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Garriott hints at new medieval social game at Fantastic Arcade
Photo by David Weaver, for the American-Statesman
Is it the return of Lord British?
In a keynote speech kicking off the start of the local indie game fest Fantastic Arcade, game developer Richard Garriott embraced his new role in independent game development and hinted at a new game that would be a return him to his roots.
Garriott, who is now working at an Austin lake house with a team of about 10-15 people with his new social gaming company Portalarium, said the next game he’s working on, due out “In a year or so,” will be a free-to-play social game.
He said in a slide in his presentation that the game will be a “Deeply-crafted” game that will “Ship light” but will expand into a deeper game as it goes on. He says the theme will bring him back to his roots, presumably a medieval game along the lines of his famous “Ultima” series and his first game, “Akalabeth,” which he created alone when he was a teenager.
Garriott was the keynote speaker for Fantastic Arcade. In introducing him, festival creative director and lead curator Mike Plante said it was, “The first thing ever to happen at Fantastic Arcade.”
The game developer went over his long career in games and said that he believes social games, currently popularized by titles like Zynga’s “Farmville,” are already surpassing single-player and massively multiplayer online games like “World of Warcraft” games in terms of their audience reach. While MMOs have the potential to reach tens of millions, Garriott says social gaming will easily reach hundreds of millions of people.
He said he thinks game developers game developers will improve the genre beyond their current relatively primitive gameplay in the next two or three years and that those who aren’t on board will miss the next big wave of gaming. And to his fellow developers at the Highball screening room where he spoke, he express solidarity. “I am again an indie game maker,” he said.
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