Sheri Graner Ray was distressed recently when she saw that someone was selling artifacts from The Origin Museum on eBay.
The Origin Museum was formerly run by Joe Garrity. It’s been sold now and is in a third set of hands, and Graner Ray, a longtime game developer, said she was worried what would become of the museum.
But Dominik Reichardt, the owner of the collection, said in an email to GamesBeat that Origin fans should not worry that he is selling the entire collection on eBay. He noted that the prior owners sold off pieces of the collection themselves and he is selling off duplicates of items in his collection.
Still, there’s some emotion about museum items being sold. While Origin shut down long ago, it is still cherished by those who worked there, and some of them like Graner Ray are worried it is being sold piece by piece on eBay.
“While I understand it’s a business deal and there were no written contracts or anything, Joe did personally give me his word on several specific items that they would remain with him and would remain confidential,” Graner Ray said in a Facebook post. “In addition, I sent him several very rare items with the understanding they would remain with him or be returned to me. I am heartbroken.”
She further recommended to anyone who has Origin memorabilia to send it over to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. She believes “they’re a legitimate organization with an amazing collection of game industry history,” and she will eventually send her archives there.
But Reichardt said there isn’t a need for such worry and he noted the museum materials came into his hands in a normal business deal. Graner Ray said that she has not been in touch with Reichardt.
“I agree that games, both digital and physical, should be preserved. My efforts with Exult (a game engine aimed at preserving Origin games) and in the broader collector community are directed toward this end,” Reichardt said.
Origins of Origin
Richard Garriott and his brother Robert started Origin Systems in Austin, Texas in March, 1983. It became known for its series of famous video games such as the Ultima role-playing games and the Wing Commander sci-fi flight sim series. That series was my favorite, and I bought a 486SX-based PC from a friend of mine when he showed me Wing Commander in his college dorm room.
The brothers and their father Owen, an astronaut and engineer, started the company along with programmer Chuck Bueche because they had trouble collecting money owed to Richard for his games. By 1988, the company had 15 developers in Austin and 35 more in New Hampshire.
In 1992, Electronic Arts bought it for $35 million in stock. By 1996, EA had expanded Origin to more than 300 employees. In 1997, it release one of the earliest graphics-based massively multiplayer online role-playing games, Ultima Online. After EA canceled much of Origin’s slate, Richard Garriott left Origin to start Destination Games in 2000. EA shut down Origin altogether in February 2004.
Garrity’s museum
According to an interview he gave to Rock Paper Scissors in 2018, Garrity was a fan and he loved games like Ultima IV. He started the Origin Museum in 1999, when he lived in Virginia. Over the decades, former Origin staff donated tons of documents and source code to the museum. It had artifacts like the collection of continuity polaroids from the production of Wing Commander: Prophecy and the much more. Garrity noted there was original game documentation and advertising proofs.
There was an original copy of Akalabeth (Ultima 0), with a certificate of authenticity saying it was a copy made by Richard Garriott in 1979.
Garrity almost met Richard Garriott, but sadly Garriott was fired just before Garrity visited. Garriott later invited them to visit and they spent a few hours hanging out at his house. At some point, Garrity closed the museum to the public and showed the collection online on the Big Box PC Game Collectors Facebook page. Eventually, Garriott and Garrity did manage to meet.
How it came to Reichardt
Garrity gets credit for building the collection and maintaining it for many years. But he did sell some of the collection in auctions. And a few years ago, Garrity sold the entire collection to Jordan Carroll, Reichardt said. Carroll, who ran a digital collectibles business, began listing some of the items a couple of years ago on eBay, according to Facebook posts and Reichardt’s recollection.
In May 2023, Reichardt agreed to buy the remaining entirety of the collection from Carroll. Reichardt said he has no personal connection to Origin and started out as a big fan, with his favorite game being Ultima VII. He was part of the Exult development team since 2000. Exult is a re-creation of the Ultima VII game engine for modern systems (including Android and iOS).
“At some point I wanted to have one box of each Ultima game, that grew into a collecting hobby, looking for more versions of the games and eventually also collecting other Origin titles,” he said.
Reichardt said that Garrity evidently came up on the collection when Origin closed their Austin office, and no one else wanted to store the items.
“On the one hand, people felt that the memorabilia, dev docs, etc, were too precious to be just discarded. At the same time, where to store it? Joe was willing to take it and keep it. So, if not for Joe, a lot of these things would be gone. Poof! Forever,” Reichardt said.
But Reichardt said that while Garrity referred to it as a “museum,” it was more like a collection and a “terrible one at that.” He noted that Garrity chain smoked in the basement where the items were stored, and the reek is still present. He also kept items unsorted in boxes.
“He started selling items years ago. He sold some things to me, and I know he sold to other collectors,” Reichardt said. “Further, some of the items that had been catalogued were not in the recent sale, and so I suspect those were sold before as well.”
Reichardt noted that Carroll had also sold a lot of pieces, with sales happening bi-weekly. The remainder of the collection that Reichardt now owns includes movie scene props, games, developer documents, the Origin in-house newsletter (Point of Origin), pre-production cardboards for the manuals, extra copies of the manuals included in the games, posters, and T-Shirts. Reichardt said he has sold various items, including games that were in the collection but had nothing to do with Origin.
As for his plans, Riechardt said, “I want to share these items and hope that seeing them will bring joy to people. That said, it’s a big undertaking. My original collection had surpassed, in some ways, what Joe had collected. With the added material, it will require significant effort. I’m in talks with a museum that would like to host a temporary exhibit. It’s not definite yet, but a real possibility.”
He added, “I think the Strong Museum is going in the right direction. The computer games museums I visited in Europe so far are mostly geared at giving an overview of the gaming history and having ways of visitors to experience the games. Preservation of the actual game boxes & memorabilia is an afterthought and sometimes executed very poorly or even horribly.”
Awaiting an outcome
As for Graner Ray’s concerns, Reichardt said, “That everything was sold off is surely a huge disappointment. I have no idea what agreement Sheri and Joe had. So part of Sheri’s reaction, urging fellow developers to pass their memorabilia off to museums is the best advice.”
Fans of Origin have said they’ll be watching closely. Part of their concern is that some people like Graner Ray said they provided the material under condition that it either not be sold or it would be returned under certain circumstances. Those people think it should be in a museum like the Strong National Museum of Play. But there is always the practical question of how much material should be in a museum versus how much should be in the hands of private collectors or just lost as junk.
This question may come up repeatedly across the game industry, as we’re seeing a wide array of game studios shut down among the current funk in the game business. It’s great that private collectors can keep memories alive, but they often incur big storage costs to do so.
Reichardt said he has had initial conversations to create a temporary exhibit at a museum, but there is no agreement yet.
As for Garriott? He said in an email to GamesBeat, “I know the collection well. Its been a premier collection for many years! If it ever needed a home, I would give it one. But, I have many of the items myself, and am not a “buyer” for more. I hope sometime, The Origin Museum, and my own collection could be merged at a proper museum.”
Reichardt said he hasn’t been in touch with Garriott yet, though he met him once. I introduced them.