At the end of 2008, Ultima creator Richard Garriott (a.k.a. "Lord British") left NCsoft following seven years with the online publisher. As it turns out, Garriott was actually terminated and didn't leave voluntarily. He later decided to sue NCsoft for breach of contract and fraud. Garriott claimed that he lost millions of dollars when NCsoft pushed him into selling his stock options in just 90 days; his contract with NCsoft, however, specified that he had a 10-year period to sell his stock if the company were to ever fire him.
So now it's been revealed [thanks Statesman] that a federal court has awarded Garriott $28 million following a trial that lasted three and a half days. Garriott has apparently asked the court to award him $47 million, but the amount granted him does cover the profit that he lost out on by having to exercise his 400,000 shares so quickly.
"I am extremely pleased with the jury's decision," Garriott said in a statement. "The facts were clear that my departure from NCsoft was not voluntary. I am very pleased with the final award."
As for NCsoft, Laura Merritt, a lawyer representing the MMO publisher, said the South Korean company "will be considering all options for next steps in the legal process."
Earlier this year, Garriott launched his new company Portalarium, which seeks to leverage the social games boom. The company's first title is a Texas hold ‘em card game called Sweet @$! Poker.
2 Comments
July 30, 2010
Well, that'll pay for his space flight!
July 30, 2010
Well I am glad he got paid according to his contract, his game was so bad I had a hard time playing it just during the free period for more than 1 or 2 hours. (was only that long because I could not believe his game would be so so bad) Which is why he was fired meaning he breached the contract as well so in that sense getting paid to fail is kind of strange.