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Whether you love Richard Garriott or not, his contributions to the gaming industry are well-known by most gamers and have helped pave the way for RPGs and MMOs alike. The space-faring developer and Ultima series creator has been tapped as the Keynote speaker at this year's LOGIN Conference set to take place on May 16th-18th.

Garriott deliver his keynote speech on May 17th and will talk about the "Third Grand Era of Games" and how he believes the next generation of games can be bettered by learning from the generations that preceded it. Garriot posted a sample of his message in today's press release about the event.

"We are now in the midst of a new era of gaming, defined by cheap or free-to-play, virally spread, casually begun gameplay," said Garriott, a 2006 inductee to the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame. "Each grand era has grown the gaming market tenfold! Solo player games in the 80s and 90s sold to millions, MMOs are reaching to tens of millions; the gaming industry is dawning on - at long last - a truly global audience of both genders and all ages. What lessons of history are useful? What truly new challenges await us? What will casual online games look like in five years?"

The LOGIN Conference is a conference for developers in the online gaming industry hosted annually in Washington state. The conference brings together some of the brightest minds in the industry for two days of panel discussions, roundtable talks, lectures and more.

Check out the full press release after the break.