Richard Garriott

Richard Garriott de Cayeux
Born Richard Allen Garriott
(1961-07-04) July 4, 1961
Cambridge, England, UK
Citizenship American, British[1]
Occupation Video game developer
Known for Ultima series
Private astronaut
Spouse(s) Laetitia Pichot de Cayeux (m. 2011)
Children 2
Parent(s)
Relatives Robert Garriott (brother)
Space Adventures private astronaut
Time in space
 11d 20h 35m
Missions Soyuz TMA-13/TMA-12
Mission insignia

Richard Garriott de Cayeux (born Richard Allen Garriott; 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 flew aboard Soyuz TMA-13 to the International Space Station as a private astronaut,[2][3] returning 12 days later aboard Soyuz TMA-12. He became the second astronaut, and first from the U.S., who had a parent that was also a space traveler.

Garriott founded a new video game development company in 2009, called Portalarium.[4] 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.[5] Richard and wife Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux, had their first child, Kinga Shuilong Garriott de Cayeux, on June 30, 2012.[6] Their second child, Ronin Phi Garriott de Cayeux was born on July 28, 2014.

Biography

Early life

Richard Garriott was born in Cambridge, England,[7][8] the son of American parents Helen Mary Garriott née Walker and Owen K. Garriott, one of NASA's first scientist-astronauts, who flew on Skylab 3 and Space Shuttle mission STS-9.[9][10] He was raised in the United States from the age of about two months,[1] in Nassau Bay, Texas.[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.[11][12] Garriott later estimated that he wrote 28 computer fantasy games during high school.[8]

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;[13] however, despite his nickname and birthplace, his parents moved to Texas when he was a baby and his accent is American rather than British.[14]

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 spools of printer paper produced by teletype machines. 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 he created Akalabeth for fun, the owner of the store convinced Garriott it might sell. Garriott spent US$200 printing copies of a manual and cover sheet that his mother had drawn, then he put copies of the game in Ziploc bags to sell at the store. Although Garriott sold fewer than a dozen copies of Akalabeth at the store, one copy made it to California Pacific, who signed a deal with him. The game sold over 30,000 copies, and Garriott received $5 for each copy sold.[12][15][16] Akalabeth is considered the first published Computer Role Playing Game. In the fall, Garriott entered the University of Texas at Austin, joined the school's fencing team and later joined the Society for Creative Anachronisms. He created Ultima I while at the university. It was published by California Pacific Computers and sold in Ziploc plastic bags, as was common in those days.

Steve Jackson Games (SJG) maintained a friendly relationship with Garriott and, when he stopped by the SJG office one day, Garriott was so impressed by the artwork of Denis Loubet that he commissioned him to paint the cover of Ultima I (1980). Loubet subsequently painted many other covers for Garriott's games.[17]

In the early 1980s, Garriott continued to develop the Ultima series of computer games, eventually leaving university to author them on a full-time basis.[12] Originally programmed for the Apple II, the Ultima series later became available on several platforms. Ultima II was published by Sierra On-Line, as they were the only company that would agree to publish it in a box together with a printed cloth map. By the time he developed Ultima III, Garriott, together with his brother Robert, their father Owen and Chuck Bueche established their own video game publisher, Origin Systems, to handle publishing and distribution, in part due to controversy with Sierra over royalties for the PC port of Ultima II.[18][19][7]

Garriott sold Origin Systems to Electronic Arts in September 1992 for 30 million dollars.[20] 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.[21] In 1999 and 2000, EA canceled all of Origin's new development projects, including Privateer Online, and Harry Potter Online.[22][23] 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.[24] On November 24, 2008 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.[25]

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.[26]

Garriott founded the company Portalarium in 2009. The company is developing Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, a 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 become Ultima Online 2 in name.[27][28][29][30] On March 8, 2013, Portalarium launched a Kickstarter campaign[31] for Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues.[32]

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".[7] 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.[33]

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. Told he had to either give up his large deposit, or undergo life-threatening surgery, 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.[33]

Richard Garriott (far right) aboard the ISS on 23 October 2008 with the MIT SPHERES Satellites

On September 28, 2007, Space Adventures announced that Garriott would fly to the International Space Station in October 2008 as the self-funded private astronaut, reportedly paying $30 million USD.[2][34] On October 12, 2008, Garriott became the second second-generation space traveler (after Sergei Volkov)[35][36] and the first offspring of an American astronaut to go into space,[2][35][37] and the second person to wear the British Union flag in space.[38] 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.[39]

