WEBVTT - How Richard Garriott Works 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.959 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:18.560 tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone, 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.320 welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polette. I'm 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:23.800 an editor here at how Stuff Works, and as usual 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.200 I have sitting with me senior writer Jonathan Strickland Hale 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.760 and well Met Pillette. Oh you see where this is 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.360 gonna go pretty quickly? Huh. Yeah, welcome to the third 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.600 in our series on focusing on folks who are important 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.199 in the tech and computer industry. And we need to 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:43.360 come up with a better title than that, I think Yeah, 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:45.920 I think so. Yeah. Anyway, we're gonna talk about the 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.840 another leader in tech and uh specifically within the video 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:59.200 game field, Richard Lord British or General British Gariot. Yes, uh, 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:02.600 you may not be familiar with his name, but if 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:06.200 you've ever played the Ultimate series of Games, you have 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:10.280 something you owe him your thanks. Yes, yes, he's the 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.319 one who made those yeah. Um yeah, Richard Garriott. He's 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.880 a He's a remarkable person. I've I've actually had the 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.240 great pleasure of meeting and chatting with Richard Garriott on 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:24.839 many occasions. But it was back when I was a teenager, 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:29.479 a young pup. Yes, yes, before I had become a 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:35.560 professional journalist. Um so. But the the he's a genuinely 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.520 very nice person. But it's it's interesting to kind of 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.800 look at his journey, uh, where he's gone from, uh, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.319 from being a when he was a teenager to being 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:51.120 a multi millionaire who now is possibly pursuing space related interests. 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:56.600 I think possibly pursuing it. Well that further pursuing, I 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.640 should say, um, well, first of all, it's not any 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.760 super prize that he would be following his father's footsteps, right, 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.640 that's true. We should talk about him for a second. 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.320 Richard is the son of Owen K. Garriott, who, among 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:14.160 other things, was an astronaut. Yep, he actually was on 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.320 the sky lad mission in nineteen seventy three and in 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:22.239 eighty three he was on Space Lab one. Wow, that's 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:24.959 pretty cool. It's very cool. So I have a dad 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.120 who's an astronaut. Right, So here here's Richard Garriot and 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.000 his dad's an astronaut. He Uh, he's interested in things 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.880 like role playing games, becomes a big fan of the 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:40.080 game Dungeons and Dragons. Um. He sent to a computer 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.640 camp when he's a teenager and becomes extremely interested in 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.360 computers as well and begins to see ways to marry 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.040 these two interests together, his love of role playing games 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.959 and the love of computers. I actually want to throw 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.480 something in as I was reading the Wired article about 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.280 Richard Garriott. Actually it was sort of about Richard. It's 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.520 sort of about Star City, which is a um Russian 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:08.240 space camp that that he went to. But apparently, according 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:12.960 this article, uh, he convinced his teachers that learning basic 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:16.960 the computer language Basic satisfied his foreign language requirement in 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.720 high school. That doesn't surprise me at all. Richard. Richard's 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:25.399 a very very charismatic and uh and convincing fellow. When 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.200 you meet him in person, he's um uh, he's fascinating 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.040 to talk to he Uh. I know that he created 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.520 a computer game back when he was at the computer 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:39.880 camp that printed on tape just before monitors. So the 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:41.800 way it would work is that you would, uh, you 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.360 would inter say a room and like a role playing game, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:49.520 and it would print out a room and as key 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:52.160 art showing you you know where your look where you 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:53.880 were in relation to the rest of the room, and 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.120 you would move your character. Let's say, like I move 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:58.600 one space north, it would have to print out the 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.480 whole thing all over again, showing you where you were 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.960 now in relation to everything else, plus making other stuff 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.600 appear as it came into view of your character. Not 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.200 the most efficient kind of game, but it did show 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.760 that he was very interested in this from the very beginning, 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:17.200 and it was a very clever solution to the problem 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.920 of not having a visual means by which you could 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.960 communicate that information. But now, oh, go ahead, I was 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.279 going to say. You know, you may be saying, okay, 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.160 so if he wants to be an astronaut, why didn't 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.080 you just do that? I mean, why is he doing 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.920 the whole computer camp thing. Well, there was one problem, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:38.320 actually two problems. That would be his eyes. Yea, his 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.719 eyes were not good enough for for NASA. So he's 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.920 been he sort of from what I read, he sort 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.440 of fell back on computers and gaming because he liked 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:50.840 those two things, and he because he couldn't go forward 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.400 