Origin, EA, Richard Garriott, and the business of games...
DiscoZombie
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 18951Members
Join Date: 2003-08-05 Member: 18951Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">some articles I've been reading today...</div>there probably won't be many people who care, but I've been linking all over the internet today, reading about some games industry backstory, and it's hella interesting...
it started out with Tabula Rasa. I hope that turns out well. Garriott is quite overdue for a new awesome game. Then I started googling around and found <a href="http://www.allenvarney.com/av_brit.html" target="_blank">this article</a> covering the haunted houses Lord British often runs out of his own medieval mansion, which has all kinds of secret passageways and artifacts and traps and toys... so awesome. but then I started reading about Origin, the developer, that made so many games I loved growing up. I found <a href="http://www.notableultima.com/collectibles/OriginPeople.html" target="_blank">this page</a> of former and present Origin employees and their histories - it reads like a list of games industry superstars. I didn't realize Origin people did things from Cyberia to Thief to Furcadia =d I also found out about a lot of 'in' jokes in the Ultima games...
Probably the most interesting article is <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/14/4" target="_blank">this one</a> from the Escapist. It's a great look into the games industry, how it is today, how it was in the early 90's, and how EA helped kill Origin as we knew it (we all know EA's evil). Also some awesome in-jokes and references in Ultima games. I never realized <b>E</b>lizabeth and <b>A</b>braham represented EA, and the Sphere, Cube, and Tetrahedron you have to destroy in the plot of the game represent the old EA logo <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> that's some awesome ish right there.
Anyway, I know there's at least a couple trolls here who work in the industry, and a couple more who grew up with Ultima, so hopefully someone will find these articles interesting <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
it started out with Tabula Rasa. I hope that turns out well. Garriott is quite overdue for a new awesome game. Then I started googling around and found <a href="http://www.allenvarney.com/av_brit.html" target="_blank">this article</a> covering the haunted houses Lord British often runs out of his own medieval mansion, which has all kinds of secret passageways and artifacts and traps and toys... so awesome. but then I started reading about Origin, the developer, that made so many games I loved growing up. I found <a href="http://www.notableultima.com/collectibles/OriginPeople.html" target="_blank">this page</a> of former and present Origin employees and their histories - it reads like a list of games industry superstars. I didn't realize Origin people did things from Cyberia to Thief to Furcadia =d I also found out about a lot of 'in' jokes in the Ultima games...
Probably the most interesting article is <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/14/4" target="_blank">this one</a> from the Escapist. It's a great look into the games industry, how it is today, how it was in the early 90's, and how EA helped kill Origin as we knew it (we all know EA's evil). Also some awesome in-jokes and references in Ultima games. I never realized <b>E</b>lizabeth and <b>A</b>braham represented EA, and the Sphere, Cube, and Tetrahedron you have to destroy in the plot of the game represent the old EA logo <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> that's some awesome ish right there.
Anyway, I know there's at least a couple trolls here who work in the industry, and a couple more who grew up with Ultima, so hopefully someone will find these articles interesting <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
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Edit: duplicated