Final Fantasy XI

In 1999, SquareSoft was producing a Final Fantasy movie. The series creator, Hironobu Sakuguchi, was founding a studio in Hawaii, and observed his American employees discussing Everquest: A brand new online RPG exclusive to the states. Seeing the game himself, he was impressed, and took the idea back to Japan; pitching the idea of a Final Fantasy MMO to Square, who then made a deal with Sony to produce it for the brand new Playstation 2.

Final Fantasy XI was exclusive to Japan for about a year. It's commonly stated that FFXI "predates World of Warcraft," but that's only technically true. FFXI was inspired by Everquest, and came out two years before WoW, but both games were supported concurrently throughout XI's life cycle. While Wrath of the Lich King had WoW's playercount at an all-time high, FFXI players were spending 18 hours trying to bring down Pandemonium Warden. If anything, FFXI existed in defiance of WoW.