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Garriott de Cayeux

About The Author

Dr. Richard Garriott de Cayeux is an icon in the computer gaming field, having created games for more than 40 years. He is the father of “Massively Multiplayer Online Games” and also credited with the creation of the gaming terms “Avatar” and “Shard” (for divisions of servers). He and his games, of which the best known is the Ultima Series, have been inducted into the computer gaming hall of fame. He received the industry lifetime achievement award, been inducted into two industry hall of fames and has been named a “Living Game God.” He has built three leading gaming companies: Origin Systems/Electronic Arts, Destination Games/NCsoft and most recently Portalarium, which publishes his most recent work “Shroud of the Avatar”.

Richard is also a principle shaper of commercial human spaceflight. He co-founded Zero G Corp, The X Prize Foundation and Space Adventures which remains the first company to arrange space flights for private citizens. He is the sixth private astronaut to have lived aboard the International Space Station. As the son of a NASA astronaut, he became the first second-generation astronaut. He remains a key leader in civilian and commercial space. Richard also served on the NASA Advisory Council. From his space activities, he has been inducted into the Environmental Hall of Fame and the Ham Radio Hall of Fame. He also received the 2009 National Space Society’s Space Explorer Pioneer Award, the Aerospace Medical Association’s 2009 SNFS Lovelace Award, and the 2009 Arthur C Clarke Award for Individual Achievement.

As an explorer, Richard has traveled around the globe, including through the jungles of Africa, the Amazon, the North and South Poles, the deep seas (Titanic, hydrothermal vents and deep wrecks), as well as orbiting the earth aboard the International Space Station. Through all these explorations, Richard has worked to advance scientific understanding and environmental responsibility.

Although he dropped out of the University of Texas to start his first gaming company, he has since received an honorary doctorate degree from Queen Mary University. Richard’s non-profit and philanthropic works include serving on the boards of The Explorers Club, The X Prize Foundation and The Challenger Center for Science Education. Richard is married to Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux and they have two children—a daughter Kinga and son Ronin.

Books by Garriott de Cayeux