Ultima Online is one of the forefathers of MMORPGs, but initially had a poor standing during development at Origin/Electronic Arts. EA preferred a new Ultima single-player title. At least initially.
The Ultima Online team back in the 90s was a young bunch. Today, Richard Garriott (Creative Director), Starr Long (Executive Producer), and Ralph Koster (Designer) are veterans in the video game industry. At the developer conference GDC, they reflected on Ultima Online and the challenges that the “forefather of MMORPGs” faced at publisher Electronic Arts back then.
Richard “Lord British” Garriott was driven by a vision. He wanted to expand his popular Ultima series in the mid-1990s to allow thousands of players to interact in one world simultaneously. He called this vision “Multima”.
However, publisher Electronic Arts was anything but enthusiastic about the idea and initially only provided the developer with a relatively small budget of $250,000. This came only after the game was presented three times. The first two times, Electronic Arts had rejected “Multima”.
Electronic Arts wanted to focus on single-player games
EA believed in the Ultima series, which at that time consisted of the single-player RPGs. Origin was then working on Ultima 9 at the end of the “Trilogy of Trilogies.” EA wanted to focus on this title, as the series already had a large fanbase and the games consistently sold well.
The idea of a multiplayer Ultima was not well received. The company projected that only about 30,000 copies would sell. Nevertheless, Richard Garriott continued to work on the game with his team.
Fans saved the MMORPG
When the budget was exhausted, EA wanted to pull the plug. Garriott and his team came up with the idea of sending out beta discs for a fee of five dollars. Over 50,000 interested players signed up. Electronic Arts did not expect this and recognized the potential in the game. They offered Garriott full support and even pulled team members from Ultima 9 to work on Ultima Online, as the game was eventually named.
After the launch in September 1997, Ultima Online sold over one million copies and became a milestone in the MMORPG genre.
Later this year, a “quasi” free-to-play version of the MMORPG Ultima Online is expected to launch.
