Richard Garriott

Origin Systems

Video Games1970s-present

18 principles 4 frameworks 7 stories 10 quotes

Ask what Richard would do about your problem

Core Principles

culture

The belief system of the founder becomes the language of the company. Make it explicit, write it down, and repeat it constantly because it shapes every decision and interaction.

Just as Tolkien believed that his stories grew out of the languages he created, a company's culture emerges from and is held together by the founder's deeply held beliefs. These beliefs must be articulated and reinforced continuously.

“Crafting believable languages and scripts is essential to creating any realistic fantasy world since language and writing is the foundation of a society.”

Conflict between co-founders is inevitable and can be productive if both parties are committed to the company's success. Acknowledge the tension, argue passionately, and work through it rather than avoiding it.

Richard and Robert Garriott argued constantly during the early years of Origin Systems. They even had a physical fight over a pencil that forced them to release pent-up frustration. After this confrontation, they never had a serious fight again and went on to build a world-class company together.

“Robert and I are very different people, but there is simply no way that Origin would have gone forward without both our unique contributions. We argued often and we argued passionately.”

innovation

Games and interactive media are art forms as legitimate as literature or film. They have the potential to be the most important media of the 21st century through their capacity for emotional investment and moral storytelling.

Early in his career, Garriott realized that computer games could move beyond simple mechanics to become narrative experiences where players make meaningful choices. This belief shaped his design philosophy and drove him to create the Ultima series.

“Games have become much more than pleasant diversions. They have a huge opportunity to be the media form of the 21st century.”

Storytelling is learnable. Most people are poor storytellers, but by observing the strengths and weaknesses of great storytellers and practicing deliberately, you can develop this critical skill.

As a teenager playing Dungeons and Dragons, Garriott recognized that some game masters crafted compelling narratives while most did not. He studied what made certain storytellers effective and deliberately improved his own ability to weave engaging narratives, a skill he later applied to game design.

“I learned that each game was only as good as the ability of the game master to craft a story and manage the negotiations into a compelling narrative. I became a better storyteller by observing the strengths and weaknesses of other game masters.”

Imitation precedes creation. You must first master existing forms and knowledge before you can create something genuinely new. Do not skip this step seeking originality; instead, imitate deeply until your own insights naturally emerge.

Garriott's early games borrowed heavily from D&D, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and Star Wars. Only after five years of successful imitation did he feel ready to create something truly original, like Quest of the Avatar, which introduced moral choice systems into gaming.

“My other games had borrowed liberally from existing fantasy stories. None of them were particularly original other than the fact that they were being told in a computer game format.”

leadership

The leader's habits become everyone's habits. Establish discipline in your work schedule and presence, even if you believe things are working. This signals to employees what matters and enables them to plan and collaborate effectively.

Garriott's brother Robert constantly criticized his unstructured schedule: arriving at noon, leaving early, working on random experiments. Though Richard believed he was highly productive creatively, his inconsistency created problems for a growing organization.

“Richard would roll into the office around noon or sometime between noon and two in the afternoon. He'd play around in his office with his rubber band gun and code and then do coding experiments in his mind that had little to do with actually making games.”

marketing

When you believe in something and the market will not fund it, find creative ways to engage customers in proving viability. Let the market validate your thesis rather than relying on corporate projections.

When EA projected only 30,000 lifetime sales for Ultima Online, Garriott's team asked volunteers to pay $5 for a beta testing CD they could not download due to its size. This unconventional marketing strategy generated 50,000 sign-ups in a week and immediately convinced EA the project was viable.

“We asked people to pay for the privilege of volunteering. We didn't know what kind of response to expect... Within a week or so, 50,000 people had signed up to pay $5 for the disc.”

mindset

The world is malleable and responds to sustained effort, vision, and passion. If you understand what you want and pursue it with maximum energy, the world reconfigures itself around you faster than expected.

Garriott applied this belief throughout his life, from building his unique Austin home with an observatory and secret passages, to designing immersive video game worlds, to eventually traveling to space. He learned early that deep understanding of the world makes you its master.

“A deep understanding of the world around you makes you its master.”

Luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. You must be paying attention to see opportunities, willing to take risks, expose yourself to massive failure, and believe deeply in what you are doing.

Garriott constantly studied his industry, maintained broad curiosity across disciplines, and when opportunities appeared, he seized them. He was willing to bet everything, including co-signing million-dollar loans and reinvesting all company profits.

“Luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Opportunities parade past us all the time. The key is that you must be paying attention to see them.”

Become a polymath. Success in new industries requires studying subjects broadly: philosophy, history, architecture, languages, physics, fashion. This cross-disciplinary knowledge feeds creativity and helps you see connections others miss.

Garriott credited his diverse learning across philosophy, religious history, architecture, languages, physics, and fashion with enabling him to create compelling virtual worlds. His study of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and other great storytellers directly informed his game design.

“Like any good artist in any other medium, I became a polymath. I studied subjects from philosophy and religious history to architecture, languages, physics, and fashion.”

Follow your natural drift and convictions about how the world should work. If something inside you is drawn to an idea, follow it even when others dismiss it or say there is no market.

When Garriott wanted to add moral choice systems to Ultima games, his team and brother unanimously opposed the idea. He stood firm despite pressure to continue with proven formulas. Quest of the Avatar became wildly successful and is remembered as one of the 10 most important computer games ever published.

“I had no choice but to stand firm. My reaction forced him to take the ultimate extreme position.”

operations

When you experience massive unexpected success, be prepared for consequences you did not anticipate. Success will reveal problems and opportunities you could not have foreseen.

Ultima Online's success created a real-money economy generating billions in revenue. Garriott had not anticipated that students would earn money for college, criminals would launder drug money, or Chinese gold farming operations would emerge. The game blurred lines between virtual and real that required entirely new management approaches.

“No one anticipated that the game might enable students to work their way through college or allow criminals and drug cartels to launder money or lead to the creation of Chinese gold farming businesses.”

product

The story of your product must drive product development, not follow it. Before you launch, tell that story repeatedly to employees, customers, friends, and family, refining it based on feedback until it becomes perfectly polished.

Steve Jobs would tell the story of a product for months during development, using feedback to refine the narrative until it became the lens through which the entire company made design decisions. The story shaped what was built, not the other way around.

“It was the story of the product, and it drove what we built.”

resilience

One catastrophic strategic error can destroy a company, but the mistake becomes valuable if you have the capital and courage to correct it. When you realize you are wrong, decide whether to quit or double down and commit everything to recovery.

Garriott incorrectly predicted that Apple II would dominate over IBM PC. Within six months, IBM became dominant and Garriott's company was left developing for a dying platform. Rather than closing the company, he and Robert co-signed million-dollar loans and bet everything on creating a PC version quickly and with perfect quality.

“It would have been almost impossible for me to be more wrong. In less than six months, the IBM PC became the dominant machine in the market.”

Survival through desperation can be productive. When facing potential failure with everything on the line, people become capable of extraordinary focus and quality. Use constraints creatively rather than compromising your standards to meet deadlines.

When Origin Systems was facing bankruptcy due to Garriott's IBM PC miscalculation, he and Robert had only enough money to keep doors open until the game shipped. The desperation forced them to work with intense focus while resisting the urge to cut quality. The result was their cleanest game execution ever.

“Desperation can be an extremely productive motivator. We worked every possible minute for months while at the same time resisting the urge to cut quality just to get it done.”

When you have a conviction about an idea, be tenacious and willing to ask repeatedly despite rejection. Bureaucratic organizations will reject novel ideas because they lack historical data to justify them.

When pitching Ultima Online to EA, the sales department projected zero revenue since no text-based MUD had ever generated significant revenue. Garriott returned to the CEO three times over 18 months, eventually refusing to leave the office until he secured a quarter-million dollar budget. The game became one of EA's most important products.

“I literally would not take no for an answer. I went into the CEO's office and told him, look, we spent five million dollars or more on any game that we develop, just give me a quarter million dollars to prove to you that this is viable. Finally, he agreed.”

strategy

Hold on to ideas until future technology can unlock their potential. Do not abandon an idea just because current economics or technology make it unviable; conditions change.

