It's been over a year since legendary game designer Richard Garriott has been officially involved with the game industry. Today the creator of the Ultima RPG series and the first successful MMO Ultima Online has announced his involvement with a new company called Portalarium.

Garriott is the VP and creative director at the Austin, Texas based company which has already released its first product in beta form: It's a Facebook-based game app called Sweet @$! Poker. Garriott has been joined in his new venture by several people who have worked with him at his previous company Origin Systems and later at NCsoft.

In his press release Garriott stated, "This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers". The goal is also not just to make games, either. Portalarium's press release states, "Together with its player community, the company will be raising money and promoting real-world activities in support of enlightened social causes."

You may remember that after helping to create the sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa, which launched from NCsoft in 2007 after several years in development, Garriott quickly left the day-to-day operations of the game to train for his well publicized space flight to the International Space Station. Soon after returning from his 10 day flight in October 2008 he announced his departure from NCsoft who quickly decided to shut down Tabula Rasa. However in May 2009, Garriott sued NCsoft, claiming he was in fact fired from the company