in in the space program. So you kind of got it, 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.239 you know, a fork in the road. And he said, well, 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.000 you know, I love these things too. This is what 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.880 I'm gonna do, right, And he embraced it, and I 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.360 teen eight he wrote a game called a Calabeth, which 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.000 is sort of the precursor to be precursor to the 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.680 Ultimate series. UM. And this was back in the days 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.159 when you would find computer games at your local little 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.400 computer store and they would be pinned up on a 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.600 bulletin board and they'd all be in zip. Luck bags 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.040 would be a floppy disk, maybe a sheet of printed 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.280 instructions and uh, if you were really lucky, some art 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:28.680 that actually said what the title of the game was. 0:05:28.720 --> 0:05:31.600 Otherwise it was just on the sticker on the disc itself. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.080 He's old five and a quarter inch floppy disks. Yeah, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.080 I do too. I still have some. UM can't run 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.760 them on anything, but I have them. So yeah. It 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.159 actually got very popular. And the way Richard used to 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.400 tell the story was that he said, I was doing 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.440 what I loved and I sent the sent this company 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.599 my my game, and then they started sending me money. 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.279 It was great, fantastic. I was like, well, this is 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.839 what I want to do. So from there he went 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:03.320 on to program Tima one and uh, this was back 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.400 in the day when a single person could produce a 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.840 game from start to finish on his or her own, 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.400 something that does not happen very much these days. Um, 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:15.599 it's just because games have gotten so complicated at this 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.800 point that you you almost need an entire department of 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.800 a major company to to put one together. But this 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.680 was back in the day when someone with enough enough 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:30.159 time and enough effort could produce a game by themselves. 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.880 So but he did started a company, d Yeah, he 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.200 formed it with his brother and a few other people, 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.080 Origin Systems. And Origin Systems produced the Ultimate series as 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.080 well some other games, like with the Wing Commander series 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:46.760 and a few other series as well, but the Ultimate ones, 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.880 I think we're kind of the flagship for that company. Again. 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.480 According to the Wired article, more than a hundred million copies. Yeah, 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.560 I own a few of those. Yeah, yeah, because I 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.839 was a huge Ultimate fan. In fact, before I ever 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.120 met Richard Garriott, I was. I was already playing Ultimate too, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.560 which was a very simple role playing game in in 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.840 the early ultimates one through three. It was pretty much 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.080 following the standard kind of role playing system in which 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.120 you're you're playing a powerful character and you go around 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.400 killing stuff and selling stuff and trying to beat the 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.920 bad guy to win the game. And here's the interesting part. 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:23.840 The first thing that I think is really interesting about 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:28.960 Richards progress as a game developer. He started to become 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:33.240 dissatisfied with the way these games were kind of laid out. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.400 The storyline of these games. He thought that they were 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.480 too simple. The whole good versus evil thing was a 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:43.480 little too um primitive. So he decided he wanted to 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.720 create a game in which your choices as a player 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:49.480 would determine whether or not you could win the game. 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.560 It wasn't just you know, if you killed enough or X, 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:54.640 you were suddenly powerful enough to take on a troll, 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:56.360 and you kill enough trolls you can finally take on 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:58.600 the big bad guy. It was that you had to 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.840 make moral choice is throughout the game, and based on 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.040 those choices that determined whether or not you could win 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.559 the game. As when he created Ultimate four and really 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.120 introduced the concept of the avatar character and UH, to 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.440 become an avatar, you had to adhere to some very 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.560 strict rules and if you broke those rules, then you 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.240 it was impossible to win the game. And UH, it 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.640 got a lot of attention among gamers, and most of 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:26.480 it was positive. I mean a lot of the gamers 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:28.240 who wanted to just breathe through a game were kind 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:30.560 of frustrated because they couldn't just you know, hack and 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.800 slash their way through. But it was so different from 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:35.560 why had to come before it that it really kind 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.200 of revolutionized video computer role playing games at the time. 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:42.320 And um, that's pretty much how you went from that 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:44.800 point on. It was very important that your character was able, 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:46.760 you know, that that the choices you made as a 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:51.120 character actually affected the way the game progressed. And uh 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.679 so it wasn't just random encounters or anything like that. 