Richard Garriott 称将借版权法于 2027 年从 EA 收回 Ultima 版权

Speaking with Jesse Petrilla, Ultima creator Richard Garriott has confirmed that he's in the process of reclaiming the series' copyright from Electronic Arts, more than three decades after selling his studio, Origin Systems, to the publisher in 1992. Garriott would be leveraging Section 203 of the US Copyright Act.

Here's the full quote from the clip that Petrilla already shared (the full interview is yet to be released):

I'm in a very interesting moment right now, which is I sold Origin to Electronic Arts in 1992. And there's a really weird United States copyright law that says if you were the original holder of a copyright and you assign it or sell it to any publisher or any other entity, after 35 years, you can just take it back. There's no money that needs to transfer. All you have to do is tell them a year before you take it back. And so in April of this year, I told Electronic Arts, by the way, I'm going to take the copyrights to Ultima back.

And they wrote back and said, "Yeah, we know that's the law. We will act accordingly." And so I'm now in discussions with them actively right now as to, is there anything we should do together or not? I mean, we'll figure it out, but I get it back officially in 2027. And so I've got, you know, most of a year to figure out what that means. But at the very least, it means I could re-release the earlier Ultimas, but it also means I could sequel them. But the point is I'm going to have control again of the future of my seminal product line.

Garriott also touched on the subject at Dragon Con in Atlanta last month, appearing on a panel alongside Starr Long and Chris Spears. According to an attendee's account shared via the Ultima Codex, Garriott expressed a desire to reunite with developers who worked with him on Ultima, though whether a new game would be a single-player RPG or an MMO remains undecided. His summary was that "the best is yet to come" for the beloved fantasy RPG series.

There's an important caveat, though: the move concerns the copyright, not the trademark. EA filed new Ultima trademarks back in June, which means Garriott couldn't simply release a game called Ultima. His proposed workaround, in the event of creating a new installment, is to use Lord British's Ultima, a reference to his renowned moniker in Ultima Online.

From Akalabeth to Shroud of the Avatar

It's hard to overstate Garriott's place in RPG history. Born in Cambridge, England, in 1961, he released Akalabeth: World of Doom at 18, selling over 30,000 copies. Ultima followed in 1981, and Garriott directly supervised all nine main installments, concluding with 1999's Ultima IX: Ascension, while adopting the persona of Lord British along the way.

In 1983, he co-founded Origin Systems with his brother Robert, and the studio's 1997 Ultima Online became one of the defining early MMORPGs. After leaving EA in 2000, Garriott moved to NCSoft, where he led the sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa, which shut down in 2009, less than two years after launch. Outside of games, he famously traveled to the International Space Station in 2008, becoming the first second-generation American to go into space (he's the son of NASA astronaut Owen Garriott).

His most recent major game, the crowdfunded Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, was pitched as a spiritual successor to Ultima. It didn't fare well, though, launching in March 2018 to a lukewarm reception and a small player base, while drawing strong criticism for its monetization model centered on expensive pledge tiers and virtual land. His studio, Portalarium, sold the game's assets and development responsibilities to Catnip Games, the studio owned by former Portalarium CTO and then-president Chris Spears; Catnip is still working on the game, with a recent update bringing a massive technical upgrade and tons of fixes.

With the Ultima copyright supposedly returning to him next year, Garriott has his best chance in decades to shape Ultima's future directly, though whether that leads to a new game, re-releases, or a partnership with EA remains to be seen. One thing is for sure: it would be great to see new Ultima RPGs, as it's been nearly 27 years since Ascension.

About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.

Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.