Richard Garriott awarded $32 million in NCSoft legal battle
NCSoft unsurprisingly appealed when it was ordered to pay Richard 'Lord British' Garriott $28 million in 2010, but Garriott has won the appeal too, and is now owed $32 million.
When Richard Garriot (Garriott de Cayeux, now he's married) triumphed in his lawsuit against former employer NCSoft last year, being awarded $28 million, the publisher unsurprisingly appealed. However, the appeals court has also found in favor of the Ultima creator, and he's now due $32 million.
The lawsuit stems from when Garriott de Cayeux and NCSoft parted ways in 2008, after working on Tabula Rasa.
Garriott de Cayeux claimed that, while quarantined after a voyage into space, he was fired, then NCSoft presented it as him leaving voluntarily. Leaving, rather than being fired, meant his stock options expired sooner, and he was forced to sell in what his lawsuit described as "one of the worst equity markets in modern history."
This lost him tens of millions of dollars, Garriott de Cayeux said, and the court agreed, awarding him $28 million in July 2010. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has now also agreed, Gamasutra reports, and so, with interest and attorney's fees on top, that comes out at today's tidy $32 million.
Lord British's latest venture is mobile and social gaming company Portalarium, which runs Port Casino Poker and Port Casino Blackjack on Facebook.
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replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Richard Garriott awarded $32 million in NCSoft legal battle.
NCSoft unsurprisingly appealed when it was ordered to pay Richard 'Lord British' Garriott $28 million in 2010, but Garriott has won the appeal too, and is now owed $32 million.-
more hidden passages, more secret trap doors
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Put hidden passages IN the hidden passages. Then put hidden passages in those.
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critical hit for +4 damage!
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Now he can go back into space!
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Is it enough money to keep him in his castle and not be involved with any stinkers anymore?
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1. space is a drug apparently or makes you feel like you are on them because the man can't stop.
2. Damnit I'll be damned if I ever let my wife blow 30 million dollars. Bodies disappear for less cash than that.
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Dude it's a korean MMO company they have like trillions.
I'm sure its substantial and he's a lucky bastard, but they will definitely survive or find a way to. Especially with a AAA+ title like guild wars 2 on the horizon.-
Yeah I guess I was thinking - as someone with a relative who works for NCSoft - what would become of their American operations (which is essentially Garriot's company consumed). They've already had tons of layoffs and she had to move to Seattle to keep her job.
I mean I know they want to keep selling to American consumers but to what extent, I wonder, do they need to have American operations?-
ArenaNet is quite profitable.
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He'd get assassinated before it officially opened to the public
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I had Richard Garriot as DM at one of the GenCons in the early 90's for the celebrity D&D meat grinder, I think they killed over 300 players in less than an hour at that session.
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Haha! Awesome!
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Excellent, he can buy his house back.
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What a fucking hack. He blew $100 million at NCSoft with a terrible game; he should shoot himself into the sun at this point.
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Because I'm friends with people who were at NCSoft at the time Garriott fleeced the company. Sure, there were some cool gameplay elements, but the development was so costly that for the asshole to demand even more money is ludicrous. The project was grossly mismanaged.
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I have heard as much about the mismanagement and exorbitant cost in rebooting the game during development; my quibble was with "terrible game" and how you seemed to connect that with the development problems--I thought it was far from terrible although it wasn't exactly rubbing elbows with greatness.
Thank you for responding.
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Do you know the history behind Tabula Rasa? They spent somewhere between 3 and 4 years developing a very different game than what got released. Everyone I know who worked there thought it was one of the worst designed mmos, where you faught with musical instruments and such. It wasn't until the shit hit the fan that they did a complete 180, redesigned the whole thing to be more action orientated and overworked a whole lot of people to death to get that pos done.
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He looks like Tom Green...
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Sidejack: Who is the richest video game developer person? That is, someone who made their fortune in developing.
I'm thinking Mike Morhaime (Blizz co-founder). There's people like Garriott and Carmack who have lots of money, but I wouldn't be surprised if Morhaime has close to a billion dollars in assets. Or is it some Japanese dude?-
Gabe Newell. Whatever money he had going in to Valve has been multiplied many times over.
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Is there a character in reamde (stephenson's newest book) that is based on him?
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Good for him
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They should give it to him in NCSoft points, redeemable in any of NCSoft game's item stores.
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