Tec Arts

Over the last twenty years or so games like the widely known Dungeons & Dragons became a phenomenon that swept through the minds of high tech computer geeks, engineers as well as other heady types - including artists. The games became very complex to continue to inspire the players but before long they had reached their limits and the gamers began to explore new options. Such fantasy prone types included two Austinites named Steve Jackson and Richard Garriott. These two had the idea that there is no real limit to the imagination and both set out to create there own worlds. These two game masters founded their companies based on the idea that everyone, sooner or later will find the need to escape reality and seek new adventures, thus Steve Jackson Games and Origin Systems were born based on the development of single new games that were sold in plastic ziplock baggies to people who desired a mental challenge beyond the typical.

Steve began by elaborating on the standard of the day, a role playing game that came with cut-out game pieces and a booklet of rules or guidelines. This style of game was the building block for his publishing company which went on to create games such as CarWars, In Nomine, and a very special game system called GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System). The name was originally a joke, it was a code word used to describe the game while it was being developed. Years went by, literally, as the game developed and the name just stuck.

Richard began his career in the game industry in much the same way, but with one exception, his games are computer based. His first game, Akalabeth was a very basic program that used keyboard letters and symbols arranged together to form a crude graphic. Akalabeth was packaged in a ziplock bag with a hole punched in the top so it could be hung on a display in the store. Now Origin is creating some of the most sophisticated interactive three dimensional games on this world! Games like Ultima, Wing Commander, Crusader and Privateer.

Doug La Rue: Were you born into a royal family or did you achieve your title through some act of bravery or valor?
Richard Garriott: Well, unfortunately neither of those two is the honest tale, which I probably ought to tell the honest tale. I was actually born in Cambridge, England so that is where the British comes from, and then the Lord comes from after years of playing in fantasy games and beginning to create fantasy games, my character which originally was known as British, began to aspire to positions of power within the games, so eventually, actually kind of being the ruler of the kingdom of Britannia, that is how I acquire the term Lord British, which eventually became my nom de plume that was used for publishing.

DL: So by developing worlds and developing games you've became known as royalty.
RG: Exactly!

DL: You are known throughout your kingdom and the Universe as a man with a passion for fantastic adventure. What drives you to take on these challenges one after another?
RG: Hmm That is interesting too. I suppose that passion is fueled by my upbringing, which I come from a family of achievers, you may describe it. For example my father is a NASA astronaut and my mother was a professional artist, and all of my siblings, in fact not only the siblings by my parents, all of the other members of my family, not only have degrees, which I don't by the way, but they all have advanced degrees, so I come from a family surroundings of kind of "get off your duff and go do something" and I actually think that even from the scholastic standpoint I am the underachiever of the family

DL: It seems to be that way quite a bit. I have read quite a few biographies of very famous or very productive people, and there is a large number that never did go to college and knew what they wanted to do, and went directly into it.
RG: Exactly, and so I feel I kind of fell into my profession early and while I was still quite young, which was very fortuitous, and has been a major factor in the success of my career, as well as not just the adventure games which I created too, but actually I live a lifestyle of adventuring. I am very much into traveling.

DL: What has been your biggest personal victory?
RG: Uh my biggest personal victory. Boy, you know I have never stop to sit back and think about any one achievement as being the one I was most pleased with.

DL: Well what was the first thing that came to your mind when I said that?
RG: Really, the first thing that entered my mind was that I kind I have achieved the freedom in life to live the adventuring life of travel the foreign lands and places. So, through the success of my business, which is whole other list of achievements, I kind of achieved a personal lifestyle which I am very pleased with.

DL: One of these days my lifestyle will take me there. Right now am buried under computers...
RG: That is where I am too It is really funny, you know. My girlfriend was commenting to me last night, saying "one of the things I like about you is you work very hard, you play very hard and you party very hard" which is true, my life is a constant go, go, go. I work tremendous hours, I believe, and work hard while I am at work, but when work is over, I work very hard at scheduling short windows of play hard, and so that is an important part of my lifestyle.

