Ultima's Richard Garriott: FarmVille's interface is 'pretty @#$% clunky'

Port Casino Poker
Zing! In an interview with Gamasutra, Richard Garriott, also known as Lord British of Ultima Online (and Portalarium co-founder), had some choice words for Zynga's most popular social games: FarmVille, FrontierVille and CityVille. While Garriott had nothing but praise for FrontierVille, led by industry veteran Brian Reynolds, he told Gamasutra:

    So when I looked at FarmVille. It's super popular. You go play it and you go, 'Wow, this UI is actually pretty damn clunky.' It's actually hard to use, it's confusing to use, so if I was a beginning user, a light user I'm going like, 'Wow, it's just not that elegant.'

    CityVille has surpassed FarmVille, even in popularity -- which was the most popular game in the world. But I look at it and go, 'It's actually too much for me.' Literally, there is so much going on the screen concurrently; I can't keep up. I mean there are stars bouncing around and things to click on and, literally, I find the game overwhelming.

Garriott went on to conclude that, because a majority of social gamers interact with interfaces similar to FarmVille and CityVille (and more than likely those exact games), Facebook gamers will eventually converge with the hardcore crowd.

Garriott also revealed in the interview that his first major social game, Ultimate Collector, will release sometime this summer across several platforms including Facebook, Hi5, iPhone and even iPad. Then, Garriott will focus on Lord British's debut on Facebook in Lord British's New Britannia (a working title), which he has yet to reveal a release date for. Portalarium recently released it's first game to test the waters, Port Casino Poker.

[Image Credit: Slide to Play]

Do you agree with what Garriott had to say about Zynga's games? Do you think he'll succeed where he thinks some social games have failed?

Ultima creator Richard Garriott runs social game studio with ... a robot?

At this point, with a guy who flew into space and once ran the craziest haunted house in the nation within his house, I guess you should expect these things. The Huffington Post reports that Richard Garriott, creator of the famed Ultima PC game series and co-founder of social game studio Portalarium, manages his Austin, Texas-based studio remotely ... with a robot. Seriously.

Since July of this year, Garriott has conversed with Portalarium's 25 employees in meetings and casually (the robot is a mobile, remote-controlled machine equipped with cameras and microphones) from his New York home. According to The Huffington Post, all he needs is a broadband connection, his laptop, a microphone and two cameras to make it work.

"When I'm up north, I log in in the morning and can meander over to anyone's desk and really be a part of the casual conversations that are so essential to our work," Garriott told The Huffington Post. "Sometimes I feel like a spy, but fundamentally it feels like I am really there." But the game industry veteran didn't buy the $15,000 Anybot QB solely for this job.

When Garriott married his wife earlier this year in the spring, he purchased the robot to ensure that his mother could participate in the ceremony and reception, which took place in Paris. The game designer strapped a cardboard cut-out of his elderly mother to the robot, gave her the controls from her Las Vegas home and it was as if she was there. Hey, at least we now know how dedicated Garriott is to Portalarium's upcoming crown jewel, Lord British's New Britannia (and his mum).

[Via Kotaku]

[Image Credit: Beef and Pie Productions]

What do you expect will come of Garriott's reportedly ambitious social game? Do you think the designer can strike gold here like he did back in the '80s and '90s on PCs?