Origin Systems

 ( American Companies Established In 1983 ) 

Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott, his brother Robert Garriott and their father Owen. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres of video games, such as the Ultima and Wing Commander series. The company was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1992.

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History Brothers Richard Garriott and Robert Garriott, their astronaut-engineer father Owen, and programmer Chuck Bueche founded Origin Systems in 1983 because of the trouble they had collecting money owed to Richard for his games released by other companies.Warren Spector interviewing Richard Garriott for his University of Texas Master Class in Video Games and Digital Media [1] Origin was initially based in the Garriotts' garage in Houston, Texas. The company's first game was ; because of Ultima's established reputation and the fact that the company's games were released on computers and not consoles, Origin survived the video-game crash of 1983 which affected console game developers in North America. It published many non- Ultima games, and Richard Garriott claimed that he received the same royalty rate as other developers.

By 1988, Origin had 15 developers in Austin, Texas, and another 35 employees in New Hampshire. By 1989 they had 50 employees between their New Hampshire and Texas offices. By 1992, Origin Systems had sold more than software units worldwide.

In September 1992, Electronic Arts acquired the company for $35 million in stock, despite a dispute between the two companies over EA's 1987 game Deathlord. Origin, with about $13 million in annual revenue, stated that it had considered an IPO before agreeing to the deal.

By 1996, Origin had expanded to more than 300 employees, most of whom were divided among small, largely autonomous development teams. In 1997, Origin released one of the earliest graphical , Ultima Online. After this title, Electronic Arts decided that Origin would become an online-only company after the completion of in 1999. However, within a year's time, in part due to Ultima IXs poor reception, EA canceled all of Origin's new development projects, including Ultima Online 2, Privateer Online, and Harry Potter Online. Richard Garriott left Origin shortly after and founded Destination Games in 2000.

In later years, Origin mainly existed to support and expand Ultima Online and to develop further online games based on the Ultima franchise such as , originally to be released in 2004 but later canceled. In February 2004, the studio was disbanded by Electronic Arts. The Longbow series of simulation games was developed at Origin and published under the Jane's Combat Simulations brand of Electronic Arts. A follow-on project, Jane's A-10, was under development when the project was canceled in late 1998 and the team moved to other projects.

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Notable employees Origin employed many young game developers over its tenure who have since gone on to leading roles in numerous game development companies, especially in Austin.

Among its prominent employees were (alphabetically by surname):

• Raymond Benson – Writer, Audio (1992–1993)
• Was head writer on , contributed some writing to , and went on to work as a game designer for MicroProse and Viacom New Media, then later became an official continuation author of the James Bond novels.
• J. Allen Brack – QA Tester (1994–2000)
• Went on to work for Sony Online Entertainment and Blizzard Entertainment and co-founded his own development studio Magic Soup Games.
• Tom Chilton – Lead Designer (2001–2003)
• Was lead designer on and went on to be a lead designer for Blizzard Entertainment.
• Britt Daniel – Sound Designer (1994)
• Was a sound designer for numerous titles and went on to found the rock band Spoon.
• Ken Demarest – Game Designer, Programmer (1990–1995)
• Created the technical prototype for Ultima Online, directed BioForge, led programming on Ultima VII: The Black Gate and coded on Wing Commander.
• Martin Galway – Sound Designer/Composer, Audio Technician (1991–1994)
• Went on to work at Digital Anvil.
• Richard Garriott – Co-Founder, Game Designer, Programmer (1983–2000)
• Aka "Lord British", creator of Ultima; later co-founded Destination Games, acquired by NCSoft. Co-founded and now works at Portalarium.
• Robert Garriott – Co-Founder, Business (1983–2000)
• Brother of Richard Garriott, co-founded Origin Systems and Destination Games.
• Jeff Hillhouse – Facilities (1983–2004)
• One of the company's first employees who helped grow its early supply chain and facilities operations.
• Raph Koster – Lead Designer (1995–2003)
• Later joined Sony Online Entertainment in Austin developing EverQuest II and Star Wars Galaxies.
• Scott Kreuser – Supported the entire software roadmap
• Went on to work for Dell as a Worldwide New Product Project Manager.
• Starr Long – QA Lead, Designer (1992–2000)
• Director of Ultima Online, and co-founder of Destination Games.
• Denis Loubet – Artist (1989–2002)
• Was the first artist Origin hired. He did many box cover paintings, manual illustrations, in-game art and animation, and cinematics.
• Mike McShaffry – Lead Developer (1990–1997)
• Later co-founded the other Austin studios and has written and taught on game development theory.
• Sheri Graner Ray – Writer, Designer (1993–1994)
• Went on to work with several major companies including Sony Online Entertainment and Cartoon Network. Also founder of Women in Games International.
• Chris Roberts – Game Designer, Creative Director (1988–1996)
• Creator of the Wing Commander series and Strike Commander. Co-founded the now-defunct Digital Anvil, acquired by Microsoft, creating Starlancer and contributing to Freelancer space simulator games. Went on to produce a number of Hollywood productions, before co-founding and now working at Cloud Imperium Games, creating the crowdfunded space simulator Star Citizen.
• John Romero – Programmer (1987–1988)
• Worked at Origin before co-founding id Software. Later co-founded Ion Storm and a number of other game studios. Co-founded and now works at Romero Games.
• Andrew Sega – Music Composer (1995–1998)
• Aka Necros; was a Software Engineer/Composer who went on to work for Digital Anvil.
• Dallas Snell – Vice President of Product Development / Executive Producer (1985–1996)
• Head of Product Development, Producer or Executive Producer of Origin's titles between 1986 and 1995. Later served as Director of Business Development for NCSoft North America. Co-founded Portalarium and served as Director of Development and Chief Operating Officer.
• Warren Spector – Producer (1989–1996)
• Producer of which was developed by Doug Church and Looking Glass Studios, as well as its , System Shock, Wings of Glory and numerous other titles. He later joined Ion Storm and managed its Austin office, creating Deus Ex. Later co-founded the now-defunct Junction Point Studios, acquired by Disney Interactive. Now works at OtherSide Entertainment as its Studio Director, creating System Shock 3.
• Paul Steed – Artist (1991–1995)
• Was a leading artist on the Wing Commander series and went on to serve as an art lead for id Software on the Quake series.

