** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall ** March 22, 2016, in the Linda Hall Library Main Reading Room Dr. Richard Garriott de Cayeux is a founding father of the videogame industry. He is credited with the creation of the now ubiquitous term “avatar” for one’s virtual self, and the entire category of massively multiplayer games, where players connect together in a vast virtual world, often referred to as MMORPG’s. He authored the famed and very successful Ultima Series and has built three leading gaming companies: Origin Systems (sold to Electronic Arts), Destination Games (sold to NCsoft) and most recently Portalarium, where he is building “Shroud of the Avatar,” the successor to his previous works. He has been inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame and received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers Choice Awards. As a principal shaper of commercial human spaceflight, Richard co-founded Space Adventures which remains the only company to arrange space flights for private citizens. He is the sixth private astronaut to have lived aboard the International Space Station, and as the son of a NASA astronaut he became the first second-generation astronaut. He remains a key leader in civilian and commercial space as an investor and Board member of institutions such as the X-Prize Foundation, Space Adventures, Planetary Power, Planetary Resources and Escape Dynamics. Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.

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