Richard Garriott Secures 7 Million To Develop Mobile/iOS Games

Written by: James Johnson (@WadeDMcGinnis) | July 11, 2012 4:15 pm

23 Comments

Richard Garriott de Cayeux ,aka Lord British, has locked down a new gaming venture in the form of Portalarium, a game developing company for mobile platforms and social networks.

Portalarium has acquired seven million dollars from venture capitalists, which will be used toward Garriott’s first game, Ultimate Collection: Garage Sales for Facebook and iOS.

The rest of the money will be put towards an anticipated role-playing game called Ultimate RPG / New Britannia (working title), with a possible tie to the Ultima tradition. At least that’s the story until we get confirmation, of course.

The last announcement during this venture was that Portalarium looks to be joining forces with Zynga, but no games have been announced yet.

It’s exciting to see the master of Ultima make a new RPG for mobile platforms, and I am curious to hear from fans how you feel about these upcoming games.

Leave a message below on this interesting development.

Richard Garriott Secures 7 Million To Develop Mobile/iOS Games

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Hicks64

So Garriot needs social game money to fund more space flights? ;D
Old Ben

I never thought I’d see Lord British mentioned in the same sentence as Facebook or iOS, let alone both.

I would love to think that he’s just looking at those as sources of easy revenue to finance the development of an Origin-style RPG (I mean the real Origin, the one that followed its “we create worlds” motto, before EA chewed it up and ultimately turned it into a bad Steam clone), but seeing more references to “social platforms” in the actual “Ultimate RPG” page makes me think that maybe the space flights fried good old Richard’s neurons. I predict a “Phantom Menace” situation.
http://profile.yahoo.com/FPXO267IVAHL3MK4HRRNRQPNDA Bush Swanson, The American Dre

I love decorating my house! I hope this is a “BIG HIT”. When I get my house Im going to decorate it with cats and brightly colored rugs.
http://www.facebook.com/oneniisama Bear Powell

Anyone who gives Richard Garriott cash for anything game related should be smacked in the face with a shovel.
- DoctorOverlord
  
  I agree. Garriott has shown no signs that he understands the modern gaming market.
  
  Some say he wasn’t responsible for the failure of Tabula Rasa. Those people seem to forget that Jake Song (the developer of Lineage) *left* Tabula Rasa’s development when it was not following what he wanted to see. If TR wasn’t matching Garriott’s vision, he should have walked. He had already been paid millions.
  
  Instead he let his name be put on a piece of garbage and hyped it as if he could put shine on a lump of manure. And instead of taking charge and helping fix the numerous problems with TR after its release he was off playing Spaceman Spiff.
  
  And now some clueless investors to give him yet more money? I’ll say this for him, he must be a good salesman. But I’m not expecting anything from these games save stories about Garriott’s bizarre antics and disappointed reviewers.
  - MMO_Doubter
    
    Yeah. Garriot, Molyneux, and Smedley STILL get work. No wonder gaming is turning to crap.
  - Randall_Wolfcry
    
    NCSoft tried (and unfortunately failed due to the court ruling) to lay off Garriot. NCSoft is a great company and ArenaNet always talks about how supportive NCSoft is of letting them do what they need to do to make their Guild Wars games right.
    
    If NCSoft thought Garriot was SOO bad that THEY tried some underhanded move to get him the fuck out from under their wing, then he IS that bad.
    - MMO_Doubter
      
      Wow. The denial is so thick, you could cut it with a knife.
      - Randall_Wolfcry
        
        I’m denying? Am I secretly in love with Richard Garriot? O.o
    - DoctorOverlord
      
      I have a very low opinion of Garriott as a designer but I think that NCSoft did not act intelligently when they tried to oust him. One can certainly understand why NCSoft wouldn’t want to keep someone who had thrown away millions in TR’s years of development but they should not have done it in a way to try to keep from giving the stock options that were part of the severance package.
      
