Richard Garriott

Richard Garriott de Cayeux
Born July 4, 1961
Cambridge, England, UK
Nationality British / American
Occupation Video game developer
Known for Ultima series
Space tourism
Spouse(s) Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux (2011-present)
Children

Kinga Garriott de Cayeux

Ronin Phi Garriott de Cayeux
Parent(s)
Relatives Robert Garriott (brother)
Space Adventures Tourist
Time in space
 11d 20h 35m
Missions Soyuz TMA-13/TMA-12
Mission insignia

Richard Garriott de Cayeux (born Richard Allen Garriott on July 4, 1961) is a video game developer and entrepreneur. He is also known as his alter egos Lord British in Ultima and General British in Tabula Rasa. A well-known figure in the video game industry, Garriott was originally a game designer and programmer and now engages in various aspects of computer game development and business.

On October 12, 2008, Garriott launched aboard Soyuz TMA-13 to the International Space Station as a self-funded private astronaut,[1][2] returning 12 days later aboard Soyuz TMA-12. With his trip, he became the second person, and first American, to be a second-generation space traveler.

Garriott founded a new video game development company in 2009, called Portalarium.[3] His current project is Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues where his primary role is as CEO and Creative Director.

In 2011 he was married and changed his name to Richard Garriott de Cayeux.[4] Richard and wife Laetitia, had their first child, Kinga Shuilong Garriott de Cayeux, on June 30, 2012.[5] Their second child, Ronin Phi Garriott de Cayeux was born on July 28, 2014.

Biography

Early life

Richard Garriott was born in Cambridge, England to American parents,[6][7] and was raised in Nassau Bay, Texas, United States. He is the son of Helen Mary Garriott née Walker and scientist Owen K. Garriott, who became an astronaut and flew with Skylab 3 and Space Shuttle mission STS-9.[8][9]

What Garriott later described as "my first real exposure to computers" occurred in 1975, during his freshman year of high school at Clear Creek High School. As he wanted more experience beyond the single one-semester BASIC class the school offered, and as a fan of The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons, Garriott convinced the school to let him create a self-directed course in programming, in which he created fantasy computer games on the school's teletype machine.[10][11] Garriott later estimated that he wrote 28 computer fantasy games during high school.[7]

In the summer of 1977, his parents sent him to the University of Oklahoma for a seven-week computer camp. Shortly after he arrived, some of the other boys attending the camp introduced themselves. When Garriott replied to their greeting of "Hi" with "Hello" they decided he sounded like he was from Britain, and gave him the nickname "British". Garriott uses the name to this day for his various gaming characters, including Ultima character Lord British and Tabula Rasa character General British;[12] however, despite his nickname and birthplace, his parents moved to Texas when he was a baby and his accent is American rather than British.[13]

Game design career

Garriott began writing computer games in 1974. His first games were created on and for teletype terminals. The code was stored on paper tape spools, and the game was displayed as an ongoing print out on the spooles of printer paper the teletypes used. In summer 1979, Garriott worked at a ComputerLand store where he had his first encounter with Apple computers. Inspired by their video monitors with color graphics, he began to add perspective view to his own games. After creating Akalabeth for fun, the owner of the store convinced him it might sell. He spent US$200 getting a manual and a cover sheet drawn by his mother printed out, and put them in Ziploc bags to sell around the store. Although he sold less than a dozen copies at the store, one of them made it to California Pacific, who signed a deal with him. He sold over 30,000 copies, receiving $5 for each game sold.[11][14][15] Akalabeth is considered the first published Computer Role Playing Game. In the fall, he entered the University of Texas at Austin, joined the school's fencing team and later joined the Society for Creative Anachronism.