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List of games

+ !Year !Title !Platform(s)
1983	Caverns of Callisto	Apple II
		Atari 8-bit
		Apple II
		Atari 8-bit
		Commodore 64
1985		MS-DOS
		Mac
		Apple II
		Apple II
		Commodore 64
1986	Autoduel	Apple II
		Amiga
		Atari ST
		Commodore 64
	Ogre	Apple II
		Commodore 64
	Ring Quest	Apple II
		Apple II
		Commodore 64
		MS-DOS
1987		Atari ST
		MS-DOS
1988	2400 A.D.	Apple II
		MS-DOS
	Times of Lore	Apple II
		Commodore 64
		Amiga
		Apple II
1989	Knights of Legend	Apple II
		Commodore 64
	Omega	Apple II
		Commodore 64
		Mac
	Space Rogue	Apple II
		Commodore 64
		Apple II
		Commodore 64
		MS-DOS
	Times of Lore	MS-DOS
		Commodore 64
		Commodore 128
		MS-DOS
		Amiga
	Windwalker	Apple II
		Commodore 64
1990	Bad Blood	MS-DOS
	Knights of Legend	MS-DOS
		Master System
		MS-DOS
		Commodore 64
	Windwalker	Apple IIGS
		Atari ST
		Mac
	Wing Commander	MS-DOS
	Wing Commander: The Secret Missions	MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
1991	Bad Blood	Commodore 64
	Times of Lore	NES
		MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
	Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi - Speech Accessory Pack	MS-DOS
	Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi - Special Operations 1	MS-DOS
	Wing Commander: The Secret Missions 2 - Crusade	MS-DOS
		Game Boy
1992	Ultima VII: Forge of Virtue	MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
		Amiga
		MS-DOS
	Wing Commander	Amiga
	Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi - Special Operations 2	MS-DOS
1993	ShadowCaster	MS-DOS
	Strike Commander	MS-DOS
		NES
		MS-DOS
	Ultima VII: Part Two - The Silver Seed	MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
	Wing Commander Academy	MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
	Wing Commander: Privateer - Speech Pack	MS-DOS
		Game Boy
1994	Metal Morph	SNES
	Pacific Strike	MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
	Pagan: Ultima VIII - Speech Pack	MS-DOS
	Privateer: Righteous Fire	MS-DOS
	Super Wing Commander	3DO
	System Shock	MS-DOS
	Ultima: Runes of Virtue II	SNES
	Ultima: The Black Gate	SNES
	Wing Commander	Sega CD
		MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
1995	BioForge	MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
	System Shock	Mac
		3DO
	Wings of Glory	MS-DOS
1996	Abuse	MS-DOS
		MS-DOS
		PlayStation
		Sega Saturn
	Jane's AH-64D Longbow	MS-DOS
	Transland	MS-DOS
		PlayStation
		MS-DOS
1997		Windows
	Ultima Online	Windows
		PlayStation
		Windows
1998		Windows
	Wing Commander: Secret Ops	Windows
1999		Windows
2000		Windows
2001		Windows
2002		Windows
2003		Windows
2004		Windows

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Canceled

• BioPlus (Add-on for BioForge. Aka. BioForge Plus.)
• Carl's Crazy Carnival
• Citadel (first-person shooter)
• Death & Destruction
• Space Race (racing game in vein of Road Rash and Super Monaco GP)
• Crusader: No Survivors (cancelled multiplayer expansion for )
• Crusader 3: No Escape / Crusader: No Mercy / Crusader II
• Worlds of Ultima: Arthurian Legends
• Harry Potter Online
• Jane's A-10
• Privateer 3
• Strike Team
• Wing Commander VII
• (2004)

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