Richard Garriott (b. 1961) is best known as the creator and producer of the Ultima series of computer games, one of the most popular and commercially successful role playing game series of all time. Born in Cambridge, England to American scientist/astronaut Owen K. Garriott and professional artist Helen Garriott, Richard moved at an early age with his family to Nassau Bay, Texas.
Inspired by his father's scientific career, Garriott was fascinated by computers and computer games, and began coding simple computer games on a teletype, paper tape reader and modem while attending high school in Houston, Texas. In 1979, while working at a ComputerLand retail store, Garriott self-published his first game: Akalabeth: World of Doom. The game was picked up for distribution by California Pacific Computer Company and sold 30,000 copies, an impressive number to this day.
Soon thereafter Garriott began developing the first Ultima game. The game and subsequent series proved so popular that in 1983 Garriott and his brother Robert formed Origin Systems, Inc. to independently develop and publish all subsequent games. In addition to the Ultima series (which would eventually include 13 releases), Origin Systems produced the popular Wing Commander series, and many others throughout the 1980s and 90s.
In 1992, Garriott sold Origin to Electronic Arts. After relatively poor sales of Ultima IX: Ascension (1999) Electronic Arts suspended all future Origin projects, prompting Garriott to leave Origin Systems, Inc. and found the short-lived Destination Games. In 2001, Destination Games partnered with South Korean MMORPG developer NCsoft to become NCsoft Austin, where Garriott served as Executive Producer on popular titles such as City of Heroes and Tabula Rasa.
Apart from his work with videogames, Garriott also has a thirst for exploration and adventure and has used his considerable wealth to travel to the North Pole, the Titanic wreckage on the ocean floor, and to a canoe trip on the Amazon River. Most significantly, Garriott followed in his astronaut father's footsteps by becoming a "space tourist" and traveling to the International Space Station in 2008. Garriott's interest in space is also reflected in his involvement with private space travel "outfitters" Space Adventures and as a trustee for the Ansari X-prize.
While attending the University of Texas in the early 80's he joined a creative anachronism and fencing club and adopted the pseudonym "Lord British", a name which later served as his alter ego in Akalabeth and the Ultima series.
Collection includes papers, hardware, software, published videogames, design documents, production materials, promotional material, oversize art and artifacts that document Garriott's career in game design and production, the daily business of his former company Origin Systems, Inc., and various personal adventures.
The bulk of the collection relates to the development, production and promotion of Origin videogames, including the entire Ultima series. Design binders document games both published and unpublished at various states of development. Hand-drawn maps on graph paper represent Garriott's earliest attempts at designing and coding a videogame, dating to Garriott's first published game Akalabeth: World of Doom and earlier.
Restricted access.
Richard Garriott Papers, 1980-2007, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.
This collection was processed by Matthew McKinley