Origin Systems, Inc. (sometimes abbreviated as OSI) was a video game developer based in Austin, Texas, which was active from 1983 to 2004. It is most famous for the Ultima and Wing Commander series.
Brothers Richard Garriott and Robert Garriott, their father Owen, and Chuck Bueche founded Origin Systems in 1983 because of the trouble they had collecting money owed to Richard Garriott for his games released by other companies. The company's first game was Ultima III: Exodus; because of Ultima's established reputation, Origin survived the video game crash that occurred that year. 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 35 other employees in New Hampshire. 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 Initial Public Offering 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 MMORPGs, Ultima Online. After this title, Electronic Arts decided that Origin would become an online-only company after the completion of Ultima IX in 1999. However, within a year's time, in part due to Ultima IX's 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 Ultima X: Odyssey, 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.
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):
Andrew Sega - music composer (1995 - 1998)
aka Necros; was a Software Engineer/Composer who went on to work for Digital Anvil.
Britt Daniel - sound designer, composer (1994)
was a composer for numerous titles and went on to found the rock band Spoon.
Chris Roberts - game designer, creative director (1989 - 1996)
creator of the Wing Commander series, Strike Commander and later the Starlancer, Freelancer, and Star Citizen space simulator games. Founder of Digital Anvil, later acquired by Microsoft. He is now current founder of Cloud Imperium 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.
Frank Roan - game designer, programmer, director, producer (1993-1998)
AI programmer on Wing 3, lead programmer on Wing 4, project director on Wing Prophecy, senior producer in Maverick group.
John Romero - programmer (1987-1988)
was shortly working for Origin before co-founding id Software.
Jason Templeman- programmer, game designer (1989-1995)
worked on "Savage Empire" and was lead programmer for "Strike Commander." He and Paul Isaac produced the 3D graphics system that Origin Systems used for the rest of its history. Jason later founded and presided The Logic Factory winning several awards.
Ken Demarest - game designer, programmer (1990-1995)
created the technical prototype for Ultima Online, directed Bioforge, led programming on Ultima VII and coded on Wing Commander.
M. A. "Al" Nelson - art department manager, AP (1991-1992)
after Origin, Nelson worked as a project manager at Sony Online Entertainment and BioWare.
Marten Davies - Director/VP Sales (1991-1994)
having founded the first UK games software publisher in the US. Firebird Licensees Inc. in 1985 and went on to Co found Digital Anvil with Chris Roberts and others.
Martin Galway - sound designer/composer, audio technician (1991-1994)
who went on to work at Digital Anvil.
Mike McShaffry - lead developer (1990-1997)
Later co-founded other Austin studios and has written and taught on game development theory.
Paul Isaac - lead programmer (1987-1997)
was technical lead on the Wing Commander and Strike Commander series. He later became a lead developer at Digital Anvil worked on Freelancer and more recently joined Certain Affinity as engineering lead.
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.
Raph Koster - lead designer (1995 - 2003)
later joined Sony Online Entertainment in Austin developing Everquest II and Star Wars Galaxies.
Richard Tolar - programming (1997 - 1998)
was one of the Linux port team members.
Raymond Benson- writer, audio (1992-1993)
was head writer on Ultima VII: The Black Gate, contributed some writing to Ultima VII, Part Two—Serpent Isle, 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.
Richard Garriott - co-founder, game designer, programmer (1989 - 2000)
aka "Lord British", creator of Ultima; later founded Destination Games, acquired by NC Soft.
Rob Corell - programming, voice acting(1992-1995)
worked on the Wing Commander franchise, Ultima VIII and Crusader. He went on to Simtex where he worked on Master of Orion II. He then spent 11 years at Adobe Systems as a senior architect for numerous projects, including CreatePDF.com, Adobe Bridge and Photoshop.com. He currently works at Portalarium.
Robert Garriott - co-founder, business (1989 - 2000)
brother of Richard Garriott, cofounded Origin and Destination Games.
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.
Starr Long - QA lead, designer (1992 - 2000)
Director of Ultima Online, and co-founder of Destination Games
Brian White - QA, artist (1995 - 1999)
was on the Felucca design team.
Tom Chilton - lead designer (2001-2003)
was lead designer on Ultima Online: Age of Shadows and went on to be a lead designer for Blizzard Entertainment.
Tony Zurovec - programmer, designer (1992-1996)
was the designer on Crusader: No Remorse and Crusader: No Regret and worked on Ultima VIII: Pagan. He went on to work with the company Digital Anvil on Loose Cannon.
Warren Spector - producer (1989 - 1996)
Producer of Ultima Underworld which was developed by Doug Church and Looking Glass Studios as well as System Shock, Wings of Glory and numerous other titles. He later joined Ion Storm Inc. and managed its Austin office, creating Deus Ex.
Zack Booth Simpson - programmer (1992-1995)
was Origin's director of technology and research fellow and went on to co-found Titanic Entertainment and later became a pioneer of interactivity as a fine art with installations in museums around the world.
Eric "Maleki" Avila - Player Relations Manager (1995-2004)
Head Game Master for Ultima Online. Was responsible for live content and event coordinator program from 1997-2004. Left Origin to assume role of Customer Service Manager for Blizzard Entertainment (World of Warcraft)
Developed and published
Ultima (series):
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (1981)
Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress (1982)
Ultima III: Exodus (1983)
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988)
Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990)
Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire (1990)
Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams (1991)
Ultima VII: The Black Gate (1992)
Forge of Virtue (1992)
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle (1993)
The Silver Seed (1993)
Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994)
Ultima Online (1997)
Ultima IX: Ascension (1999)
Wing Commander (series):
Wing Commander I (1990)
The Secret Missions (1990)
The Secret Missions 2: Crusade (1991)
Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (1991)
Speech Accessory Pack (1991)
Special Operations 1 (1991)
Special Operations 2 (1992)
Wing Commander: Privateer (1993)
Righteous Fire (1994)
Wing Commander Academy (1993)
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994)
Wing Commander: Armada (1994)
Proving Grounds (1994)
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996)
Wing Commander: Prophecy (1997)
Secret Ops (1998)
Caverns of Callisto (1983)
Autoduel (1985)
Moebius: The Orb of Celestial Harmony (1985)
Ogre (1986)
Ring Quest (1986)
2400 A.D. (1987)
Omega (1989)
Tangled Tales: The Misadventures of a Wizard's Apprentice (1989)
Windwalker (1989)
Space Rogue (1989)
Bad Blood (1990)
Strike Commander Speech Accessory Pack(1993)
Strike Commander (1993)
Pacific Strike (1994)
Wings of Glory (1994)
CyberMage: Darklight Awakening (1995)
BioForge (1995)
Crusader: No Remorse (1995)
Crusader: No Regret (1996)
Transland (1996)
Privateer 2: The Darkening (1996)
Jane's AH-64D Longbow (1996)
Jane's Longbow 2 (1997)
Times of Lore (1988)
Knights of Legend (1989)
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992)
Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds (1993)
Shadowcaster (1993)
System Shock (1994)
Abuse (1996)
Crusader: No Survivors (cancelled multiplayer expansion for Crusader: No Regret) (TBA)
Crusader 3: No Escape / Crusader: No Mercy / Crusader II (TBA)
Worlds of Ultima: Arthurian Legends (TBA)
Ultima Worlds Online: Origin (TBA)
Harry Potter Online (TBA)
Jane's A-10 (TBA)
Privateer 3 (TBA)
Strike Team (TBA)
Wing Commander VII (TBA)
Ultima X: Odyssey (2004)
