The term predates moba, it's early RTS, early MMO stuff, around late '90s, early 2000s.

My memory of this long ago is fuzzy, but I believe the word itself is originally from LA gang subculture and was spread more broadly via gangsta rap in the late '80s/early '90s or so (cf. the trend of people spelling certain words with "ck" changed to "cc", which was a feature of Crips tagging). The earliest documented use I could find referred to someone selling fake drugs, but I seem to recall that as it spread it turned into a generic placeholder for just about any offense from petty theft to cold-blooded murder.

Yeah it's just slang for some kind of nefarious action. It's in a lot of rap songs, west coast origin seems possible for sure but been around a long time. East coast version is juug.

In the early 90s in NorCal, we used gank to mean "steal" or "snatch", and you can still find this definition online. I don't think it ever meant murder until it got used in PvP games.

Aren't these murders for stealing though, like don't you kill the people and they drop stuff. I don't remember the game but I know people used to sell in-game items of high value on eBay then stalk people for a bit and kill them to steal it back. One guy got mad about it and went and killed the people in real life.

MOBAs are from the 90s. But yes the terms are from RTS games (MOBAs started as custom maps to starcraft)

Aeon of Strife being the first one from 1998.

It was a heavily used term in early WoW pvp.

Good to know, but based on numbers, most people would have been exposed to the term through MOBAs.

Most people have never played a MOBA.

We’re going in circles here.. where did I say most people have played MOBA?

Well you said "most people" without clarifying whether you meant that generally (the way the other commenter assumed and so replied) or whether you meant "of people who know it, most of them..."

In internet comments, if you're not really specific with your words it's likely at least somebody will misunderstand your intent, partly because they can't read your mind and partly because with so many potential readers the odds of misunderstandings goes up.

In internet comments, if you can’t follow the context of the thread discussion, don’t reply.

Your comment was not clear even with context. I read it the same way as the person who replied to it.

I played RTSes from the late '90s as a kid but still don't know the term