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Tabula Rasa: Richard Garriott Awarded $28 Million
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The lawsuit between publisher NCSoft and Richard "Lord British" Garriott has finally been settled. Garriott has been awarded $28 million by a Texas jury. The suit came about after Garriott, according to NCSoft, left the company amicably in 2008. Garriott has always contended that he was fired and forced to sell his 400,000 shares of stock quickly resulting in a profit loss.
NCsoft's action, Garriott claimed, cost him millions of dollars because he was forced to quickly sell his options for more than 400,000 shares of the company's stock while the stock market was severely depressed. Under Garriott's agreement with NCsoft, he would have had up to 10 years to exercise the options if he were to be fired.
The jury agreed though they did not award Garriott the $47 million he wanted from his former employers.
Read the entire article in the Austin (TX) Statesman.
Via GamesIndustry.biz.
Comments
I liked tabula rasa, it just had to be improved.
I was waiting for that. And then, poof.
I played Rasa jsut before they announced servers closing
personally I think it just wasnt advertised well, I liked what I played of it
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ab/Norsefire-logo.png
Not sure what you tried guys... but the game was laggy all the time and sucked graphically...
Mr Garriot sucked NCsoft money for years and now he continue to do it... He should be ashamed!
I thought it was pretty good, like you say they just needed to do some minor improvements and it would have been great I think.
Never understood why that happened but now we have an idea.......if he was awarded that much then they must have done the wrong thing.
I totally agree I liked the game, I still hope they go F2P, with it like Dungeon Runners or Exsteel!
A true visionary that was treated so so bad..... NCsoft wanted his name as part of the Brand not Vice versa.
Lets hope he can get back on the tread mill and deliver us Ultima Online 2....
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Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
son of a bitch..
He should take those money and reopened Tabula Rasa...
the game was very fun I miss it really, it only needed several improvements
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them
We were specualting on planettr in :
- how the damages would be paid ( he was indeed suckered out of a huge amount of $$ ) and thought NCsoft might try to offer the IP-rights to Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa , i.e. give him back the development studio with which he joined NCSW in the first place .
- if the above were the case he'd have a reason to reopen Tabula rasa .
The fact he won this case isn't surprising as the evidence he could offer the court was overwhelming . If you check out the chronology of TR's demise it's astonishing how bad NCSW handled this game . As for laginess : I played for about 6 months and never experienced any significant lag . On the final day we all flocked to ONE location for a farewell screenshot - even though the server obviously lagged then- and saw that the server could handle that many folks in one location .
I don't think TR will ever be reopened - either as f2p or otherwise - though and will in all eternity remain on a shelf ,collecting dust. Worst of it is NCsoft tried to pacify us with the "lemon" which is called Aion when they closed TR. Even with all the issues TR was about 20 times better than Aion .
I'm glad Garriott won the case. The game looked great like most NCsoft titles, but also like most NCsoft titles, it had no content. If he tries to make it again, hopefully he adds some depth to the game.
Another blow suffered by NCSoft... With AION already taking on water and about to be contested by other "graphically stunning" F2P games, they need to find some steady ground..
They simply close games too quickly and you can bet your bottom dollar that they are looking for that "get rich quick" scheme now.. So to all the people holding their breathe for Guild Wars 2.. BEWARE..
NCSoft is only the publisher for GW2, they are not the developers, ArenaNet takes care of all design and development exclusively.
There is nothing to be wary of from ArenaNet, they are solid.
Well, I guess those that tried saying Gariott abandoned Tabula Rasa back when it was getting shut down feel like idiots now.
It should be remembered that Tabula Rasa was origninally supposed to be a new-agey fantasy game, then, a couple of years into production, Garriott changed horses and started turning it into the sci-fi game that finally released. I don't recall the exact figures, but TR cost NCSoft a chunk of money. With Garriott's name permanently grafted to the title (and a lousy title at that!), I can only imagine that his contract with NCSoft insured that he'd be siphoning off of them as long as the game was live. I've always suspected that the only way for NCSoft to get rid of Garriott was to cut their losses and get rid of the game, so Tabula Rasa was shuttered.
