![]() They therefore funded an additional port of Ultima II, without Garriott’s direct oversight, to the IBM PC. By this time, however, it was becoming clear that Sierra would need to support more than just these two platforms if they wished to remain a major player in the exploding software industry. Ultima II‘s Atari port was done by prior agreement by Chuck Bueche for a piece of Garriott’s generous royalties. (A minority, such as the works of Atari stalwart John Harris, went in the opposite direction.) Accordingly, immediately upon signing Garriott Sierra had not only re-released Ultima I, whose rights they recovered from the now defunct California Pacific as part of the deal, but also funded a port of that game to the Atari machines. Most of their games were developed on the Apple II, and then those that were successful would be ported to the Atari 8-bit line. Through much of 1982 Sierra was essentially a two-platform shop. It came just weeks after Ultima II‘s release. Throw in a serious culture clash between the free-spirited California lifestyle of Sierra and the conservatism of Garriott’s suburban Texas upbringing and a final blow-up was probably inevitable. Most prominent amongst this group were Ken Arnold, Keith Zabalaoui, and Chuck Bueche (immortalized as “Chuckles the Jester” in many an Ultima), the latter two of whom also spent time in Oakhurst at the Sierra offices. In fact, he even had a small entourage of his own, some of his old running buddies from high school who assisted with his projects in various ways. He just wasn’t going to be the junior partner in anything. ![]() Richard Garriott, younger and quieter than Ken though he may have been, had just as strong a will. Big, blustery Ken Williams of Sierra took pretty good care of his people and was beloved by most of them for it, but he never let it be forgot that he considered them his people he always made it clear who was ultimately in charge. As McPherson wrote those words Garriott’s relationship with Sierra was falling to pieces.Īs I described in my earlier article, the relationship had been full of tension for months before the release of Ultima II. No “additional scenarios” would have a chance to appear even if Garriott or someone at Sierra had read this review and thought it a good idea. It was almost as if this was only a small initial quest to give you the lay of the land and that additional scenarios would be released, each one using more of the game until the “Ultimate” quest was finished. My only thought as I finished the game was that very little of this enormous work was really being utilized as being required to finish the game. Even he bends over backwards to put the best possible interpretation on it: McPherson’s piece for Computer Gaming World. Only one review that I’ve seen takes note of Ultima II‘s strangely disconnected design elements at all, James A. In contrast to Ultima II‘s modern reputation as the black sheep of the Ultima family, reviewers of the era seemed so entranced by the scope and vision of the game, so much grander than anything else out there, that they were willing to overlook all of the useless spinning gears that didn’t connect with anything else and the many things that just didn’t make sense even by the generous standards of CRPG storytelling. Contemporary reviews were uniformly stellar. Despite all of the pain and tension of its extended development process and the manifold design flaws that resulted from that, Ultima II proved to be a hit, selling over 50,000 copies within the first year or so and eventually approaching sales of 100,000. ![]() When we last checked in with Richard Garriott, he had just released Ultima II under the imprint of Sierra Online. Bottom row: Richard Garriott, Robert Garriott, Chuck Bueche. Top row, from left: Ken Arnold, Mike Ward, Laurie Thatcher, James Van Artsdalen, Helen Garriott, John Van Artsdalen.
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