Atlas refined the record to focus on the defining structural feature of Abaku: multiplayer arithmetic play conducted through a shared game state in which one player’s actions directly alter the mathematical environment encountered by the next player.
The applicant identified May 18, 2009 as the conservative public starting date. A contemporaneous Lupa.cz announcement documented the public online premiere of Abaku on Cilichili.cz, described the game as playable online by two to four players, identified Geewa as the developer of the electronic implementation, and stated that the game would subsequently migrate to Geewa distribution.
Evidence Submitted
Atlas reviewed a structured A–J evidence package comprising independent contemporary sources, primary correspondence, historical gameplay material, technical deployment records, developer confirmations, patent documentation, and current gameplay evidence.
Key evidence included the May 18, 2009 Lupa.cz public-premiere announcement; April–June 2009 correspondence from Geewa documenting pre-launch development, access and subsequent online distribution; historical Geewa interface and gameplay material; official and contemporary evidence documenting the 2015 transition from the Hry.cz environment to Duelovky.cz; direct written confirmation from Qest technologies that ABAKU PLAY launched on December 10, 2020; and Qest’s June 22, 2021 case study describing its application as the fifth version of Abaku.
Atlas also reviewed January 2026 technical correspondence documenting deployment of the current successor implementation. Production routing was established on January 20–21, users were documented as reaching both legacy and successor implementations during the transition, and Qest confirmed on January 28 that the previous ABAKU PLAY implementation had been switched off the previous day, establishing January 27, 2026 as the documented retirement date of the legacy generation.
Additional material included the official record for Czech Patent No. 303763 / application No. 2005-718 and historical and current gameplay documentation demonstrating substantial consistency in the game’s core mathematical mechanics.
Comparative and Cross-Archive Benchmark Review
Atlas World Records conducted a multi-source comparative benchmark investigation using the Atlas Engine research process. The review cross-referenced the publicly available records of all major world record organizations and extended beyond formal record archives to historical game databases, developer records, software repositories, archived websites, academic sources, contemporary press, online gaming references, and other publicly available material.
Earlier online mathematics products were identified and evaluated. The research established that broader categories such as “longest-running online multiplayer arithmetic game” would not be sufficiently precise because earlier products existed in which users competed online by solving arithmetic problems simultaneously.
Atlas therefore examined the structural distinction between parallel arithmetic competition and games in which competitors interact through a shared mathematical state. In Abaku, each move alters the common game position and directly changes the possibilities available to subsequent players.
The benchmark review also examined closer historical comparators involving numerical and arithmetic construction games. No earlier publicly available online multiplayer arithmetic game with a shared game state was identified with a documented continuous operating history predating Abaku’s May 18, 2009 public online premiere.
Verification Methodology
Atlas evaluated the claim using both historical benchmark analysis and continuity-of-lineage verification.
The adjudication did not require the same server, software codebase, domain, hosting provider, developer, visual interface, or user-account database to remain unchanged throughout the record period. Instead, Atlas assessed whether successive implementations could reasonably be identified as continuations of the same public game.
Continuity was evaluated based on preservation of the game’s identity, defining rules and gameplay structure; evidence connecting successive platforms and software generations; absence of a demonstrated material discontinuation in public operation; and documentation showing that later implementations succeeded earlier ones as part of the established Abaku lineage.
Historical and current gameplay materials were compared to determine whether the defining mechanics remained substantially consistent. Both historical and present implementations show players interacting on a shared numerical playing field, creating arithmetic relationships in a multiplayer environment.
Atlas separately evaluated the major technological transitions. The 2015 migration from Hry.cz to Duelovky was supported by an official continuity notice and contemporary reporting. The December 2020 Qest generation launched before the global retirement of Adobe Flash technology, and Qest later explicitly described its implementation as a later version of the existing Abaku project. The January 2026 successor transition was supported by contemporary technical correspondence documenting production deployment, overlap between implementations, and subsequent retirement of the legacy system.
Adjudication Findings
Atlas World Records finds that May 18, 2009 is the earliest sufficiently documented date from which Abaku’s public online operating history can be conservatively measured.
The evidence supports a credible and documented lineage from the original public online implementation through the Geewa/Hry.cz era, the Duelovky environment, the Qest-developed ABAKU PLAY generation, and the current ABAKU PLAY implementation.
Atlas finds that changes in technical infrastructure did not constitute the creation of unrelated games. The documentary record, developer descriptions, transition evidence, and gameplay comparisons support the conclusion that these implementations represented successive technological generations of the same identifiable Abaku game.
Atlas also finds that the absence of user-account migration during the January 2026 transition does not independently break continuity. The record concerns continuity of the publicly operated game and its shared-state arithmetic gameplay, not continuity of individual player accounts or databases.
Comparative research identified earlier online arithmetic competition products but did not identify an earlier qualifying game combining publicly available online multiplayer arithmetic play with a shared game state and a longer documented continuous operating history.
Conclusion
Based on the evidence submitted, independently accessible historical sources, primary technical and developer records, comparative benchmark research, and Atlas’s continuity analysis, Atlas World Records verifies Abaku / AL.21 s.r.o. as the holder of the record for the:
Longest-running publicly available online multiplayer arithmetic game with a shared game state
The verified record period begins with Abaku’s documented public online premiere on May 18, 2009 and remains ongoing. As of September 3, 2026, the verified duration is 17 years, 3 months and 16 days.