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 program 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.[40][41] 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.[42] 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.[43]

Garriott also worked with the Windows on Earth project, which provides an interactive, virtual view of Earth as seen from the ISS.[44] 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.[44]

Tracy Hickman wrote a screenplay for Garriott, for the first science-fiction film shot in space, Apogee of Fear.[45]

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.[46][47][48][49]

On June 3, 2009, the New York Daily News announced that Garriott would officiate at the first wedding to be held in zero gravity.[50] 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.[51]

In 2010 he released a documentary, Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott's Road to the Stars.[52]

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.[53]

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[54] (although the catalog incorrectly lists lot 68A as Luna 17/Lunokhod 1).[55] 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.[56] Lunokhod 2 held the distance record for miles traveled on another planetary body, until surpassed by the NASA Opportunity Rover in 2014.[57]

Garriott acted as corner man for professional boxer and friend Jesús Chávez in his first title defense against Erik Morales in 2004.[58]

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.[59] The issue featured an article about an event hosted at Garriott's home involving several of the world's best magicians.[60]

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.[61]

Garriott performed the first Zero-G wedding on June 20, 2009.[62]

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.[63]

Garriott received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Queen Mary University London in 2011.[64]

Garriott provided vocals for a track on the Shooter Jennings 2016 album Countach.[65]

Garriott is an adviser of SpaceVR, a virtual reality space exploration company.[66]

Garriott is an advocate of Personal rapid transit[67] and the system used at London's Heathrow Airport

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: 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 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 Creative director

