Veteran game designer and erstwhile cosmonaut Richard "Lord British" Garriott has prevailed in his legal action against former employer NCsoft, scoring $28 million in a dispute over stock options and the circumstances of his departure from the company.
A federal court yesterday ruled that NCsoft had deprived Garriott of profits on his stock options by mis-categorizing his exit. The Ultima creator, whose last project with NCsoft was the disappointing Tabula Rasa, left the company in November 2008, a month after his return from his space tourism expedition on board the International Space Station.
In his suit, Garriott had claimed he was 'forced out' of NCsoft and that he had "objected to his dismissal," yet the company claimed he left voluntarily -- a decision that meant Garriott had to quickly sell his stock options in a disadvantageous market or lose them altogether, whereas had he been categorized as terminated, he would have had 10 years to divest.
According to a report in Austin's Statesman, the trial lasted three-and-a-half days, and the jury spent three hours deliberating before making the decision to award Garriott the $28 million -- less than the $47 he had been seeking, but an amount equal to the profit he missed out on by having to sell quickly.
Garriott, whose newest venture is a Facebook gaming start-up called Portalarium, said he was "very pleased with the final award". South Korea-headquarted NCsoft said via its attorney, however, that it "will be considering all options for next steps in the legal process."
According to the report, Garriott first heard he would lose his job when he was spending time in quarantine in Russia following his space trip. Just after he returned, NCsoft announced it would soon close Tabula Rasa, an MMO launched under Garriott's stewardship a year prior that became a commercial failure, with only about a year on the market.
Garriott I hope to see you investing that into a successful venture. You've got a great budget to work with. Get those dollars flowin. Will you be investing in space real estate?
Making a bad game and getting 28 mil... it's the world upside down! and does this mean making bad games gets you more money then good? oh nvm... farmville :(
I liked Tabula Rasa... Not that I played it a lot, but it was a cool idea, too bad it was a persistant MMO (I think that if they sold the game and gave tools to make dedicated servers it would work better...)
@Maurício I played it as they didn't stop with giving me free weekends for it. And in one hour I managed to play trough half of the game... only shooting npc's most of the time. So that got boring a bit.
Like I said: If they made it about session play (and not persistant) it would not have this problem :) Like Free Allegiance (EVE-like game, except it is not persistant, you join a room, play for 2 hours the war, then the war ends, you join another room, and so on... The only thing that is stored is your stats)
http://www.techeye.net/software/lord-british-claims-he-owns-the-moon
A sign of things to come in the Infinity Ward case?
I liked Tabula Rasa... Not that I played it a lot, but it was a cool idea, too bad it was a persistant MMO (I think that if they sold the game and gave tools to make dedicated servers it would work better...)
By the way, please Sir.Garriott look for another name... Portalarium make me sick.
Like I said: If they made it about session play (and not persistant) it would not have this problem :) Like Free Allegiance (EVE-like game, except it is not persistant, you join a room, play for 2 hours the war, then the war ends, you join another room, and so on... The only thing that is stored is your stats)