MassivelyOP’s Weirdest MMO Stories of 2023: Weirdest MMO celebrity insert

January 2, 2024 3:00 PM

Today we’re kicking off our traditional countdown of MassivelyOP’s weirdest MMORPG stories of the year, that year being 2023!

Coming in at #5 on our list is…

Richard Garriott and the Titan sub

Initially, I’d planned to highlight unexpected celebrities that drop into the MMO world from outside of it, but as it happens, I’m highlighting an MMO celebrity who unexpectedly dropped into mainstream international news.

Two years ago, Richard Garriott made this list in our cheeky “Weirdest things Richard Garriott did this year that weren’t his MMO you paid for” recap. Those things were diving and treasure hunting, instead of, you know, being held accountable for Shroud of the Avatar’s financial collapse. Since then, he even sold his name for use on a crypto MMORPG, which has also since collapsed, apparently without ever being built.

So it startled the hell out MMO genre vets when Garriott became a key figure in an international story that captured the planet’s eyeballs for weeks this summer. An amateur submarine and all its passengers went missing at the site of the Titanic, and some of those passengers were members of the so-called Explorers Club, a group of wealthy adventurers. Garriott happens to be the current president of said club, which meant he was the face of the group demanding that the relevant nations spare no expense in the rescue. Garriott was even featured in prominent mainstream media, blaming bureaucratic blundering and “red tape” from the Coast Guard supposedly hampering rescue efforts.

In the end, of course, searchers confirmed early military reports that the sub had imploded early on in the dive (as it turns out, owing to predictable and documented defects in the sub’s build, leading to the deaths of all four people on board). And as we – and many others – argued at the time, it was hardly fair to blame taxpayer-funded emergency crews risking their own lives to rescue billionaires who were engaged in what turned out to be an extremely dangerous tourism stunt.

Either way, it was surreal on many fronts for MMO players who know Garriott’s whole history.

And let us spend two more bewildered nods for Whoopi Goldberg (who reamed Blizzard out on TV for its messy Diablo IV launch) and James Corden (whom Bobby Kotick bizarrely tapped to host a Blizzard town hall).

Stay tuned for another weird story tomorrow, and don’t forget to check out our annual MMORPG awards and our Golden Yachties!