The Hatchet
After EA bought Origin, authority for the new division fell to the president of EA Worldwide Studios, Don Mattrick.
A Canadian from the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, Mattrick wasn't just a suit; he could claim seniority over many Origin coders, having programmed (with Jeff Sember) his first published game, Evolution for the Apple II, in 1982 at age 17. Mattrick joined EA in 1991 when EA paid him $13 million for his company, Distinctive Software, maker of edutainment and sports games such as the Test Drive and HardBall series. Distinctive became EA Canada, and as its Executive VP and General Manager, Mattrick led it brilliantly from strength to strength until 1997, when EA CEO Lawrence Probst III promoted him to Worldwide.
Once EA started exerting a tighter grip on Origin, Mattrick pushed teams to stay on schedule (an insistence that badly damaged Ultima VIII, according to Garriott). Mattrick killed many projects because they had spun out of control, and cancelled other projects for reasons staffers still consider mysterious. Some staffers believe (though not for attribution) Mattrick undermined Origin because it competed for resources with Distinctive's new incarnation, EA Canada. This view arose particularly because of the way Mattrick managed Origin's late-'90s move into online games.
This move was not his idea. Originally there was no money in the Origin budget for Ultima Online. Garriott went directly to Probst to ask for $150K in seed money to kick off the project. Without Probst's approval, UO would have been delayed, maybe never started at all. Garriott said in a 2004 GameSpy interview, "Ultima Online was kind of a red-headed stepchild during development. Everyone at EA was focused on Ultima IX, which was seen as more of a sure thing. Nobody at EA really understood what Ultima Online was all about." But after the beta test drew 50,000 volunteers, EA made a sharp reversal. They insisted Garriott shelve Ultima IX and work only on UO.
Launched in 1997, UO's unheralded success (it peaked at about 250,000 subscribers) kicked off the MMORPG industry and roused EA's interest in online games. Origin presented EA a suite of ideas for followups: a Flash Gordon-style space opera, a martial arts game using collectible electronic cards, online soccer and more. None of the proposals were sequels, spinoffs or licenses.
But EA, which sold sports and licensed games by the millions, was used to releasing sequels every year. The corporate office commissioned Wing Commander Online, Privateer Online (based on the 1993 space sim), and the licensed Harry Potter Online. And, inevitably, Ultima Online 2, which the marketing department retitled Ultima Worlds Online: Origin.
Staffers argued against doing UO2, because it would compete with UO. But Mattrick greenlighted it in 1999, cancelled Wing Commander Online and assigned its team to UO2. A bunch of guys who liked spaceships, reassigned to animate monsters? They quit six months later, and UO2 had to start over. The game never really recovered.
In March 2001 Mattrick cancelled UO2. Among his reasons: UO2 would compete with the original UO. (EA repeated this story precisely with Ultima X: Odyssey, greenlighted 2002, cancelled 2004.)
Business Matters
Privateer Online: cancelled in 2000 to avoid competition with EA's big bet, Earth and Beyond. The core PO team moved to Verant (later Sony Online Entertainment) and created Star Wars Galaxies.
Harry Potter Online, cancelled at Origin 2001, assigned as Hogwarts Online to EA studio New Pencil, cancelled 2005.
Transland (a surrealist game), Silverheart (an RPG with design contributions from Michael Moorcock), Firehorse (Hong Kong John Woo-style full motion video), mainstream RTS Technosaur: cancelled, cancelled, cancelled....
"The business was changing radically, in ways an independent developer/publisher like Origin probably wasn't equipped to handle," says Spector. "We were becoming a blockbuster business, like the movies. When Origin's revenue and profits took a hit and EA gave us a very... aggressive budget number to hit, it was mostly my projects that got killed - I wasn't happy about that. But what were they going to do? Kill Richard Garriott projects? Chris Roberts projects?"
