Ultima creator raises $7 million for mobile games

Richard Garriott, the man who once caused a furore with the Ultima games, has raised 7 million dollars with his new company Portalarium from a number of investors. Portalarium will use the money for the development of two mobile games.

Portalarium will use the money to complete the development of Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale, the first game from the American studio, which will be released for iOS and Facebook. The money is also intended for the development of an RPG that is only known under the working title ‘Ultimate RPG / New Britannia’ and will be released for ‘mobile platforms’.

Founded in 2009 by Richard Garriott, the studio has received $7 million from investors such as m8 Capital, FF Angel and BHV Venture Capital. Garriott himself has also invested money in the company.

Garriott, who has been known as Richard Garriott de Cayeux since his marriage in 2011, has been making games since the late 1970s. In the 1980s, the American caused a furore with the Ultima RPGs that he made with Origin Systems, which he founded. His nickname, Lord British, also stems from this period. Garriott sold the studio to Electronic Arts in 1992. A few years later, Garriott was the first to use the term “massively multiplayer online role-playing game” when he worked with Origin on Ultima Online, one of the first mmogs. Garriott was to deliver mmog Tabula Rasa in 2007, but that was not a success. A year later, Garriott made headlines for going on a space trip.