Richard Garriott: Legendary Game Designer, Immortal Demigod, Multimillionaire, Astronaut, Twitspammer

Sep 22, 2011

Gaming

To the Ancient Gaming Noob, this is a complaint about Twitter.

To me, it's a complaint about how far the gaming industry has fallen from its heyday in 1985. That Garriott is reduced to spamming about Ipad casino poker is only a symptom of the disease. I forget whether George Lucas destroyed my childhood with the Phantom Menace, or Garriott destroyed it with Ultima IX (both were released in 1999), but I remember that, whichever one came out second, it wasn't that big a disappointment.

None of this is to say that I don't hate Twitter, almost as much as I hate the Phantom Menace and Ultima IX.

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5 Comments

4 Comments

Wilhelm Arcturus • Sep 22, 2011 @6:09 pm

Well, I was building up to a series on gaming companies using Twitter badly. I've got a few more examples. (I don't hate the medium, but some of the users… okay, a LOT of the users….)

Richard Garriott embracing little games and founding Portalarium is a much deeper issue. I think I'll go play some Ultima III. That's still better than anything he's likely to accomplish now.
Bruce • Sep 22, 2011 @8:34 pm

I'm an optimist.

If anyone can add a layer of meaning to a technically constrained game then Garriott can. I'm really surprised by the lack of Rogues or Ultima IV likes that are available for smart devices so far.
CTrees • Sep 23, 2011 @5:57 am

And yet… there's a Popehat Twitter account, and a link to Twitter at the end of the article. #irony
Urthman • Sep 23, 2011 @6:24 am

As disappointing as it was, Ultima IX basically invented what is now one of the most popular forms of RPG. Oblivion, the Gothic games, Two Worlds, Divinity 2, the Witcher, are all U9-style RPGs.