Destination Games was an American

computer game development Video game development (or gamedev) is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC ...

company created in April 2000 by

Richard Garriott Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux (''né'' Garriott; born July 4, 1961) is an American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut. Although both his parents were American, he maintains dual British and American citizenship by birth. ...

, Robert Garriott and

Starr Long Starr McAuley Long (born March 12, 1970) is an American game developer, a long time collaborator with Richard Garriott at the companies Origin Systems (1992–2000), Destination Games (2000–2008), and Portalarium (2013–present). In 1997, Long ...

, following their departure from

Origin Systems Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert Garriott, Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres ...

. ("Destination" is a play on "Origin", the company the Garriotts founded nearly two decades earlier.) Destination was founded in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

to develop

massively multiplayer online role-playing game A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

s. At E3 2001, Richard Garriott announced a partnership making Destination the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

headquarters of

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

giant NCSOFT. As NCSOFT Austin, Destination has mainly focused on developing and supporting the North American version of NCSOFT's ''

Lineage Lineage may refer to: Science * Lineage (anthropology), a group that can demonstrate its common descent from an apical ancestor or a direct line of descent from an ancestor * Lineage (evolution), a temporal sequence of individuals, populat ...

'' games. In 2007 Destination Games released its first game, ''

Tabula Rasa ''Tabula rasa'' (; "blank slate") is the theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. Epistemological proponents of ''tabula rasa'' disagree with the doctri ...

'', a

sci-fi Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...

. The game did not sell as well as was hoped, Richard Garriott left NCSOFT in 2008, and the game service closed in February 2009. The Destination Games website was taken down when NCsoft moved its United States headquarters from Austin to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...

—calling it NCSOFT West—in 2008. NCSOFT Austin employed five people to run the casual

MMOG A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...

Dungeon Runners ''Dungeon Runners'' was a medieval fantasy, often satirical MMORPG developed and published by NCSOFT. It featured gameplay similar to the '' Diablo'' series of games. Development Development on the title first began in 2001 as ''Trade Wars: Dar ...

'', but announced in 2009 that support for this game will be ending in early 2010 due to low subscription numbers. As of October 2009, NCSOFT employs about 150 people in the former Destination Games office in Austin mainly working in server operations,

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

, and

customer support Customer support is a range of services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. Reg ...

for various NCSOFT MMO titles, however development operations have moved completely to other NCSSOFT subsidiaries on the West Coast. The trademark ''Destination Games'' remains a property of NCSOFT.

References

External links

Destination Games
**Forwards t
PlayNC US
o
PlayNC Europe
depending on location detected. **Original homepage prior to forwarding to NCSOFT websites can be found at this

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

link
Destination Games, Inc.
NCSoft Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies disestablished in 2009 Companies based in Austin, Texas Video game companies based in Texas Defunct companies based in Texas 2000 establishments in Texas 2009 disestablishments in Texas {{US-videogame-company-stub