Today, "FTP" (or F2P) refers to the monetization model of games like Hearthstone and Diablo Immortal .

But while everyone remembers the chat rooms and the games, there was a quieter, more powerful cousin of the BBS that powered the internet’s heavy lifting: the . And today, a growing community of digital archaeologists is revisiting the intersection of these two worlds.

Did you run a BBS back in the day? Do you remember your "leet" upload ratio? Let me know in the comments below!

: Long-term F2P players often find that after a year or two, they can accumulate enough "dust" or "gold" to craft what they need without spending a dime.