Ultima creator Richard Garriott wins $28 million lawsuit against NCsoft Corp.

Ultima and Tabula Rasa creator Richard Garriott has been awarded $28 million following a lawsuit looking into his departure from MMO publisher NCsoft.

In 2008 Garriott announced plans to leave the Korea-based firm to pursue “new interests” having just returned from a trip to the International Space Station. However, he alleged that he was subsequently fired and manipulated into exercising his company stock options quickly while the market was severely depressed, costing him millions of dollars. Under the terms of an agreement with NCsoft, Garriott should have had ten years to exercise the options if he was fired.

While Garriott had asked for $47 million, a jury at a US District Court in Austin said that his $28 million award covered the profit that he said he’d lost, according to Statesman.com.

“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.”

Garriott was the founder of Origin Systems and Destination Games (now NCsoft Austin).

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