Steve Jackson Games (SJG) maintained a good relationship with Garriott, and when he stopped by the SJG office one day, he ended up commissioning Denis Loubet to paint the cover of Ultima I (1980), and many other covers for Garriott's games thereafter.[16]

In the early 1980s, Garriott developed the Ultima computer game series, eventually leaving the university to make the games his full-time job.[11] Originally programmed for the Apple II, the first was published by California Pacific Computers and sold in Ziploc plastic bags to interested parties. The second part was published by Sierra On-Line, as they were the only company that agreed to publish it in a box together with a printed cloth map. By the time he developed his third installment, the games had such a large following that Garriott (along with his brother, Robert, amongst others) established Origin Systems, their own video game publisher to handle the publishing and distribution of his title, now available on several platforms.

Garriott sold Origin to Electronic Arts in September 1992 for 30 million dollars.[17] In 1997, he coined the term massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), giving a new identity to the nascent genre previously known as graphical MUDs.[18] In 1999 and 2000, EA canceled all of Origin's new development projects, including Privateer Online, and Harry Potter Online.[19][20] In the midst of these events, Garriott resigned from the company and returned to the industry by forming Destination Games in April 2000 with his brother and Starr Long (the producer of Ultima Online). Once Garriott's non-compete agreement with EA expired a year later, Destination partnered with NCsoft where he acted as a producer and designer of MMORPGs. After that, he became the CEO of NCsoft Austin, also known as NC Interactive.

Tabula Rasa failed to generate a significant amount of money during its initial release, despite its seven-year development period. On November 11, 2008, in an open letter on the Tabula Rasa website, Garriott announced his plans to leave NCsoft to pursue new interests sparked by his spaceflight experiences. Later, however, Garriott claimed that the letter was forged as a means of forcing him out of his position and that he had had no intention of leaving.[21] On November 24, NCsoft announced that it planned to end the live service of Tabula Rasa. The servers shut down on February 28, 2009, after a period of free play from January 10 onward for existing account holders.[22]

In July 2010, an Austin District Court awarded Garriott USD$28 million in his lawsuit against NCsoft, finding that the company did not appropriately handle his departure in 2008. In October 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment.[23]

Garriott founded the company Portalarium in 2009. The company is developing Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, a massively multiplayer spiritual successor to the Ultima series, with Garriott having remarked that had they been able to secure the rights to the Ultima intellectual property from Electronic Arts, the game could literally have became Ultima Online 2 in name.[24][25][26][27] On March 8, 2013, Portalarium launched a Kickstarter campaign[28] for Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues.[29]

Spaceflight

In 1983 Softline reported that "Garriott wants to go into space but doesn't see it happening in the predictable future ... He has frequently joked with his father about stowing away on a spaceship, and recently his speculations have been sounding uncomfortably realistic".[6] The income from the success of Garriott's video game career allowed him to pursue his interest in spaceflight, and the sale of Origin Systems allowed him to invest in Space Adventures and purchase the ticket to become the first private citizen to fly into space. However, Garriott suffered financial setbacks in 2001 after the dot-com bubble burst, and he was forced to sell his seat to Dennis Tito.[30]

He then says he got back into making games, to make money, and once he had enough, put down a non-refundable deposit to go into space. During the mandatory medical examination, they found he had a hemangioma on his liver, which could cause potentially fatal internal bleeding if there was a rapid depressurization of a spacecraft. He was told he had to give up his large deposit, or undergo life-threatening surgery, so he decided to have the operation, and now has a 16 inch scar from it. He spent a year in Russia training before he launched into space.[30]

Richard Garriot (far right) aboard the ISS on 23 October 2008

On September 28, 2007, Space Adventures announced that Garriott would fly to the International Space Station in October 2008 as the sixth space tourist, reportedly paying $30 million USD.[1][31] On October 12, 2008, Garriott became the second second-generation space traveler (after Sergei Volkov)[32][33] and the first offspring of an American astronaut to go into space,[1][32][34] and the second person to wear the British Union flag in space.[35] The Soyuz docked with the station on October 14. His father, Owen K. Garriott, was at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for the launch of his son and was in attendance when a Soyuz capsule returned with his son twelve days later.[36]

