Since people are blogging about games, specifically the entire series of Ultima games, it seems only appropriate to hear from Richard Garriott, Lord British himself. Richard Garriott: The Escapist Interview reveals all!
Or maybe just a bit. Consider it a complement to your Lord British interview collection.
He refers to the games before Ultima 4 as essentially projects to learn the mechanics of making games. If you find that your first projects are frustratingly simple yet difficult to make, perhaps you’ll feel better to know that it was about par with one of the big names in game development. He spends a good deal of time talking about his philosophy behind his latest MMO, Tabula Rasa. If you missed his preview at GDC, check it out at GameAlmighty.com.
In the Escapist interview, he goes on to talk about his new project in a way that makes me think that he is a believer that games can be art:
The goal is not to evangelize about one side or the other of any of these issues; the goal is to make people sit back and notice the ramifications of these decisions and to provoke thought. I’m a big believer in challenging people’s assumptions.