"And this is the move I used to choke our VP of Marketing when he suggested I take a Tabula Rasa memory stick into space."
Richard Garriott wants you to know he is very aware of social gaming. Specifically, that it kind of sucks.
What’s interesting is that there are a few companies that are making real money in a big way so they deserve their high valuation by all means. And they’ve not only led the charge but they are evolving quickly and they’re doing a brilliant job of it. I have respect and admiration for my already titanic competitors that are ahead of me.That being said, there’s tonnes of small start-ups who we are seeing take lots of investment and lots of activity and large acquisition costs – who are creating, literally, junk. Stuff that people aren’t playing that much and if you play it, it’s not much fun. But it does show you there are investors desperate to find a foothold in this market.
Translation: “Mark Pincus? I totally wasn’t talking about you. Call me. *wink*”
Of course, the gameoblogospherezoidthing is all aflutter over Garriott mentioning the words Ultima and Online in the same sentence.
If you dissect it further, Ultima Online included farming, running shops, fighting monsters, pets – and what kind of games are popular on social networks right now? They’re all dissections of what I’ve already done throughout the Ultima series. One of the things I’m really excited about is that these games are already popular with an audience ten times bigger than the MMO audience, that now covers all ages, all genders and all walks of life. I already know how to do those games.
“No, really, Mark. I’m serious. CALL ME.”
As soon as we have a game where you can have an avatar with a house and a room to display the cool things you’ve collected we can ship it. And then tomorrow you can fight monsters, and a month after than you can have some weapons and armour, and a month after that you can build swords… That will still allow us to come out with a full in-depth Lord British experience, but begin the journey as light as makes a confident, interactive game.
“Screw it, let’s just ship something once we get a paperdoll up and running. THEN Mark will call me.”