Screen capture from Windows on Earth, used by Garriott on ISS to identify targets for Earth photography. (Coast of Peru)

During his spaceflight, Garriott took part in several education outreach efforts. As a part of that outreach programme he worked with the free Metro newspaper in London, which provided him with a special edition containing details of British primary school student's space experiment concepts which Richard took to the ISS. The Metro has claimed as a result that it was the first newspaper in space.[37][38] He is an Amateur Radio Operator (callsign W5KWQ), and during his stay on the International Space Station (ISS), communicated with students and other Amateur Radio operators using Amateur Radio.[39] Garriott also transmitted photographs using the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) slow-scan television system. Garriott also placed a geocache while aboard the ISS.[40]

Garriott also worked with the Windows on Earth project, which provides an interactive, virtual view of Earth as seen from the ISS.[41] Garriott used Windows on Earth software to assist in the selection of locations on Earth to photograph, and the public were able to use the same online tool to track the ISS and see the view Richard was experiencing out an ISS window. Richard's photographs, along with images taken by his astronaut father Owen Garriott in 1973, will be available to the public through Windows on Earth, adding a personal element to studies of Earth and how Earth has changed over time.[41]

Tracy Hickman wrote a screenplay for Garriott, for the first science-fiction film shot in space, Apogee of Fear.[42]

On October 24, Russian cosmonauts of ISS Expedition 17, Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, along with private astronaut Richard Garriott, aboard Soyuz TMA-12 capsule, landed safely (ideal) at 9:37 a.m. (0336GMT, 07:36 Moscow time), 55 miles north of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan. They were lifted to the Kazakhstan Baikonur space center by helicopter, and then flew to Zvezdny Gorodok (Star City), Moscow Region.[43][44][45][46]

On June 3, 2009, the New York Daily News announced that Garriott would officiate at the first wedding to be held in zero gravity.[47] The wedding took place in a specially modified Boeing 727-200 aircraft, G-Force One, operated by Zero Gravity Corp, or ZERO-G, a company offering weightless flight experiences, of which he is the co-founder.[48]

In 2010 he released a documentary Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott's Road to the Stars.[49]

Other accomplishments and interests

In 1986, Garriott helped start the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. His high school science teacher was June Scobee-Rogers, wife of Challenger Shuttle Commander Dick Scobee, who piloted the STS-51-L mission. STS-51-L was intended to carry the first teacher in space flight, before it and its crew were tragically lost on lift off. Scobee drew on Garriott's early leadership in gaming, to help design what has become approximately 50 global interactive networked facilities, where students study about and perform simulated space missions.[50]

Garriott bought the Luna 21 lander and the Lunokhod 2 rover (both currently on lunar surface) from the Lavochkin Association for $68,500 in December 1993 at a Sotheby's auction in New York[51] (although the catalog incorrectly lists lot 68A as Luna 17/Lunokhod 1).[52] Garriott notes that while UN treaties ban governmental ownership of property off earth, corporations and private citizens retain such rights. Lunokhod 2 is still in use with mirrors aligned to bounce lasers such that precise earth moon distances can be measured. With his vehicle "still in use", Garriott claims property rights to the territory surveyed by Lunokhod 2. This may be the first valid claim for private ownership of extraterrestrial territory.[53] Lunokhod 2 held the distance record for miles traveled on another planetary body, until surpassed by the NASA Opportunity Rover in 2014.[54]

Garriott acted as corner man for professional boxer and friend Jesús Chávez in his first title defense against Erik Morales in 2004.[55]

He is also an avid magician and magic collector, and appeared on the cover of the January 2008 issue of MUM, the magazine of the Society of American Magicians.[56]

Garriott built a haunted house/museum at his residence called Britannia Manor in Austin, Texas.

Garriott promotes private space flight as vice-chairman of the board of directors for Space Adventures.

Garriott is a trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation.[57]

Garriott performed the first Zero-G wedding on June 20, 2009.[58]

Garriott's collections were featured on the June 10, 2012 episode of the Oddities TV series.