Garriott wanted to create multiplayer online games in the era of pay-per-minute dial-up internet. The economics were impossible. He waited a decade until flat-rate internet access became standard, which suddenly made the business model viable and Ultima Online became hugely successful.

“The availability of the internet, which allowed people to be online for extended periods of time without being charged by the minute or hour, completely changed the economic structure.”

Study the history of your industry carefully, even when profitable opportunities do not yet exist. Knowledge collected over a decade may become valuable when technology and market conditions shift.

Garriott watched text-based MUDs and dial-up gaming services for over a decade before Ultima Online became viable. The internet's transition to flat-rate pricing solved the economic barrier that previously made multiplayer online games unprofitable.

“We'd meet regularly with the companies making the best dial-up games to discuss producing a multiplayer Ultima. But with the fee structure that existed at the time, we couldn't figure out how to make a business out of it. We watched this segment of the gaming industry very carefully for at least a decade.”

Frameworks

The Dungeon Master as Company Builder

In Dungeons and Dragons, the dungeon master creates an elaborate fantasy world and narrative framework, while players take on specific roles, interact with each other to solve problems, and move the adventure forward. This is a metaphor for building a company: the founder establishes the vision and framework, while employees collaborate as characters in a larger story, solving problems together to advance the mission. The quality of the narrative directly determines player engagement.

Use case: Thinking about company culture, vision alignment, and how employees engage with the mission as active participants rather than passive executors.

The Year in the Box

This metaphor from Dune describes a test where a person must keep their hand in a box filled with pain while a poison needle is held at their neck. Removing the hand means death. The test reveals who has the strength to endure hardship rather than quit. Applied to business: sometimes you must keep your hand in the box (stay committed despite crisis) to reach the other side, knowing that quitting guarantees failure.

Use case: Understanding when to persist through crisis versus when to quit. The willingness to endure pain and uncertainty is what separates founders who survive catastrophic setbacks from those who fold.

Future Technology Unlocking Current Ideas

An idea may be correct and compelling but economically or technically impossible in the present moment. By studying the history of your industry and remaining alert to technological shifts, you can recognize when an idea becomes viable. Hold on to good ideas even when they cannot be profitably executed today, because technology may eventually create the conditions for success.

Use case: Long-term strategy, patent and IP thinking, venture building. Garriott watched MUDs for a decade waiting for internet economics to enable Ultima Online.

The Imitation to Creation Arc

You do not begin by inventing something new. You begin by deeply studying and imitating what others have done well. Over time, as you master the existing forms, your own insights emerge. You begin mixing in your own ideas slowly until eventually the work becomes distinctly yours. This is not plagiarism or fraud; it is the natural path all creators follow.

Use case: Beginners who feel they must create something original immediately. Understanding that imitation is the necessary first step removes the paralyzing pressure to be original before you are ready.

Stories

At age 11, Garriott wired Pong into his family TV and was immediately mesmerized. He had never seen a computer before and had no idea people could create games. This moment of encountering Pong sparked a lifelong obsession that would eventually lead him to create entire virtual worlds.

Lesson: Exposure to new mediums and technologies can spark a passion that becomes the organizing principle of your entire life. Sometimes the most consequential moments are simple encounters with something new.

As a high school student, Garriott convinced his school's teaching staff to let him take a class where he would teach himself computer programming while working on his games. They agreed to count it toward his foreign language requirement. This unconventional arrangement gave him the computer access he needed to develop his first games.

Lesson: You do not need permission or traditional paths to access resources for learning. Be creative in proposing arrangements that benefit both parties. Teachers and institutions are often more flexible than you expect if you ask thoughtfully.

At 18, Garriott sold 30,000 copies of his first game Akalabeth through a publisher who paid him $5 per copy. He earned $150,000, more than twice his NASA astronaut father's annual salary. The money felt like fantasy because it was so much more than expected.

Lesson: When you create something people want, you can monetize it surprisingly quickly. The first success often feels unreal because you are not psychologically prepared for the scale of demand.

