We have blast-off. The first ever games designer… in spaaace… etc.
No, the date wasn’t ringed on my calendar. I vaguely remember being told he was going up in mid-October, but I never paid much attention to the exact date even at NCsoft, so thanks BBC. I hope he has a safe and successful flight, and that he feels it’s worth the THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS (approximately) that he paid for the privilege.
That’s a heck of a lot of money to follow in Dad’s footsteps. If he wanted to save money, he could have gone Virgin Galactic, who’ll be charging a lot less – but then Richard’s going to be up for ten days, not ten minutes.
In case you’re wondering, that eye-popping budget was never bandied around much at NCsoft when I was there – but not for the reason you might be thinking. See, it’s all Richard’s money. (Nope. I didn’t think Ultima was that big either.) Not a penny came from NCsoft. Which is good. Because otherwise right now you’d probably be wondering just what else that cash could have been spent on.
Instead of just thinking: “So how is this supposed to help Tabula Rasa, exactly?”
#1 by Zortel at October 16th, 2008
There I was crawling onto a Hammersmith and City line train on Monday Morning, and who do I see staring up at me on the front cover of my hastily snatched up Metro?
Richard Garriot, helmet under one arm and a big grin on his face.
It didn’t mention anything about Tabula Rasa in the article though, neither did the one in The London Paper.
#2 by Extremus at October 22nd, 2008
Article in The Times t’other day (well, okay, last week. I’ve not had Internet, okay?!).
No mention of TR, vaguely any mention of any game. Mostly just him going “MY DAD WAS IN NASA LOL!”.
Piffle I say, PIFFLE!
#3 by Rockjaw at October 22nd, 2008
Yeah. I’m sure the PR folk tried to get reporters interested in the “He’s a game designer, he made a space game!” angle, but it was never going to happen.
People are still more impressed by the idea that one person would spend that much of their own money on going into space.