Richard Garriott leaving Origin
Something spicy for you this morning - Richard Garriott is leaving Origin! For those of you with your heads in the sand, Richard Garriott (better known as Lord British) was a co-founder of Origin way back in the 1980s, and is the brains behind the long-running Ultima series.
Apparently twenty employees at Origin are being shed as well, presumably the team that was working on an as-yet unannounced project with Lord British. Ultima Online 2's progress apparently won't be effected.
Update : GameSpy have posted a leaked internal newsletter from Origin which includes more details of why Garriott left the company and what they are up to now, including mention of an Ultima Online 3 and another as-yet un-announced Ultima Online game. It also mentions in passing that the new Privateer game which was in development is being canned, sad news indeed for Privateer and space trading game fans.