Spoony Roasts Richard Garriott: Part the First
As Noah “Spoony” Antwiler quips beneath the video embedded on his site, “[t]he unvirtuous force meets the inscrutable object”:
If you’re a fan of Spoony’s wilder antics, you may be a tad let down; he’s a bit more subdued here, and in fact this part of the interview/roast is, basically, a proper interview. Richard Garriott offers up some interesting comments on the drug culture that pervaded the game development scene back when he started in the industry, and the two men mostly just…chat and make jokes.
Of course, this is only the first part of the interview, which itself was the result of a stretch goal announced — and reached — during the Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campaign. Perhaps the second part will be more animated.
“the drug culture that pervaded the game development scene”
Talking about California Pacific, I assume. The Digital Antiquarian thinks he’s being mean and uncharitable about that: http://www.filfre.net/2012/10/the-wizardry-and-ultima-sequels/
“In the midst of the crisis of the 6809 class, another was also unfolding in Garriott’s life. California Pacific, the publisher who had discovered Akalabeth and whose head Al Remmers had named Ultima, hit the financial skids. At first blush it’s hard to understand how CP could be in trouble; Akalabeth and Ultima had both been big hits. They had other bestsellers in their stable as well, such as the aforementioned Apple-oids, in an era when profit margins were absolutely astronomical in comparison to anything that would come later. Garriott has claimed from time to time that Remmers and the others at CP all had huge drug habits, that they literally smoked up all of their profits (and then some) and ran their company out of business. While this is suitably dramatic, it should be remembered that Garriott was in Texas while CP was based in California, and that they rarely met personally. I asked around a bit, but could find no smoking gun, no one who remembered drugs to be any more of a factor at CP than at many of the other California publishers, where they sometimes hovered around the edges of corporate social lives but rarely (the sad story of Bob Davis aside) took center stage. It seems at least as likely that CP, like so many other companies in this era run by ex-hobbyists and hackers, simply lacked anything in the way of practical business sense. To Richard, raised in the straitlaced bosom of the Johnson Space Center, a joint or two on the weekend might not have been readily distinguishable from hardcore drug addiction.”
http://www.filfre.net/2013/05/the-legend-of-escape-from-mt-drash/
“When you are thinking of saying something that directly accuses people of unethical dealings you really need to be sure of your facts and careful with your words. Frankly, that’s a lesson that Richard Garriott himself could learn; despite my admiration for his vision and persistence as a gaming pioneer, I find his glib dismissal of the folks at California Pacific and Sierra who launched his career as dishonest, “stupid bozoos,” and “heavy drug users” to be unconscionable. It’s a lesson his fans should also take to heart.”