In 2007, he co-founded Planetary Power, Inc. with Eric C. Anderson and Miguel Forbes.[59]

Garriott received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Queen Mary University London in 2011[60]

Awards

Games

Game name First released Garriott's role(s)
D&D#1 1977 Game designer & programmer
Akalabeth: World of Doom 1980 Game designer & programmer
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness 1981 Original conceptor, programmer & graphic artist
Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress 1982 Game designer
Ultima III: Exodus 1983 Project director
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar 1985 Project director
Autoduel 1985 Programmer & designer
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny 1988 Designer, writer & programmer
Omega 1989 Designer
Ultima VI: The False Prophet 1990 Designer, producer, sound effect worker, writer & voice actor
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire 1990 Executive producer
Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams 1991 Creative director
Ultima: Runes of Virtue 1991 Creative director
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss 1992 Director & voice actor
Ultima VII: The Black Gate 1992 Director & producer
Ultima VII: The Forge of Virtue 1993 Creative assistance & producer
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle 1993 Creative director & audio team member
Ultima VII Part Two: The Silver Seed 1993 Director & voice actor
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds 1993 Director & voice actor
Ultima VIII: Pagan 1994 Producer
Ultima: Runes of Virtue II 1994 Creative director & additional design
Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale Expansion Pack Cancelled Producer
BioForge 1995 Executive producer
Ultima Online 1997 Producer
Ultima Online: The Second Age 1998 Executive designer
Lineage 1998 Executive producer
Ultima IX: Ascension 1999 Director
Lineage II 2003 Executive producer
City of Heroes 2004 Executive producer
City of Villains 2005 Executive management
Tabula Rasa 2007 Executive producer
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues 2015 Executive producer

