Origin Systems

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Origin's logo from 1992-1996.

Origin Systems, Inc., known commonly as Origin or OSI, was an American video game developer and publisher from 1983-2004. The most popular game series developed by Origin are Ultima and Wing Commander. Origin was also the creator of one of the first hugely popular MMORPGs, Ultima Online, whose success was partially the company's downfall. Since Origin was owned by Electronic Arts (who bought them in 1992), they had the authority to convert them into an online-only company. This huge shift, and the poor sales of Ultima IX: Ascension, caused EA to cancel all of Origins games except for Ultima Online, and a large portion of the staff quit. EA kept Origin around simply as a means of supporting Ultima Online before shutting them down entirely in 2004.

The company motto was "We create worlds," which was pretty accurate as many of their games had game worlds that were far more detailed than other games at the time. Origin also included trinkets and cloth maps which added a lot of quality to their games. Hint books created for their games were designed as though they existed as actual books in the game, which was really impressive.

Personal

My earliest experience with Origin was the NES port of Ultima: Exodus, and then, shortly after, Ultima VII: The Black Gate for DOS. From there, I got really interested in the Ultima series and then the Wing Commander series. I've since played a fair amount of games from the Origin catalog.

Video Games

The following are games released by Origin that are important to me.

Staff

These are people who were employed by Origin whose work I appreciate.

Documentation

Photos

Logos

Origin's logo slowly evolved over time.

Download

This archive contains save game files for dozens of Origin games.

Links

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