LOS ANGELES, May 17, 2001–Richard Garriott, the pioneering computer game designer and the creator of the popular Ultima™ series of computer games, is back in the business of making games after being out of the interactive entertainment industry news for the last year. Garriott today unveiled an online game development studio, Destination Games, located in Austin, Texas. Destination Games was founded in April of 2000 after Garriott’s departure from Origin Systems. Garriott also announced that Destination Games would immediately become a part of NCsoft, a Korean-based company that currently operates the largest subscription-based online game in the world, Lineage: The Blood Pledge™. Garriott, along with other Destination Games and NCsoft officials made the announcement at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

Garriott, and his brother Robert, a co-founder of Destination Games and the company’s president and chief executive officer, have assembled the top talent in the online gaming industry. The team includes Starr Long, who along with Richard Garriott created Ultima™ Online, the first commercially successful subscription-based online game. Other members of the team previously worked on such titles as Asheron’s Call™, Air Warrior™ and the Command and Conquer™ series. Together they will join forces with Lineage creator and NCsoft Chief Creative Officer, Jake Song, to form the most prominent and experienced group of online game designers in the world.

"This is a match made in heaven," says Richard Garriott. "In just a few short years, Jake Song has established himself as one of the industry’s top online game designers. Lineage now has more subscribers than Ultima Online, Everquest™ and Asheron’s Call combined. It’s a dominant market leader in the Asian markets. We’re excited to leverage NCsoft and Jake’s experience to help us launch our games in Asia."

Also announced today was joint work with NC Interactive™, an online support organization that will provide the necessary resources to support Lineage as well as other NCsoft and Destination Games products. That group will play an important role as NCsoft and Destination Games improve support and visibility for Lineage to North America and Europe throughout this year.

Lineage is a massively multiplayer role-playing game in a medieval fantasy setting. It has the largest subscriber base of any online game in the world. In Korea alone there are more than two million active accounts. Simultaneous worldwide user numbers have been as much as 180,000.

"NCsoft is proud to be a part of this new venture," says Jake Song. "Richard and Robert Garriott have a long and successful track record in this business and they understand how to successfully launch a product in North America and Europe. Having that kind of experience now in the NCsoft family will provide even greater opportunities for us as we expand our products beyond the Asian territories."

The Garriotts along with their father and a family friend founded ORIGIN™ Systems in 1983 and grew the company into the top independently owned computer game studio in the United States. ORIGIN Systems is best known for the Ultima series of fantasy computer games including Ultima Online. In 1992 the Garriotts sold ORIGIN Systems to Electronic Arts™.