I absolutely love Billy Maher’s body of work. He’s been writing about older games and software in general since 2011; it’s always solid, always an enjoyable read, and always providing new perspectives even on stuff I thought I knew well. (Maher also goes by The Digital Antiquarian.)

I linked to his work once before, and today I wanted to share a recent essay about the disaster that was the 1999’s game Ultima IX.

I have never played any Ultima games, but this felt a gripping read.

[…] Richard Garriott, the motivating force behind Ultima from first to last, has done his level best to write the aforementioned last out of history entirely. Ultima IX is literally never mentioned at all in his autobiography.

But, much though I may be tempted to, I can’t similarly sweep under the rug the eminently unsatisfactory denouement to the Ultima series. I have to tell you how this unfortunate last gasp fits into the broader picture of the series’s life and times, and do what I can to explain to you how it turned out so darn awful.

In some sense software projects always fail for one of the few obvious reasons, and it’s just details that change. Here, the details are fascinating. The Ultima series started in the very early 1980s as a series of small games made by one person, and ended ignominiously as an almost-AAA title rushed to market that no longer wanted it:

They met the deadline — what other choice did they have? — but the playable game eluded them.

It’s not just the deadline. There’s also a studio past its prime, a fascinating but deeply flawed leader, the market forces and trends, and perhaps even some enshittification long before the word’s invention.

It is also a story of the first two decades of the videogame industry itself. It happened so long ago that it almost feels like a fairytale itself, but one with a sad ending.

Maher also lists some learnings that are universal enough to apply to a lot of other projects:

• No game can be all things to all people.
• Development teams need a clear leader with a clear vision.
• Checking off a list of bullet points sent down from marketing does not a good game make.
• When the design goals do change radically, it’s often better to throw everything out and start over from scratch than to keep retro-fitting bits and pieces onto the Frankenstein’s monster.
• It’s better to release a good game late than a bad game on time.

And, in case you want more, here are handy links to Maher’s all Ultima essays: I (3 parts!), II (3 parts), III, IV, Multima, V, VI, Worlds, Underworld (2 parts), VII, and VIII. I have no personally read them in order, and I’m better for it.