DL: I can understand that, what has been your biggest humanitarian victory?
RG: I am actually very active in the community both politically and with things like the major conservancy and locally here, Wild Basin Preserve. But I am not actually sure if I should classify this one as humanitarian But the one in particular that I am most pleased with, which is not exactly humanitarian, is the huge haunted houses that we do for free for the public. And so, they don't strike any great blows for the solving the problems of homelessness, or hunger, or species diversification, I really do think of it as a very community supportive activity that we do, just because we are all so happy to be part of this community and we want to get back into it.

DL: What is your favorite weapon?
RG: Definitely the sword. And I have a fair collection of swords and crossbows. Now, crossbows are another one of my favorites. But I'm somewhere between the two. Actually a particular favorite sword here at my house is a rapier that was, I am not sure if it is French or German, but it was made around 1650, and it is a beautiful piece, it is my favorite weapon.

DL: What is your favorite mode of transportation?
RG: Mode or individual piece of transportation? My favorite individual piece of transportation right now is a recently acquired Range Rover which may not be expected.

DL: I kind of was thinking more on the fantastical world of things
RG: got you. Let me ponder that one then I probably would say ship. A big four masted scooner.

DL: How long have you lived?
RG: Hmm, I see, so we are getting into the fantastical questions

DL: Or it can be completely ethereal too
RG: Well Lord British, who represents at least half of me, has lived for many, many years. In fact, it is difficult to count the years, but a speculation would be seven hundred years.

DL: The Artist Formerly Known As Prince said he was into his fifth lifetime
RG: (laughs)

DL: Your favorite body armour?
RG: Leather Jerken, due to my slender build although for formal occasions my brass edge plate is nice to wear.

DL: Are the rumors that you are building a landing pad for space craft at the site of your new castle, true?
RG: I cannot confirm or deny that at this time but I can tell you that the new castle by the lake will be around 10,000 square feet with an observatory and the master bedroom with a huge bed that lifts out of the house under the stars. An even more sophisticated swimming pool than I currently have with underwater passageways, and little hidden antichambers, and in one of the castle
towers a multi-story slide which slides down through the tower and back out to the pool. Things like this, so it also has a cave for bat habitats for housing honest to goodness real bats. Things of that nature.

DL: Wow!
RG: It has a very large amount of unusual features

DL: What is your stand on extraterrestrial life. Do you believe in it?
RG: Yes, in fact I think that is from a scientific and statistical standpoint I believe extraterrestrial life must exist, however, unfortunately I believe that those who claim to have meet with these individuals are likely deranged.

DL: I have also heard the stories about the woods surrounding your castle and that they are enchanted and have many fierce creatures dwelling within it.
RG: Well, that is often true

DL: What types of creatures live there?
RG: All kinds of things. Not only your usual woodland creatures but there have been many times during which creatures such as giant trolls, and dragons, and banshees, and spirited horses

DL: Spirited horses?
RG: Yes, skeletons. Skeletal horses who run through the woods. We have all manner of beasts

DL: Any names to any particular beast?
RG: Proper names, no. No one has proper names. No legendary ones? No legendary individual creatures.

DL: Which one has been the most dangerous which you have encountered in your land?
RG: Actually I am going to answer this question by changing my response to the last question. As recently as a couple of years ago, a very, very evil character known as Minos, the judge of the dammed, was living in the woods for a few days. He was the most dangerous. He had the nasty habit of calling forth large volumes of fire and wreeking much havoc upon visitors.

DL: How did you get rid of him?
RG: Well, actually, you see, in the world of Brittania from whence I come, I have an adventurer who commonly comes to my aid who is often known as the Avatar. And during these few days when Minos had set up camp in my woods, fortunately, The Avatar came to this world from Brittania and assisted in ridding of the woods of Minos.