      It was NCSoft’s own fault for agreeing to a ridiculous contract where compensation had *NOTHING* to do with the merit or results of Garriott’s work for them. But then he was hired in 2001 back when moronic contracts like that were typical for upper level corporate positions. After the global recession of 2007, there’s a little more scrutiny about that kind of thing.
      
      That doesn’t mean what NCSoft has a right to renege on their contract. They made a boneheaded move hiring Garriott and giving him a free hand.   They have to pay for that mistake.
      
      NCSoft does give their American companies a great deal of freedom.
      In the case of ArenaNet, it has led to the brilliant game that will be GW2.    In the case of Destiny Games/Garriott it led to the Titanic. I suppose the lesson is that freedom is great and necessary, but you have to base compensation on results, not hype because someone has a recognizable name.
      
      The truly ironic thing? After wasting years and millions on the failure that was Tabula Rasa, Garriott’s NCSoft stock dividends are going to go up if Guild Wars 2 does well. A failed designer is going to profit from the work of competent ones. Don’t ever say Fate doesn’t have a utterly sick sense of humor.
      - Randall_Wolfcry
        
        Ah. Well I’m not saying they made a smart decision, but they made the decision none-the-less and the fact that they did it despite surely having many lawyers around to give them legal advice, means they REALLY didn’t want Garriot around despite the risk.
        
        I think maybe they fired him that way thinking that Garriot was a dumbass who wouldn’t know he could retaliate. But it turns out that Garriot isn’t dumb, he’s just a jackass.
Gamer Fabio

I would love to bash facebook and iOS for not being serious gaming platforms and not deserving the effort, but, we’re seeing so many changes to the game market, development and distribution, that I’m going to refrain from judging and just hope they can come up with a amazing game. It would be a win for him and for us gamers.

Man, I miss UO.
- MMO_Doubter
  
  Devs can’t make great games for PCs and current generation consoles, anymore. The odds of a great RPG on a phone or tablet are virtually zero.
Randall_Wolfcry

I can’t take the guy seriously. “Ambitious” project by Richard Garriot. Wasn’t Tabula Rasa supposed to be ambitious? I see a bunch of hype around this guy but the only thing I see him successfully making is his Ultima stuff in the 80′s. THE EIGHTIES! That’s over 20 years ago!

Everything else I read about him is failed projects and wasting money on space ventures. Why do people keep fanboying on this guy who obviously isn’t as innovative as he was 20 years ago when my own idea of a good time was playing Rodent’s Revenge and Klotski on Windows 3.1???
- Randall_Wolfcry
  
  Klotski FFS!
- http://profile.yahoo.com/HEG3VC6LJJDRYV7QEE5WUT3IPU Ed
  
  Agreed,except make that 30 years ago
  - MMO_Doubter
    
    LOL. True. Time flies.
    
    I still have my copy of ‘The Space Gamer’ with his article on how he did 3D graphics in the very first Ultima.
    - Randall_Wolfcry
      
      Wuuuhhhh???
  - Randall_Wolfcry
    
    Well I didn’t want to assume that this guy always sucked since I haven’t played his Ultima stuff.
http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips

too bad EA ruined Ultima before i ever heard of it.
i wouldnt mind playing a modern version of the game, but unfortunately
they’d probably make it like everything else instead of what it naturally is.

unfortunately these new “ios games” will probably be little monetized pieces
of crap instead of an actual 60$ flat out game.

who am i kidding pretending to care, i dont own a cell phone or a .. pad?
and i can’t be bothered pretending anything about them is important.

EA needs to take their billion dollars from Origin sales and give this dude a game.
- Hicks64
  
  EA and Bioware just announced Ultima Forever as a f2p mmo
  - http://twitter.com/crocodilius ryan phillips
    
    let’s be honest, it won’t be the real “BioWare” (Edmonton) making this, but probably the dudes from the studio they absorbed in Mythic. oh ya, and garriott isn’t involved either. it’s also a super cartoony F2P game…
MMO_Doubter

“Exciting” to see Lord British working on mobile games?

I’d say “sad”.

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