Article author here. I get why people trip over that comparison. Unfortunately it wasn't added by myself, nor part of the original draft. The comparison is (somewhat) obviously intended to make it clear that it was a super-popular game.

That said, I'm glad that people like the rest of the article :)

Also not the OP, but the OP is probably talking about its popularity and novelty.

Also, Zork wasn't easy to put down and pick up later.

I was also multi-player in a different way. Instead of being competitive multi-player, it was cooperative multi-player, as in you had friends over and you'd solve it together.