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.280 If you told off someone in this one town, then 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:00.600 your reputation could spread in that town and people would 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:04.319 treat your character differently based on that. Um. And I mean, 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:06.000 you know, it sounds like I'm going on and on 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.680 about this, but really that was very revolutionary at the time. 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.280 Well you think about it, um, and it's more than 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.200 just a two dimensional game at that point. You know, 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.160 before you had you know, left right up down essentially 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.800 you know, black and white choices, and now you enter 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.679 into shades of gray and things that you do. The 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.360 game is smart enough to know what's going on and 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.960 to to react to the decisions that you make and 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.760 have other non player characters you know, react to you 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.880 differently based on the things that you do. That's pretty sophisticated. 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:41.600 That's a lot more immersive, that's a lot more like 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.560 real life. So uh you know, maybe for the non 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:46.800 gamers who are listening to us, and they're probably very 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.960 few of them, I'm guessing, um, you know, you would say, Okay, 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.439 well that's more intriguing. That's the kind of thing that's 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.760 gonna get uh more if you will non geeks interested 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.640 in games, because you know, say, well, this is this 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.000 is a lot more like you know, what I'm used 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:04.960 to in my own life. So and you can you 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:09.360 can see the effects of this kind of game design today. 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.200 I mean, like the game Fable, for example, I think 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.360 owes a lot to this ultimate model. UM. In Fable, 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.800 those choices you make as a character determine your character's outcome, 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.600 It determines what your character looks like, it determines how 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.280 everyone reacts to you. And I think that that's all 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.040 based on this same kind of philosophy that Richard Garriott 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.640 really sort of championed early on. UM. Now, the later 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:35.400 games in the Ultimate series there were nine of them total. 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:40.480 In the nine official full on Ultimate games, there were 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.680 also a few expansions and a couple of little side 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.040 games as well, but the last two, in particular, Ultimate 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.200 eight and Ultimate nine kind of got a little of 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:53.480 a well, there's a little backlash from the fans. Ultimate 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:57.200 eight had a different system of controls than the previous 0:10:57.240 --> 0:10:59.960 ultimates did, and not all fans found it very entertaining. 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.640 UM and Ultimate nine, a lot of people felt even 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.880 though it was delayed quite a few times, I felt 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.319 that it was still rushed when it came out, So 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.439 there was a bit of a, like I said, a 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:13.920 little bit of a backlash by this point. And and again, 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:16.439 this is a point where the games were so complex 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:18.400 that groups of people had to work on them. It 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:21.800 was no longer possible for Richard to to design a 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.600 game from start to finish and build it all himself. 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:29.520 And speaking of other parties, it was in and Electronic 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:35.000 Arts bought Origin System UM, so you know they had 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.560 a transaction for thirty five million dollars in stock um. 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:43.080 And by that point, you know, he was a multimillionaire already, 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.440 you know, founded a mansion. Yeah, I'll have to go 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.200 a little bit later. The mansion is is Yeah, that's 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:54.720 a that's another matter entirely. Yeah, the Electronic Arts situation 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.439 was kind of the beginning of the end. UM they love. 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:04.880 The company continued to produce UM some some pretty good 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:09.440 games during that time, but Electronic Arts began to cancel 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.280 a lot of the projects that the origin team had 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:17.920 been working on, and eventually that I think UM made 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.559 Richard decide to leave the company entirely. He resigned from 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:26.720 Electronic Arts and founded a different company UM called Destination Games. 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:33.760 But uh, and I've never talked to him about that. 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.200 It seemed like one of those kind of taboo subjects. UM. 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.160 So I don't really know what the whole story is 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:40.880 behind it, but I can imagine it has to be 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.880 a little frustrating to see the something that you've created 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.040 kind of get the back burner by a larger corporation, 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.520 especially if you were told to head on like early 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.480 in the deal that you were going to have a 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.400 lot more control. Um. I don't know the details behind that. 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.400 I don't know that necessarily that happened, but he did 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.240 leave the company and found it an new company, So 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.280 that tells you something, right well. Of course, Electronic Arts, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.840 for its part, is very very large, as in eight 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:13.360 hundred pound guerrilla gaming in a multi multibillion dollar industry 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.719 at this point, and they have responsibilities to their shareholders, 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.800 and I'm sure that it was probably something along those lines. 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:20.640 You know, when you get to a to that point, 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.000 when you're that size, you uh, some of your decisions 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:28.120 are dictated more by the bottom line than others. Um. Well. 