The Donald Glinkie Letters
When the Ultima Codex interviewed Mike McShaffry, he mentioned someone by the name of Donald Glinkie, an individual who played just about every Ultima game. Of course, there are many of us who have done likewise; what distinguished Mr. Glinkie was the letters he penned to Origin Systems:
Before the days of forum posts and Twitter, you had mail…and we got mail! Of course, we would always post them up on a board and…some of our Ultima players were just…we got letters from them every time we released, and they became almost famous within the team.
I think this guy’s name was Donald Glinkie, and I think he lived in Florida, and we relished everything he wrote. And he always just ripped us a new one every single time we ever shipped anything.
So yes, of course, we expected…actually, I think we expected Donald Glinkie to set himself on fire when we shipped Pagan, but I don’t think that ever happened.
You can also see here for a bit more information about Mr. Glinkie’s letters, and do be sure to check out the character in Ultima 5 that he probably inspired.
Anyhow, in late November/early December of 2015, Richard Garriott posted scans of a few of Donald Glinkie’s letters on his Twitter profile.
Here are the links to the tweets in which Lord British revealed each letter:
- Now by popular demand (Iolo asked). Behold – Donald Glinkie! Favorite disgruntled player! 1st wrote on Ultima III
- The disgruntled Donald Glinkie Liked Ultima IV and wanted to Buy Ultima V when it was still in development!
- When we were with EA, they got disgruntled Donald Glinkie letters too
- EA CEO Trip Hawkins saw our Glinkie letters then got the standing stones letters, so wrote Donald back like this
The perpetually-irate Mr. Glinkie passed away in 1997, but it’s good to see his…unique and memorable contributions to the history of the Ultima series still exist. The Ultima Codex is, as always, grateful to Richard Garriott for sharing these pieces of history with us.
