Company

Origin Systems

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.


58 Games
Bad Blood
Bad Blood

Dec 31, 1990

Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Ultima VI: The False Prophet

Jun 01, 1990

Wing Commander
Wing Commander

Jan 01, 1990

Tangled Tales
Tangled Tales

Dec 31, 1989

Omega
Omega

Dec 31, 1989

Windwalker
Windwalker

Dec 31, 1989

Space Rogue
Space Rogue

Oct 01, 1989

Ultima: Quest of the Avatar
Ultima: Quest of the Avatar

Sep 20, 1989

Knights of Legend
Knights of Legend

Aug 19, 1989

Times of Lore
Times of Lore

Dec 31, 1988

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny

Mar 01, 1988

2400 A.D.
2400 A.D.

Dec 31, 1987

Ultima: Exodus
Ultima: Exodus

Oct 09, 1987

Autoduel
Autoduel

Dec 31, 1985

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Nov 01, 1985

Caverns of Callisto
Caverns of Callisto

Dec 31, 1983

Ultima III: Exodus
Ultima III: Exodus

Aug 23, 1983

Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress
Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress

Aug 24, 1982

Ultima
Ultima

Jun 01, 1981

Ultima Worlds Online: Origin
Ultima Worlds Online: Origin

TBD

Pacific Strike
Pacific Strike

TBD

Ultima X: Odyssey
Ultima X: Odyssey

TBD