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Mark Carreau (2008). "$30 million buys Austin resident a ride on Soyuz mission". The Houston Chronicle. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  2. ↑ Tariq Malik. "Former Astronaut's Son Signs on as Next Space Tourist". SPACE.com. Retrieved October 9, 2007.
  3. ↑ About – Portalarium from official company website
  4. ↑ Garriott de Cayeux, Richard. "By the way...". Google+. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  5. ↑ Richard Garriott: New Daddy from UltimaCodex.com
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Durkee, David (Nov–Dec 1983). "Profiles in Programming / Lord British". Softline. p. 26. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Inside Ultima IV". Computer Gaming World. March 1986. pp. 18–21.
  8. ↑ "INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION". Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  9. ↑ Tariq Malik. "Former Astronaut's Son Signs on as Next Space Tourist". space.com. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  10. ↑ Official Book of Ultima by Shay Addams, page 3-5
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Garriott, Richard (July 1988). "Lord British Kisses and Tells All / as told by His Royal Highness, High King of Britannia". Computer Gaming World. p. 28. Retrieved 3 November 2013.
  12. ↑ King, Brad; John Borland (2003). Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic. McGraw-Hill. pp. 11–12. ISBN 0-07-222888-1.
  13. ↑ BBC, News (2008-07-15). "BBC NEWS – Science/Nature – Private mission set for ISS". BBC News. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  14. ↑ The Official Book of Ultima, page 8
  15. ↑ Ferrell, Keith (January 1989). "Dungeon Delving with Richard Garriott". Compute!. p. 16. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
  16. ↑ Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  17. ↑ "Pimps and Dragons". The New Yorker. 2001-05-28. Retrieved 2014-07-29.
  18. ↑ Safko, Ron; Brake, David (2009). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. Wiley. ISBN 0-470-41155-4. Richard Garriott first coined the term MMORPG in 1997.
  19. ↑ Linder, Brian (2001-05-10). "IGN: Harry Potter LEGO Redux". Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  20. ↑ Matonis, Misty (2002-01-05). "When Kings Fall: Part II of II". Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  21. ↑
  22. ↑ Garriott, Richard (2008-11-11). "Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa – An Open Letter from General British". Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  23. ↑ Gaar, Brian (2011-10-25). "Appeals court upholds Garriott's $28 million verdict against NCsoft". Austin American-Statesman. Retrieved 2011-10-31.
  24. ↑ "Garriott's Ultimate RPG 'clearly the spiritual successor' to Ultima" from Joystiq
  25. ↑ "Garriott's Ultimate RPG could become Ultima Online 2" from Eurogamer
  26. ↑ "LOGIN 2011 Keynote: Richard Garriott – The Next Big Games" from YouTube
  27. ↑ "Lord British shall walk the streets of Britannia again! " from YouTube
  28. ↑ "Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter Campaign". Portalarium. 2013-04-08. Retrieved 2013-04-08.
  29. ↑ "Shroud of the Avatar Home Page". Portalarium. 2013-04-08. Retrieved 2013-04-08.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "The Moth and the World Science Festival Present Richard Garriott: The Overview Effect". YouTube. 2011-12-15. Retrieved 2013-03-08.
  31. ↑ Space Adventures, Ltd. (2008). "Space Adventures Announces 1st Second Generation Astronaut". Space Adventures, Ltd. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Peter Leonard for The Associated Press (October 12, 2008). "US game designer blasts into space with DNA cargo". USA Today. Retrieved June 2, 2011.
  33. ↑ Marcia Dunn for The Associated Press (2008). "Space tourist will pay high price for adventure". MSNBC. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  34. ↑ Chris Bergin (2008). "Soyuz TMA-13 launches trio on journey to the ISS". NASA Spaceflight.com. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  35. ↑ Second person to wear the Union flag in space
  36. ↑ "Successful Lift Off For US Space Tourist – Space News – redOrbit". redorbit.com. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  37. ↑ "Metro is the first paper in space". Metro.
  38. ↑ Greenslade, Roy. "Metro is 'first newspaper in space'". Guardian. Guardian, London.
  39. ↑ Frank H. Bauer (2008-09-19). "Richard Garriott on ISS". Southgate Amateur Radio Club. Retrieved 2008-10-07.
  40. ↑ "International Space Station Traditional Geocache".
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 TERC (2008). "Richard Garriott’s Mission in October, 2008". Technical Education Research Centers. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  42. ↑ "LTUE, Day 2.". Tachyon City (Nathan Shumate). Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  43. ↑ "Soyuz space capsule lands safely". BBC. October 24, 2008.
  44. ↑ ap.google.com, American, Russians return from space station
  45. ↑ en.rian.ru/russia, Soyuz capsule safely lands in Kazakhstan – 2
  46. ↑ itar-tass.com, Cosmonauts examined with special system
  47. ↑ Boyle, Christina (3 June 2009). "So in love they could float away: Brooklyn couple to wed in zero gravity". New York Daily News.
  48. ↑ www.reuters.com, Couple floats into zero gravity nuptials
  49. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1611990/
  50. ↑ Challenger Center / Space Adventures Announcement
  51. ↑ The Bloc on the Block (by Jeffrey Kluger): Discover magazine, April 2004
  52. ↑ Sotheby's Catalogue – Russian Space History, Addendum, Lot 68A, December 11, 1993
  53. ↑ Privately Owned Soviet Moon Rover Sparks Space Law Talks
  54. ↑ Mars rover Opportunity
  55. ↑ Richard Garriott's Space Mission : Austin
  56. ↑ Computer Science for Fun – cs4fn: The space game
  57. ↑ Board of Trustees | X PRIZE Foundation
  58. ↑ From Space.com
  59. ↑ "Our Team-Planetary Power". Planetarypower.com. 2013-11-21. Retrieved 2014-02-26.
  60. ↑ From QMUL
  61. ↑ from Inc Magazine
  62. ↑ from Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences
  63. ↑ from game developer choice awards
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 from British Interplanetary Society
  65. ↑ Richard Garriott, Environmentalist from Environmental Hall of Fame

External links

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