VBS Interviews Richard Garriot

Three short videos featuring Richard Garriot, his background, home and life, have been released.

In the first of the three films, Garriot explains how he came by the name 'Lord British', and goes over the games he created. Garriot is famous for making the Ultima series of PC games, which later became the first ever MMORPG, Ultima Online.

He also talks about the ill-fated Tabula Rasa, which was the first non-Ultima game Garriot had made in decades. The second film focusses on Garriot's home, which has been dubbed 'Britania Manor'. Axes and crossbows adorn the walls of the large dwelling, which includes an observatory with telescope, secret passages, a dungeon filled with several grissly artifacts, artificial rain, and his wide and varied collections.

The third film sees Garriot talking about his space trip and what motivated him to do it, namely the importance of space travel for the future of humanity. He trained for his space trip for nine months and eventually took off on 12 October 2008. He says that his perception of the fragility of earth has certainly changed as a result. It transpires that Garriot's father is an astronaut, as were his neighbours when he was growing up. It was only when he was told as a teenager that he could not be an astronaut due to poor eyesight that he decided he was going to go to space one day. Garriot spent 2 days orbiting the Earth last year, and intends to return.

See the first of the films below, the other two can be seen at VBS.TV.