Richard Garriott clarifies his 'most game designers really just suck' statements

Richard Garriott made some serious waves yesterday with some fairly inflammatory statements in an interview with PC Gamer. Citing a few exceptions like Chris Roberts, Garriott said, "I've met virtually no one in our industry who I think is close to as good a game designer as I am. I'm not saying that because I think I'm so brilliant. What I'm saying is, I think most game designers really just suck, and I think there's a reason why."

This statement, and others like it that were delivered in the interview, caused no small amount of backlash. Today, Garriott posted a response (titled Words taken out of context) in an attempt to "clarify" his words. He cites a lack of context and "broader real time discussion" for the simplification and inaccurate representations of his statements. "By no means," he says, "did I intend to disparage others who have led the many great games of each era in gaming history." He then went on to re-tread some of his ideas about the difficulty about being a designer versus being an artist or programmer. "Sadly," he concludes, "I really do think that most people who get into design roles on a team have no more skills at design than the programmers and artists."

Lest we do him the disservice of taking his words out of context, you can read his full rebuttal at the Portalarium website.