Richard Garriott Wins NCSoft Suit

I'm not sure Richard Garriott has any relevance to us anymore but he won't mind - he's just won USD$24M in a suit against NCSoft. From Edge Online:

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.

More information.

Manipulated? what does that mean exactly?

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Manipulated? what does that mean exactly?

They threatened to kill his dog…
No seriously, US law is crazy.

manipulated is a pretty vague word. Since he won his case so quickly without even reaching a settlement I'm going to assume he had good evidence - that contract must have been pretty clear.

—

A little research makes this even more fascinating. Not only did Chris Chung of NCSoft NA force him out against his will, the whole purpose of doing so was to force him into cashing in those same stock options. Chung tried to spin it as a voluntary resignation which in no way it was.

Garriot is using the now popular argument about the stock's value compared to possibly future or past value. Its no wonder that Garriot had no interest in leaving with those options on the table (it reminds me of the Conan O'Brien thing).

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/05/…-stock-options

Also claims that Chung did this while Garriot was in space, which was partly an NCSoft publicity stunt. This sounds like some made for tv sci fi movie.

I had thought that Garriot was merely a contractor for the maker of Horizons and that he had been forced out of his own company, Destination Games. But it turns out he was a full employee of NCSoft - and it looks like they own the rights to Garriot's old company (get it Orgin..Destination).

-
further, Destination Games was moved in 2008 from its Austin offices to Seattle and renamed NCSoft West. I'm not sure if we ever reported that (didn't usually read the MMORPG news).

cool - a copy of the original complaint

http://cdn2.libsyn.com/gamepolitics/…2ee2f98da80dda

I'm rather surprised that there actually exists a web site called "Game Politics".

So this acctually means he probably still want to makes games after all… and not engage in "other new found interests"