Could it have been better at release? You bet! Could it have been fixed to a sustainable level. Maybe, but with General British in the mix, it's likely that the game was a considerable money drain on the company, which, if I recall, wasn't real profitable at that time. Garriot's ego, greed, and flightiness was likely the cause of TR's demise.
Good for him. I hope he starts another game company and doesn't sell out to a big publisher.
I wish he would have gotten the IP back for the game so he could relaunch it and make it better for everyone.
Umm pretty sure the original fantasy build was before Garriott had anything to even do with TR. I think NCSoft realized how much of a turd *that* game was going to be, and brought on Brittish to turn things around. If you look at the videos of the original TR build, it looks like Korean game cause I'm pretty sure before RG it was being developed by NCSoft East... After that, it became sci-fi and most of the code and development team was replaced.
That man has about as much desire to get back into video game design or publishing as there is the prospect of World Peace tomorrow. The last time he did anything was in Producing. The utter failure of Tabula Rasa in 2007 and before that, City of Heroes in '04 and CoV in '05.
Before Tabula Rasa began with a video game Lawn Dart act, his last real work was Ultima IX: Ascension as its Designer... back in 1999. It came out utterly terrible and was effectively the end of Ultima as people knew it.
So. The man sued his former employer for $28 million. I'm down for sticking it to someone if they've wronged you, but I do know that Lord British will not be doing anything for video gaming (in any worthwhile, effective, influential role) anymore. Because he hasn't done so in years. And I haven't heard from anything about the guy saying that he will prove me wrong. He might as well be dead, because he's doing as much for video gaming.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
If memory serves, the original Tabula Rasa was Garriott's baby. I remember seeing the early teaser videos and I'm pretty sure he was the brains behind the project. That was 2001 and he was fresh released from a non-compete agreement with EA. Two years into the project, he turned the whole thing upside down. I found this 2004 video with Garriott talking about the original design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB9dHVUX2KY&feature=related
that is correct, the game was a Destination games title and that studio was owned by Garriott brothers . Those that attempt to belittle Garriot or state he is a "has been " are totally unaware of the impact some of these folks have had - and are still having - on the MMO's we play today . The same applies to Jeff Strain,for example .
People also tend to forget Garriott was already part of NCsoft USA management when they were heavily into guild wars . He worked together with the entire management team to ensure that one's success. Folks tend to only look at failed titles when it comes to developers or corporate CEO's and forget about the positive influence they have had. Strain/Gariott brothers pretty much defined entire NC soft's western hemisphere operations back then . The fact they made an accountant the new CEO for NCsoft west is telling enough ( a Korean accountant at that ) ....
It would be nice to see them make this rise from the ashes. I played it during beta and liked it quite a bit, saw a ton of potential. Did not play after release and around the time I was thinking of looking in on it again it had gone under
Rasa was good everything else ive seen as well as tried from ncsoft has been absolutely terrible
"back then" is the key thing, isn't it? Because he isn't doing s**t for video gaming now. Not in years. Except for mention of him blasting off into space.
"back then" for me is the same as "has been."
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
well who knows? I remember its was shady the way they closed TR because less then one month before he did a space travel to help to advertise his game then when he land he is fired :P(that was his words, and since he won his sue I guess it was true),
but if he buy the TR name back he can try to open a server again, they are trying to do that with hellsgate, but I doubt more easy for him to design a new one or a TR 2
I have a hardtime dealing with people that disrespect a man that helped create amazing single player Rpgs and one of the greatest sandbox mmo ever.
to keep myself from getting banned ill simply say grats to Rich for the cash and hope he evolves the gaming genre like he wants to on other platforms (facebook, Phones).
goodluck.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Although he was "awarded" the money by the jury, because of the appeals I am sure are coming, he won't be getting paid for several years yet, and, I'd bet his award will be further reduced.... asking a jury to determine damages based on complex financial formulas is very difficult and practically never withstands further judicial review.