Garriott: What went wrong with Tabula Rasa

Richard Garriott explains where his studio went wrong in designing the failed MMO.

Industry bigwig Richard Garriott admitted one of the less impressive titles he has designed was Tabula Rasa, alongside Ultima 8.

Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer, Garriott stated:

"In both of those games it was immediately after selling a company to a larger company who had very strong opinions about how and why I should do the games that I was working on in a particular way."

He went on to explain that the first failing of Tabula Rasa was in how it was initially designed as an MMO to be popular amongst an Asian market.

"After two years of trying we eventually abandoned the idea of trying to create a global intellectual property and decided to turn back on something we ourselves would make for ourselves.

"But what it meant," he explained, "was that we were then two years out of position. And whenever you start a game that is two years out of position, you're basically already up a creek, if you know what I mean. Because what the company is not going to do is forgive the two years and forgive the millions of dollars that have already been spent. You basically are two years late and what's taking you so long - let's get the game out.

"So Tabula Rasa started its two-year late restart under exceptionally unusual pressures and with understandable corporate discontent, which made it very difficult to finish."

Garriott's most recent title is Facebook game Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale with casual games studio Portalarium. He has recently stated a successor to Ultima Online is in the works.