DL: What has been your most interesting adventure involving Origin?
Probably my most interesting adventure, and that reminded of my least interesting one which was probably the adventure nearly going out of business, which was about ten years ago.

DL: If you don't mind my asking, what is the name of your lady?
RG: Lady Heather, we are going on an adventure soon where we will circumnavigate the globe and skydive over both the North & South Poles. We will also visit disappearing indigenous communities.

DL: Other than all the things you have done in this lifetime already, what is your main goal that you have yet to accomplish in this lifetime, on this planet?
RG: I want to turn Ultima into a completely virtual world, a complete world virtual simulation. I would also like to go into deep space on a one way journey.

DL: As far as this new SXSW, are you speaking and what is your topic?
RG: Not sure at this point

DL: What is the biggest advancement in multimedia technology?
RG: The Internet?

Steve Jackson

Doug La Rue: So basically, you are quite like Richard G, you got a little plastic baggie out, put your first product in there and tried to sell it.
Steve Jackson: Richard and I go way back. These days, when I see him it is always either in another city at a convention or literally on airplane flights. We have run into each other on planes twice. Between us, we certainly put Austin in the map for games. There are all kinds of game companies getting going in Austin now. It is great. You really have class act companies, like Human Code.

DL: What has been your most popular game? What put you on the map?
SJ: Well, that is two different questions. What put me on the map originally was "Raid on Iran" which was one of our first releases, just because it was topical. It was around 1981. It got some attention because the game was about freeing hostages in Iran and it came out before the hostages were freed. It was a simulation of what would have happened if the helicopter rescue hadn't been launch

DL: I wonder if Ross Perot took a look at your game before he went over there?
SJ: I don't know. I got approving mail years later from a couple of the people who had been hostages. Somebody had given them a copy of the game, and told them to look at it, and they played it and they liked it. That was cool. But the one that really established us as people who could create great games, as opposed as to just making OK games with a topical title, was "CarWars." That was the one which sold well over a quarter million copies just of the game, let alone supplements. So that was the one that really established that we were going to do something. "GURPS," the generic universal role playing system has been our big cash cow for years, so a lot of people play it, and we just keep on producing more supplements.

DL: So, with "GURPS" you developed a game system that people can develop a game within?
SJ: Exactly, it's a set of role playing rules that can work in any genre. Other people have done it since then, but this one the first one which really worked, and the one that has been our biggest recent hit was "Illuminati New World Order," a trading card game.

DL: We are in the midst of a trading card fad. And games are major. I have friends which are 25 or 26 year old, and spend the night playing those trading card games.
SJ: It is not the fad which it was a few years ago, but still big. It is pretty amazing. 1994-95 were our biggest years ever just based on "Illuminati New World Order" I spent a lot of last year doing a trading card game because I am a dinosaur nut! It has not caught on yet, so we need to make better inroads on the mass market, the educational market, the museum market, because although it is going OK among gamers, I am getting really great mail on it, but it was not aimed just at gamers, it is aimed at a larger market. Mostly children

DL: What about the Internet...
SJ: We have a full time webmaster. We use it for marketing and for game support through the GURP system and those are thick books all full of rules, which generate a lot of errata, and we keep it up to date. Some of our competitors just kind of sweep the errata under the rug, alike if you don't admit you made a mistake, then it didn't happen. The Internet is perfect for game companies to be able to interact with the people who made the games. We really like to interact with our customers. We put up an auction page, serious collector items, and we told the people where we were going to use the money we get from the auction which is to buy our fast, new web server, so the people who use our website will get the benefit from it. This is page 4 of the book what we are about to ship on "In Nomine" which is an angel and demon role playing game on which we have been working for years. It is by far the most beautiful book we ever have done. The subject matter is going to attract a lot of attention. We didn't do it for sensationalism, we did it because on the one hand is a whole lot of fun to play a martial angel which kicks demon butt, or vice versa. But it also let's you get into some philosophical exploration. If you are not into the philosophy, you can still kick demon butt. It is a very simple game to play.