References

  1. 1 2 "One on One With Richard 'Lord British' Garriott". PC Gamer. UK. August 2007. p. 11. Retrieved April 1, 2016. PCG: 'How did you come by the alias of Lord British? You're obviously not English. Richard Garriott: 'Actually, that's not true ... I am a British citizen. That said, I only lived there for about two months prior to moving to the States.'
  2. 1 2 3 Mark Carreau (2008). "$30 million buys Austin resident a ride on Soyuz mission". The Houston Chronicle. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  3. ↑ Tariq Malik. "Former Astronaut's Son Signs on as Next Space Tourist". SPACE.com. Retrieved October 9, 2007.
  4. ↑ About – Portalarium from official company website
  5. ↑ Garriott de Cayeux, Richard. "By the way...". Google+. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  6. ↑ Richard Garriott: New Daddy from UltimaCodex.com
  7. 1 2 3 Durkee, David (Nov–Dec 1983). "Profiles in Programming / Lord British". Softline. p. 26. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  8. 1 2 "Inside Ultima IV". Computer Gaming World. March 1986. pp. 18–21.
  9. 1 2 "INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION". Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  10. ↑ Tariq Malik. "Former Astronaut's Son Signs on as Next Space Tourist". space.com. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  11. ↑ Official Book of Ultima by Shay Addams, page 3-5
  12. 1 2 3 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.
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. ↑ BBC, News (2008-07-15). "BBC NEWS – Science/Nature – Private mission set for ISS". BBC News. Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  15. ↑ The Official Book of Ultima, page 8
  16. ↑ Ferrell, Keith (January 1989). "Dungeon Delving with Richard Garriott". Compute!. p. 16. Retrieved 10 November 2013.
  17. ↑ Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  18. ↑ The Official Book of Ultima (second edition), page 25.
  19. ↑ Warren Spector interviewing Richard Garriott for his University of Texas Master Class in Video Games and Digital Media
  20. ↑ "Pimps and Dragons". The New Yorker. 2001-05-28. Retrieved 2014-07-29.
  21. ↑ 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.
  22. ↑ Linder, Brian (2001-05-10). "IGN: Harry Potter LEGO Redux". Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  23. ↑ Matonis, Misty (2002-01-05). "When Kings Fall: Part II of II". Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  24. ↑
  25. ↑ Garriott, Richard (2008-11-11). "Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa – An Open Letter from General British". Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  26. ↑ Gaar, Brian (2011-10-25). "Appeals court upholds Garriott's $28 million verdict against NCsoft". Austin American-Statesman. Retrieved 2011-10-31.
  27. ↑ Jef Reahard. "Garriott's Ultimate RPG 'clearly the spiritual successor' to Ultima". Engadget. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  28. ↑ "Garriott's Ultimate RPG could become Ultima Online 2". Eurogamer.net. 12 December 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  29. ↑ LOGIN 2011 Keynote: Richard Garriott - The Next Big Games. YouTube. 25 June 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  30. ↑ Lord British shall walk the streets of Britannia again!. YouTube. 2 June 2011. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  31. ↑ "Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter Campaign". Portalarium. 2013-04-08. Retrieved 2013-04-08.
  32. ↑ "Shroud of the Avatar Home Page". Portalarium. 2013-04-08. Retrieved 2013-04-08.
  33. 1 2 "The Moth and the World Science Festival Present Richard Garriott: The Overview Effect". YouTube. 2011-12-15. Retrieved 2013-03-08.
  34. ↑ Space Adventures, Ltd. (2008). "Space Adventures Announces 1st Second Generation Astronaut". Space Adventures, Ltd. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  35. 1 2 Peter Leonard for The Associated Press (October 12, 2008). "US game designer blasts into space with DNA cargo". USA Today. Retrieved June 2, 2011.
  36. ↑ Marcia Dunn for The Associated Press (2008). "Space tourist will pay high price for adventure". MSNBC. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  37. ↑ Chris Bergin (2008). "Soyuz TMA-13 launches trio on journey to the ISS". NASA Spaceflight.com. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  38. ↑ "Login". Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  39. ↑ "Successful Lift Off For US Space Tourist – Space News – redOrbit". redorbit.com. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  40. ↑ "Metro is the first paper in space". Metro.
  41. ↑ Greenslade, Roy. "Metro is 'first newspaper in space'". Guardian. Guardian, London.
  42. ↑ Frank H. Bauer (2008-09-19). "Richard Garriott on ISS". Southgate Amateur Radio Club. Retrieved 2008-10-07.
  43. ↑ "International Space Station Traditional Geocache".
  44. 1 2 TERC (2008). "Richard Garriott's Mission in October, 2008". Technical Education Research Centers. Retrieved October 12, 2008.
  45. ↑ "LTUE, Day 2.". Tachyon City (Nathan Shumate). Archived from the original on 2011-07-14. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  46. ↑ "Soyuz space capsule lands safely". BBC. October 24, 2008.
  47. ↑ ap.google.com, American, Russians return from space station
  48. ↑ Sputnik (24 October 2008). "Soyuz capsule safely lands in Kazakhstan - 2". Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  49. ↑ "ITAR-TASS". Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  50. ↑ Boyle, Christina (3 June 2009). "So in love they could float away: Brooklyn couple to wed in zero gravity". New York Daily News.
  51. ↑ "Couple floats into zero gravity nuptials". Reuters. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  52. ↑ Heath Newburn (14 March 2010). "Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott's Road to the Stars (2010)". IMDb. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  53. ↑ Challenger Center / Space Adventures Announcement
  54. ↑ "The Bloc on the Block". Discover Magazine. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  55. ↑ Sotheby's Catalogue – Russian Space History, Addendum, Lot 68A, December 11, 1993
  56. ↑ "Privately Owned Soviet Moon Rover Sparks Space Law Talks". Space.com. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  57. ↑ "Mars rover Opportunity breaks longest off-Earth driving record, finally beating the speed freak Russians - ExtremeTech". ExtremeTech. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  58. ↑ Richard Garriott's Space Mission : Austin
  59. ↑ "Computer Science for Fun - cs4fn: The space game". Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  60. ↑ "Austin Magician – Magic at the Manor". Retrieved 22 July 2016.
  61. ↑ "Board Of Trustees". XPRIZE. Retrieved 20 June 2015.
  62. ↑ From Space.com
  63. ↑ "Our Team-Planetary Power". Planetarypower.com. 2013-11-21. Archived from the original on 2014-03-01. Retrieved 2014-02-26.
  64. ↑ From QMUL
  65. ↑ From Rolling Stone
  66. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2015-10-17. Retrieved 2015-07-29. From virtual-strategy.com
  67. ↑ https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/austin-personal-rapid-transit-idea
  68. ↑ from Inc Magazine
  69. ↑ from Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences
  70. ↑ from game developer choice awards
  71. 1 2 from British Interplanetary Society
  72. ↑ Richard Garriott, Environmentalist from Environmental Hall of Fame
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