Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Richard Garriott helped mainstream MMORPGs with Ultima Online, but Lord British thinks the games are now too big of a hassle. In a new Gamasutra interview, Richard “Lord British” Garriott stated that he doesn’t play MMORPGs that often anymore, explaining that there are accessibility issues with the genre. Garriott instead opts to spend his time playing iPhone titles, which isn’t surprising given that his new development studio Portalarium is working hard to bring an Ultima Online-like social experience to players with games like Lord British's New Britannia and Ultimate Collector.

While some people may not agree with Garriott’s view on social games being the future, it’s clear in the interview that Garriott does and he’s banking on it for future designs. Garriott is also counting on that impulse buying nature of some players by utilizing a free-to-play model.

"The reason why I play so many games on this platform is because it's so easy, and two to five bucks is an impulse purchase. I don't even think of a price that I'm paying to play these games, even though in total, in a month, I pay a lot more for iPhone games than I ever did in PC games because I just buy a lot more of them. And so that's fine," he says.

Garriott certainly makes some good points on distribution, but do you think he’s right about the evolution of online gaming? Check out Garriott’s full interview at Gamasutra and let us know what you think.