Richard Garriott Wrote a Book (March 22, 2017)

[Bandit LOAF]

Lord British has written a book! Origin founder Richard Garriott's Explore/Create: My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark was released in January and tells, firsthand, his incredible life story. The book covers Garriott's entire life and many adventures (including, of course, his space travel) but does find time to talk about the early days of Origin and the development of Ultima Online. Any juicy stories about Wing Commander? It is only referenced only in relation to an explanation of why Electronic Arts wasn't interested in funding Ultima Online:

EA gave us the minimal funding, but no other support. We were last on the list to get any resource. We only got to see the resumes of potential hires after every other project had passed on them. There was a reason for that beyond EA???s MMORPG skepticism: When Ultima VIII was published, it hadn???t reached expectations. Instead, our game Wing Commander had become the most prominent money earner for the Origin division of the company. Because Wing Commander was doing so well, and it needed resources, when resumes came into Human Resources that team had first pick. And second pick. So our team became the ragtag group of rejects. We were like the Bad News Bears of gaming.

Want your own copy? The book is available in hardcover and ebook editions wherever books are sold. The Amazon listing is here.

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Original update published on March 22, 2017

 

[Wedge009]

And the reverse seems to be true once UO gained popularity, as on-line became the 'next big thing', traditional single-player projects were pushed to the side.

Was there that much competition between the WC and Ultima teams in Origin? I wouldn't have thought there was any resentment between them, though just from this tiny snippet it could sound like there was some unhappiness at the arrangement. Or is it the lead-in to something more positive, like 'this was our background, this was what we had to deal with, but still we made an awesome game!'