Wed, Dec 07, 2011 | 23:33 GMT

Richard Garriott’s next game is Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale

Legendary Ultima designer Richard Garriott has finally unveiled Portalarium’s latest project, which he once described as an “Ultima-style game for the social space“.

It’s a Facebook game about going to garage sales.

As the announcement gleefully points out, Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale debuts a whole new, untapped category of social games, fulfilling Garriott’s promise that the project is “not a game about farming, it’s not a game about operating a shop, it’s not a game about managing your pets“.

The eccentric creator wants to tap into the “collectible craze”.

“It’s been fueled by cable television programs such as American Pickers, Pawn Stars and Storage Wars,” he said.

“By the broadest definition, this is an unregulated multi-billion dollar industry in the real world. Ultimate Collector spans the gamut of that entire activity and is a way for treasure and bargain searching people to transfer that enthusiasm – that passion for the ultimate hunt – into the social network space.”

In the course of the game, players create an avatar and a home, and set out to collect … things. Examples include “antique radios, purple stuffed toys, home décor, books, artwork, historical weapons or just a set of tools”, and the game boasts “thousands” of them. Some may need to be repaired or authenticated to unlock their true worth. Items are based on real-world collectibles and the game links out to information sources to help players learn about the real thing.

Players hold garage sales, and can promote them with various special items, but you can also check out estate sales, markets, pawn shops, storage units, auctions and even national retailers, which will have their own stores in the game.

No launch date has been set, although Portalarium promises news in the next few weeks. You can sign up for the beta, though.

12 comment-trail-alt Posted in: Free-to-Play, Social
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12 comments

#1

Mythor
07/12/11, 11:44 pm

What the hell, man?

#2

Ireland Michael
07/12/11, 11:57 pm

I can’t decide if this is utterly stupid… or pure genius.

Possibly both.

#3

DSB
08/12/11, 12:42 am

Isn’t “American Pickers” the biggest show on American television?

I’m leaning towards genius in a big way. Or at least genius to the point of being almost certain to “collect” a sizeable mountain of moolah.

#4

Colin Gallacher
08/12/11, 1:17 am

@3 I don’t really think so. It’s getting around half of something like Castle at around 5 million. And that’s figures from April.

#5

DSB
08/12/11, 1:30 am

@4 My bad. It was the most watched new show in 2010, which doesn’t neccesarily mean a lot. Antique shows usually do pretty well though.

#6

endgame
08/12/11, 9:48 am

so which of the idiots around here had a good opinion about this guy? he just wasted a whole lot of money that could have been spent by NC Soft for one of the things they make that are actually games instead of this piece of “social” s**t. n1 Garriot and fans. u truly r making a contribution to this world.

#7

OrbitMonkey
08/12/11, 9:58 am

^ Easy guy, NO videogames makes a contribution to the world, other than to make money and provide throwaway entertainment.

#8

silkvg247
08/12/11, 10:08 am

This is the type of game I could get addicted to.. however, if it’s micro transaction I’ll stay well clear. I don’t let myself get hooked into those kinds of games, for good reason!

#9

Auction Man
08/12/11, 3:13 pm

I think it’s smart. The cat is out of the bag on this whole thing and people are making a lot of money. I did some research and found this site, http://www.theartofpicking.com and got some great tips. I’m going to try it!

#10

silkvg247
08/12/11, 3:16 pm

Gotta love bots. :)

#11

DSB
08/12/11, 3:44 pm

@8 It obviously will be.

#12

redfish
10/12/11, 5:42 pm

This is not, as the article says, what Garriott has billed as an “Ultima-style game for the social space”. He’s said its sort of a test bed for the Ultima project he’s working on, which will involve things like role-playing and questing, but where questing will ultimately end up being about retrieving objects that can be used for different purposes — as is normally the case in RPGs. So this is to test out the “collecting” aspect of that game.

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