DL: So the most popular game so far has been "CarWars"
SJ: It depends on how you look at it. It is like comparing apples to oranges. We sold more copies of the original "CarWars" game in different forms than anything else, but we sold far more GURPS books and supplements, together, on all titles. GURPS greatly outweigh "CarWars" and all its supplements, but just on terms of dollars coming in the door, the cardgames.

DL: What is the list of product categories you have?
SJ: Books of game rules, books of out gaming, publish Pyramid Magazine which is about the games, board games both big box board games and the little small format cheap counterpart that we got started with, card games both trading cards, and non-trading card games. We do not do computer games, we license them to other companies. We also have a title that is live action role playing game. That is "Killer" and we probably will release it some time this year. Instead of sitting around the game, people may dress up or maybe you just are playing "Killer," and try to look normal, and walk up to somebody and shoot them with a water gun. It is a simple stupid game but some of us like it.

DL: Why did you choose to license your computer games instead of manufacturing them?
SJ:Because it is a very different part. It looks the same but it is not. The investment to doing a computer game is just huge and we always thought that it was better to work with somebody who really knew what they were doing, and get a quality product, and take the royalty, than get ourselves into another economic venture. I would love to be in the compute game business, but it is not this company core job, and moving over would be difficult and expensive, and we would risk what we have now. So, we haven't done it yet... someday!

DL: What aspect of this business is your favorite thing?
SJ: Inventing games, playing them. The creative aspect? The game I am working on now is always one that has interested me most. That is one reason why I love the web, since it makes it possible to keep available to people who are just getting into an old game for the first time. But if we can put the things up on the web, it is easy for them to get all the material and comments, and it is fresh to them. I like to be involved with people who are doing the computer version. We mustn't say that Steve Jackson games will never be doing computer games, or that Steve Jackson will never run off to work for a computer game company, but not now. It just depends on feasibility because if you get into computer game production you are going head to head with people who throw multi-million dollar budgets at one project, and they don't all succeed.

DL: Who are the main computer game companies which would be interested on this type of genre of games, role playing games?
SJ: Well, Interplay of course because we are working with them now. Electronic Arts and its subsidiaries including Origin Systems, we did two computer games through Origin Systems way back when, and they went quite well, but then Origin decided to focus on properties which was creating in house, rather than to license them from outside, and they have been fairly successful with that once they got it going. SSI (used to stand for Strategic Simulations Inc.), I am not sure it does anymore.

DL: Are you going to be speaking at SXSW?
SJ: We are talking about gaming content which will be available to local callers in a very very fast connection through the Internet. None of this, wait for the web page to load up. So they will able to interact with the website in order to play with someone else.

DL: What is your character name in your current favorite campaign?
SJ: Wally Goodbread. He's an overweight, green-haired "street doc" in a futuristic cyberpunk campaign. He lives to help the unfortunate and to watch animated movies, not necessarily in that order.

DL: What has been your biggest personal victory?
SJ: I don't keep score that way. I suppose the expected answer would be "beating the Secret Service," but though that was important and had to be done, it was reactive rather than proactive.

DL: What is your favorite mode of transportation, fantasy, realtime?
SJ: Fantasy? Teleportation. Realtime? First choice: anything with the wind in my face. Second choice: First Class air travel, transpacific, with a good book and the caviar cart on its way down the aisle.

DL: What was the most interesting adventure regarding Steve Jackson games?
SJ: That has to be the Secret Service thing. http://www.sjgames.com/SS

DL: If you could go anywhere, where would it be?
SJ: On a fossil dig, wither to Montna/Alberta or the Gobi, helping a museum expedition.

DL: Do you believe in a higher power, God?, Science, ??
SJ: The IRS, now, THAT is a higher power . . .

DL: What is your biggest goal involving this lifetime?
SJ: I suppose I should answer that question for MYSELF, now that you mention it. Thanks. As "Bob" Dobbs says: You'd PAY to know what you REALLY think .