Richard Garriott is a cult personality for all fans of the gaming industry, because it was he who founded the MMORPG genre, which is still actively developing. The biography of this person and interesting facts from life are present in the article.
The beginning of the journey in the igrostroy
Richard Garriott was born in 1962 in British Cambridge, but grew up in the United States. His father was an astronaut scientist, and therefore, since childhood, the guy dreamed that one day he himself would fly into space. He graduated from the school in the city of League, and after it entered the University of Texas at Austin. While still in high school, he wrote various programs for the Apple II computer, which he distributed to his friends.
He worked part-time at the ComputerLand store, where in 1979 he began selling the first game. Its name is Akalabeth: World of Doom, and at the heart of it is a role-playing plot with simple three-dimensional dungeons. At that time, it was an unprecedented breakthrough that gave a powerful impetus to further development. A year later, publishers from California signed a contract with Richard Garriott. So began the production of the legendary Ultima series for all MMO fans.
Real work
After graduation, Richard Garriott entered the role of a professional developer. He developed the concept of the second part of his brainchild, which in 1982 large publishers from Sierra On-Line began to distribute. Revenues from sales were huge, as the fan community grew every year. In the process of work on the next sequel, Richard realized that publishing his own projects was much more profitable.
He draws his father with his brother Robert to it - that was how Origin Systems Corporation was founded. For the first five parts, Apple II was used as the main gaming platform, but later they switched to the IBM PC. For a dozen years, many games have emerged from under the wing of the company, which were one more popular than the other.
He was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year Award for deciding to publish games on his own. It is worth noting that for all the years of work, Garriott was awarded many times. He became the eleventh person who was admitted to the “Hall of Fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences” in 2005, and before that he had already managed to light up several times in the industry.
Continuation of activities
Since 1992, Richard Garriott began working under the patronage of Electronic Arts over the next five years. He sold his company to this powerful publisher and, with their support, created a project that remembers the entire old generation of interactive entertainment fans.
Ultima Online was far from flawless, but was a breakthrough in graphic terms. Hundreds of thousands of players have disappeared for hours in this fantastic world. This was the starting point for the popularization of the MMORPG genre. With the beginning of the new century, the publisher decides to cancel the active development of many online projects, which was the reason for the departure of Richard.
Together with their brother Robert, they found the new studio, Destination, and later began to work with the South Korean publisher NCsoft. Under the strict supervision of Garriott, new successful projects entered the world. He worked with them until 2008, when there was a conflict. In court proceedings, Garriott received $ 32 million in payments from the Koreans. In 2017, Richard Garriott decided to visit the world-famous Igromir exhibition as a special guest.
Passion for space
From childhood, a man wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, but myopia put an end to these dreams. When he became a rich man, the founder of the RPG genre in the gaming industry, he managed to buy himself a ticket to space. He paid $ 30 million for a flight with the Russian crew to the Soyuz station. These events were portrayed in the movie Richard Garriott: Mission Doable.
My father flew as an astronaut to the American station “Skylab” back in the 70s. For a long time, the son was preparing for departure, I had to learn instructions in Russian, which created additional inconvenience. All training took place in Star City - the center for training cosmonauts, whose existence was recently told to everyone. The documentary was shot with the participation of Garriott himself, where he shares all his impressions. Step by step, a computer genius will talk about the difficulties on the way to the realization of a dream and the flight into space itself.
