Appeals court affirms Richard Garriott's lawsuit win against NCsoft

@Ranxerox

lol! i had the same thought

nice one

@Lenn

+1^

@Cannyone legally 2 courts disagree with you and ncsoft. They signed the contract, they tried to weasel out of it now it bit them in the ass. Plus from what i have read they are as much responsible for the Tabula Rasas failures as garriott it. Too many cooks in the kitchen basically. Bad management setup.

@Cannyone I agree completely that Garriott did nothing to deserve the millions in salary that NCSoft contracted to pay him and his brother on Tabula Rasa, but that's the fault of NCSoft for being stupid enough to hire him in the first place.

The NCSoft CEO was ridiculously blind thinking that an old-school developer like Garriott could produce a game for the modern MMO market where the tolerance for flawed, traditional game mechanics is far lower than it was back in the days of UO or even EQ.

But instead they agreed in writing to pay him gobs of cash with obviously no clauses based on the quality of the work or product. They wrote him a blank check and then they tried to take it back.

NCSoft needs to face the consequences for their incredibly poor management decision rather than trying to find a way out of it. Let this be a lesson to them and anyone else dense enough to give Garriott millions to develop a game.

@Cannyone

The issue is not that he did not do his job. The issue that when he started to work for NCsoft he had come to an agreement with them and that agreement was that he would be given stock. Think about it like this in order to attract the talent a lot of companies give their execs a lot of benefits and perks when they hire them. Now the stock was his unless he voluntarily left the company (which he did not). The whole case is about that, when NCSoft said that he was leaving the company instead of being fired he lost his shares and loose the money he had no intention of giving up. So the whole legal process started. Some lawyer at NCsoft is currently working in the fast food industry because he fumble up this one because I would like to think NCsoft would sink that low as a company.

@(Unverified) You need to check **your** facts. Garriott was the only TR lead left after numerous Koreans including Jake Song got fed up with him and left NCSoft.

Garriott explains it himself back at GDC 2006 and Gamespy came away from his presentation saying how development of TR was "a testament to the amount of faith that NCSoft has in the man and his vision. "
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/tabula-rasa/698217p1.html

An NCSoft insider backs up this impression saying in 2007 ``One of our annual events is to listen to Kim (NCSoft CEO) saying: `This year, we will finally release Tabula Rasa in the market,' in his New Year speech. I heard it four times since 2004,'' said a company insider last week. ``The only person in the company who have trust in the Garriotts is the CEO,'' another said in 2006."

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/biz_view.asp?newsIdx=10753&categoryCode=123

Finally look at the development of GW2 and ArenaNet. NCSoft's MO is not to micromanage their American subsidiaries . Their MO is to throw support behind them and let them do their own thing.

With ArenaNet, it looks like it will pay off. With Garriott, it was a horrible mistake.

@FrostPaw Welcome to the world of failing upward and golden parachutes.

@FrostPaw
Unfortunately this is a business problem, not specific to MMOs. It happens in many industries.

@FrostPaw NcSoft's own problem they caused the problem by making a deal and then backing out of it.

@nimzy He actually talked to me at this last GDCO about his next space trip. Something about doing like a coasting, semi-flying space drop, etc etc. Sounded like one of a few attempts of his coming up. I asked him if he had a bullwhip, since he seemed like Indiana Jones. He actually had, and knew to use it. Nice guy, funny.

yfrog.com/mefkgmpj

Beau

@Kamokazi

I was thinking that might be a great settlement offer.