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.199 And and one of the thing I wanted to point 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.560 out about the games that he made back when he 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:36.480 was with Origin and e A UM, he was also 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.080 responsible for the creation of Ultima Online, which is one 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.840 of the very first graphic based massive multiplayer online role 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.199 playing games m m O RPGs. Was that ever did 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.240 that ever take off? Ultima Online did very well. Um, 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.679 it was although it was always battling ever Quest right 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.000 the time, and I think it eventually was pretty much 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.400 they they also ran, but they had its own hardcore 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.760 base of fans, um and so it was never it 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:13.520 was never a failure. It just I think EverQuest eventually 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.200 outpaced it and and just kept the lead from that 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:22.560 point on until of course World of Warcraft, which now 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.760 dominates everything. Um. But yeah, that's that's another thing you 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.080 have to kind of credit Richard for. I mean, granted 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:31.800 it was a team of people who put that together. 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:33.640 It wasn't you know, it wasn't a one man show 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.000 or anything, but any but he was definitely a champion 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:39.000 of that. I got to see UM Ultimate Online in 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.560 a beta build UM about a year before it actually 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.080 went live, and I was I was really intrigued by it. 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:50.320 It looked a lot like Ultimate six in terms of graphics, 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.080 so it actually went backward because at that point, I 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:55.560 think Ultimate eight had been out for a while, so 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.280 it actually went backward as far as graphics are concerned. 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.200 But Ultimate six was also a really popular entry into 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:03.960 the series, so I didn't think it was a bad 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.400 thing at all. And it was also one of the 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.960 first to have sort of the in game economy. Yeah. Yeah, 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.600 it was really really kind of nifty. Of course, everything 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:17.080 that Richard does he tries to, you know, make sure 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.960 there's some innovation involved. UM. But so when Richard left 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:26.560 and founded Destination Games, he merged with another company called 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.240 nc soft. Actually Destination Games merged with nc soft. Richard 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:32.400 didn't that would have been weird. It would have been 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.560 like the Borg. So they put him in charge of 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.120 the Austin office of n c soft and that's when 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.920 Richard began work on a new massively multiplayer online role 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.160 playing game called Tabula Razza, which had a science fiction 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:51.400 uh background as opposed to fantasy. Now he's really into fantasy. 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:53.560 I mean well, I mean, like we said, he was 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.600 really into the dungchess and dragons, and he was really 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.720 into uh, you know, he went by Lord British for 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:03.040 the longest time, and he dresses in Elizabethan often not 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.680 as much as he used to, but yes, I mean 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:10.440 you would see him dressed in dressed Gettish, yes, and 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.280 well to the point where he really enjoys that kind 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:18.040 of the whole pageantry and theatricality of it. He also 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:20.640 was part of the Society of Creative Anachronism or s 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.320 c A, which is all about recreating kind of this medieval, 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:28.280 this idealistic medieval Renaissance sort of recreation um, the Middle 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:30.400 Ages is we would have it to be, I believe 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:34.000 was one of the mottos of that organization, which I 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.880 may or may not have belonged to at one point. Um. 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.320 But he also you were mentioning the mansion he would 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.600 also he has has he owned a mansion that had 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:48.080 secret passageways you can only get through from one room 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.280 to another by solving a puzzle. Or you would be 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.280 in an upper gallery and there'll be no way to 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.440 get to the lower gallery unless you moved a certain 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:57.960 object a certain number of times and then a magical 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:02.040 staircase would appear. Um. He would occasionally turn this mansion 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.920 into a full fledged haunted house. Uh. He would do 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:10.080 it like every other year, and he would hire Hollywood 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.600 special effects companies to come to his mansion and converted 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.920 into this haunted house. So we're talking, you know, motion 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.520 picture quality special effects going on at this thing. And 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.920 he would let people come. He would give out tickets. 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:25.199 Uh you do the ticket thing to in order to 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.760 keep a good control on traffic. But I'm pretty sure 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.399 he did it was all for free. Yeah, you know. 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:34.800 I think he might have auctioned some off for charity 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.399 or something. But he didn't charge people to come in 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.880 and see his stuff. He just he loved this kind 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.359 of theatricality and he loved to share it with other people. 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.159 Still does I'm sure. I don't think he does the 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:48.399 Halloween stuff anymore. I think he stopped doing that. It 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:53.520 just became um too complicated. Uh. I believe sometime around 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:56.280 the late nineties, maybe the early in two thousand, two 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.439 thousand one, he stopped doing it. But well, that's uh, 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.800 you know, sort of the story of a successful game designer. 