Richard Garriott says the Ultima copyrights return to him in 2027. He sold Origin Systems, and the series with it, to Electronic Arts in 1992. The last mainline game was Ultima IX in 1999.

US copyright law lets an author terminate a transfer 35 years later. No money changes hands. The author has to give a year's notice. Garriott says he wrote to EA in April and told them he was taking the copyrights back. They wrote back that they know the law and will act accordingly. He says the two sides are now in active talks about whether there is anything to do together before the date.

What he says he could do, once the copyrights are his, is re-release the earlier Ultimas or make a sequel. Neither is a project yet. He has most of a year to decide what the return actually means.

Source: VGC

Photo: Richard Garriott at the 2018 Game Developers Conference, by Game Developers Conference, CC BY 2.5, resized. Wikimedia Commons.