Garriott to make Ultima-esque game

By Oli Welsh Published 23 February, 2010

On his new social gaming platform.

Role-playing legend and space tourist Richard Garriott has said that he's still interested in creating another "Ultima-esque" game as part of his new social gaming platform Portalarium, which he announced last week.

"We have yet to announce quote-unquote my game," he told Kotaku. "What motivates me is to go back and make Ultima-esque, familiar Ultima-esque games. But I believe the right place is to do that on this platform."

Garriott argued that free-to-play games available across web platforms and social networks can attract hardcore as well as casual gamers, and that the slickness of the Portalarium technology will help that come to pass.

He used Portalarium's first release, Sweet @$! Poker, as an example. "Just go compare the qualitative aspects of our poker game to the qualitative aspects of the ones that are already kicking the butts of every game they've ever played from a financial standpoint. And I believe it will be very clear from a little inspection why ours is tangibly easier to use, faster to load , faster to install, smoother graphics, everything," he said.

"And that's purely because of the foundation we decided to build upon. Then you can extrapolate and go, 'Okay, I know that a quality game can be produced even launched through one of these community portals. Well... as soon as they start making MMO-type games, that will be something I'll be interested in."

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (7) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Hantheman #1 2 years ago

    Oh no...

  • Poorandugly #2 2 years ago

    "Social gaming platform Portalarium", never heard of. Is it more similar to Steam or to Facebook?

    edit: ah, link... to fast. Seems it can be used as some kind of plug in to Facebook. Sounds underwhelming... a big budget PC release would have been nice.
    Edited by Poorandugly at 23/02/10 @ 10:17

  • Rirekon #3 2 years ago

    Wasn't Tabula Rasa supposed to be his "Ultima-esque" game?

  • crazyhorse174 #4 2 years ago

    It seems that Richard Garriott never actually came back down from space then...

  • Kami #5 2 years ago

    Garriott, I speak for every Tabula Rasa player who stuck around to the bitter end when I say we don't give two shits. We loved Tabula Rasa, we put up with all the BS we were thrown and you yourself disrespected and treated us like poop.

    Ultimately, Garriott killed Tabula Rasa. How much money did it cost to become a space tourist Mr. Garriott? And y'know, considering the amount of fans and people who respected you playing Tabula Rasa and loving it, wouldn't it have been just a little bit more sensible to have put that money into the development pool? I'm no business genius but when you put a trip into space above tens of thousands of subscriptions you clearly don't give a shit about your games. Pretending you do is fruitless now, we've seen your attitude to us now and there is no going back.

    We want Tabula Rasa back, but if it does I think any TR fan would say they'd prefer it back without Garriott at the helm. At the end of the day, when your visionary creator is so easily distracted and prepared to flit away his millions on something that isn't what he proclaimed is "magnum opus" then we'd rather have a new person at the helm who has more vision and focus and drive.

    Hellgate has pulled this off. Tabula Rasa we'd hope is next... but whatever Garriott does now, forgiveness won't be forthcoming. Tabula Rasa was rough. It had bugs and errors. But it was immediately likeable, totally engaging and thoroughly good fun, and the community kept it going with more than a pinch of imagination. It died when Garriott walked away (and sir, you were told - space trip or your job and you chose the space trip, it wasn't like you weren't given the choice!). You killed a game many of us loved, you walked away and you left us for dead. Is that what the great Mr. Garriott does? Because I certainly won't be playing any more of your works.

    This is a rant, but it's a rant many TR fans would sympathise with. How do we believe anything this man says ever again?! Honestly, he may as well have posted a pic of him giving all us TR fans the finger. Genius? Legend? No, I'll stick with greedy asshat until he can prove otherwise, because that's the side we saw.

    Should have stayed in orbit Garriott...

  • unacomn #6 2 years ago

    Kami, NCsoft fired Garriot while he was in decontamination. If you want to blame someone for the closing of TR, blame the company that launched it before it was done, that ordered it to be remade in one year, that pulled the plug on the servers, and that buried it to write it of as a loss and get a tax deduction.
    That's what I do, and that's the reason I dislike NCsoft so much these days.
    If he can get a talented team and make a game without corporates pushing the buttons like they've done on the last games Origin and Destination produced, it's got a chance of being good.

    Also, in 5 days it will be a year since The Last Battle for Earth.

    AFS Sniper signing off.
    Edited by unacomn at 24/02/10 @ 07:21

  • krisskross #7 2 years ago

    I will never again embrace a game "by" Garriott!
    I still miss Tabula Rasa and hope someone will make private server for it.