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.639 I mean, if you're if you're making that kind of 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.520 money and living this kind of lifestyle, you'd want to, 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:11.479 you know, probably keep going if you were really into games. Right, 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.840 just yeah, you're doing games for except for the fact that, yeah, 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.400 you would think that, uh, and you'd be wrong. Yeah, 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.960 Richard Garriot is no longer producing games, at least as 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:23.800 far as we can tell. Right now, um, we we 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.240 need to talk about his most recent famous exploit, which 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:32.719 is that Richard Garriott became a space tourist. Well, you know, 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.639 I think he would disagree with you. He become a 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.720 space ambassador. No, no, no, now, see this is part 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.320 of the deal because um, this article and Wired, which 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:45.840 is pretty interesting. It really gets into like I said, 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:47.800 really it's more about Star City, which is where the 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:52.000 cosmonauts train. Now, when you enter training, according to this article, 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.680 when you enter training at star City, you are a cosmonaut. 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.920 So he is a cosmonaut. I'm sorry, but NASA will 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.840 not call him an as you not. And he apparently 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:07.320 takes exception of that. Um. The article suggests that maybe 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.919 it's because he's into player classes. Could he wants the 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:14.600 title to level up as an astronaut as opposed to 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:19.520 cosmat multi class. Yeah, the Americans call him a space tourist, um, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:24.000 but but not the Russians. And he uh in October 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.560 lasted off for space Yasaya's rocket YEP at t M 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.280 A thirteen YEP, went to the International Space Station spent 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.400 more than a week up there. As I recall YEP 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.560 YEP and and and his fascination with space. This isn't 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.080 a new thing just because the Russians offered this. Oh 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:45.439 did I say the Russians just offered this? Well, he 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.879 became a donor to the X Prize Foundation, and he 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:54.000 actually uh started this organization called Space Adventures, which sells 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:59.600 seats on Russian spacecraft for trips into space. And that's 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:02.480 kind of how he ended up there. He um, but 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:05.840 seat for thirty million dollars. About to say, I think 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.800 it's up to thirty million dollars And apparently from what 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.320 he said, that's quite a bit of his money. Um. 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.760 He came, you know, this is not pocket change for him. 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.080 This is a serious investment. Um, Andrew wants to go 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:24.200 again and it may be uh up to forty five 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:26.240 million by the time he does that, So he may 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.560 he may be starting another game company. Well yeah, because 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:32.800 on November eleven, he wrote an open letter to the 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:37.320 Tabula Raza website which essentially announced his he was resigning 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:42.280 from the nc soft company and was leaving to pursue 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.640 other interests. But that's about as much as we can 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:47.320 tell from that letter. I mean, there was, it was 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.639 fairly cryptic. We know that the inspiration for this was 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.879 his trip to the International Space Station, so presumably it 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:59.240 has something to do with space exploration, possibly private space exploration, 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.800 but we don't really have any details other than that. 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.520 At this point, he hasn't really elaborated on his reasons 0:21:06.560 --> 0:21:11.200 for for resigning and or what his other pursuits will be. Yeah, 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.320 and again he's into it. This is not just the 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:17.520 Russians taking him into space and he gets to hang 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:19.920 around in the space station. He actually has to take 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.800 a part in working on science experiments. Um he has 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.159 to flush the space party if he needs flushing, and 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.680 he had to be trained on every piece of equipment 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:31.879 in case something went wrong. Right, It wasn't a passing 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:33.800 fancy kind of thing. Now. As a matter of fact, 0:21:33.840 --> 0:21:35.840 apparently he had to study Russian for four hours a 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.160 day so that he could actually read the instrument panels. 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.520 So I mean, he this is you know, this is 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:43.560 not something that he has to take lightly. This is 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.119 something he has to be ready for in all capacities. 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:50.720 It's not just flying around and going hey, yeah there's Mars. 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:52.800 So yeah, he was. He was a cool guy back 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.359 when I met him. Uh, and now he's super cool. 0:21:56.880 --> 0:21:59.400 Um And I'm really interested to see what he does 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:03.639 next because he he he gets behind his projects with 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:09.400 such energy and passion and uh and a real curiosity 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.040 that you can't help but admire the work he's done. 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:14.960 Even if you're not a big fan of computer games, 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:16.879 you know, there's there's no question that a lot of 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.880 work went into what he has accomplished so far. So 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.760 it's very exciting to think that he's gonna tackle something 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:25.640 new and I kind of kind of curious to see 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:30.359 where it goes. Now, Um, I have am I gonna 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:37.879