Richard and Robert Garriott had a physical fight in their office over a pencil. Neither could remember what real issue triggered the fight, but they were both frustrated with each other. After wrestling briefly, they never had another serious fight and went on to build a billion-dollar company together.

Lesson: Sometimes conflict between co-founders needs to be physically released rather than managed. Having one explosive confrontation can clear the air and allow partners to move forward with renewed commitment.

Garriott believed Apple II would dominate forever while IBM PC was uncompetitive. He bet the entire company on this belief by refusing to develop for IBM. Within six months, IBM became dominant and Apple II became irrelevant. Origin Systems faced bankruptcy because they had no games for the platform customers actually wanted.

Lesson: Even experienced founders with years of success can make catastrophic strategic errors by misreading market shifts. The solution is not to panic but to use remaining resources to recover as quickly as possible with maximum quality.

When pitching Ultima Online to Electronic Arts, the sales department projected only 30,000 lifetime sales because no similar game had succeeded before. Garriott returned three times over 18 months, finally refusing to leave the CEO's office until he agreed to fund a quarter-million dollar prototype. Within a week of the prototype's announcement, 50,000 people signed up to pay $5 for a beta testing CD.

Lesson: Novel ideas will always be rejected based on lack of historical precedent. Sometimes you must go around institutional decision-making and appeal directly to leadership. And sometimes you must let the market validate your idea rather than waiting for corporate approval.

An intruder broke into Garriott's Austin home late at night. Garriott retrieved an Uzi from his gun safe and confronted the intruder on the stairs. After warning him to stop, the intruder continued up the stairs. Garriott fired a warning shot, which the intruder did not react to. Police arrived and found the man sitting alone in a guest bedroom. He was later identified as delusional, believing Garriott had sent a hologram beckoning him there for a quest reward. The man died years later at SeaWorld under mysterious circumstances, possibly saved by a killer whale.

Lesson: This opening story illustrates how Garriott thinks about narrative and immersion. It also demonstrates the consequences of creating worlds so compelling that some people struggle to distinguish them from reality.

Notable Quotes

“A deep understanding of the world around you makes you its master.”

Describing what his father taught him as the son of a NASA astronaut and explorer. This understanding became the foundation for his ability to create realistic, immersive virtual worlds.

“Games have become much more than pleasant diversions. They have a huge opportunity to be the media form of the 21st century.”

Written in his autobiography when reflecting on the potential of games as an art form and medium. He believed this in 1978 when most people saw games as toys.

“Like any good artist in any other medium, I became a polymath. I studied subjects from philosophy and religious history to architecture, languages, physics, and fashion.”

Explaining how he developed the depth and authenticity in his game worlds. This broad learning was not a distraction from game creation but essential to it.

“By endurance, we conquer.”

Shackleton's family motto that deeply influenced both Garriott and Senra. Shackleton is Senra's lock screen wallpaper as a daily reminder not to quit.

“My other games had borrowed liberally from existing fantasy stories. None of them were particularly original other than the fact that they were being told in a computer game format.”

Acknowledging that imitation was his path to mastery before creating original works like Quest of the Avatar.

“Robert and I are very different people, but there is simply no way that Origin would have gone forward without both our unique contributions. We argued often and we argued passionately.”

Reflecting on his partnership with his brother and recognizing that co-founder conflict, when channeled properly, creates better outcomes than harmony alone.

“It would have been almost impossible for me to be more wrong. In less than six months, the IBM PC became the dominant machine in the market.”

His reflection on his catastrophic miscalculation about Apple II versus IBM PC. This humility and recognition of error was the first step to recovery.

Describing his persistence in getting funding for Ultima Online from EA leadership when every corporate process rejected it.

“I learned that each game was only as good as the ability of the game master to craft a story and manage the negotiations into a compelling narrative.”

His insight from playing Dungeons and Dragons, recognizing that storytelling ability was the limiting factor in game quality, not mechanical complexity.

“Desperation can be an extremely productive motivator. We worked every possible minute for months while at the same time resisting the urge to cut quality just to get it done.”

Describing the period when Origin Systems was facing bankruptcy and had to ship the IBM PC version of Ultima with perfect execution despite extreme time pressure.