Urban legend on Larry 1

Radiant · Fri 23/04/2004 12:56:08

Hi there,

I was wondering about something... fifteen years ago (roughly) when Larry 1 was still new and being sold, there was a story about it, claiming that if you made an illegal copy of it, it would spawn a virus that would wipe your hard drive.
Needless to say this is untrue (and it would have been very poor marketing, too). But I was wondering if anybody heard of it, or what the origins of this story might be...

kaaZ · Fri 23/04/2004 13:10:53

I've been told it would have only infected your pc if you played the copied version on the 1st of april...

AGA · Fri 23/04/2004 16:32:22

Well it's most definitely wrong. Sierra Online only ever sold something like 200,000 copies of LSL, yet over 1 million hintbooks for the game were sold. As for gthe rumour, it was probably started by Sierra themselves, just to discourage people from ripping off their games...

DanClarke · Sun 25/04/2004 11:29:28

Quote from: AGA on Fri 23/04/2004 16:32:22
Well it's most definitely wrong. Sierra Online only ever sold something like 200,000 copies of LSL, yet over 1 million hintbooks for the game were sold. As for gthe rumour, it was probably started by Sierra themselves, just to discourage people from ripping off their games...

perhaps 800,000 people bought the game 'offline'?

AGA · Sun 25/04/2004 11:44:03

Um? Unless that was a joke and I'm totally not getting it, you're silly

Sierra Online was the full name of the company, not some online divison of Sierra. Bear in mind Larry was released in the mid-to-late eighties...

Timosity · Sun 25/04/2004 12:16:38

They're also lucky with being able to sell that many hint books, now with the internet all you have to do is search LSL hints or walkthru and the answers are there.

As for the name Sierra Online, I think at some stage they did have their own BBS that you could log into, before the days of the internet.

As for the virus rumor, I never heard it, but that could explain the whereabouts of my 8086, oh wait, that was damn thieves, and it contained the only version of a game I made in GW Basic, damnit.

AGA · Sun 25/04/2004 12:47:23

They used to be called OnLine Systems, iirc, and I don't think it had anything to do with BBSes, it was just a cool-sounding name. The big Sierra networking project thingy was called Imagination Network, I think. It got bundled with a few later SCI1 games, but it didn't ever really take off.

Rave · Mon 26/04/2004 12:04:04

When I was younger, I was flipping through some thin catelog that came with DOTT and a few other games in a package. (not, this is probobly long after the original release because they were sold together) Anyway, it was my first experience to Adventure games. I saw in there an ad for some Larry game, I don't remember which one. Maybe 3rd? Anyway, I didn't get it because gosh, what would my parents think if they saw their little kid playing such a game!

I havnt had a chance to play any of the earlier Monkey Island game either.

Radiant · Mon 26/04/2004 12:42:00

I seriously doubt that anyone could be offended by looking at screens from Larry 1 or 2.
Of course, #4 is the one that is really bad. Which is why it was banned and most people haven't heard of it.

Davis · Mon 26/04/2004 17:49:47

What was so bad about it? I thought I'd played them all but I don't remember one that was all that racy.

Rui 'Trovatore' Pires · Mon 26/04/2004 18:54:26

Oh bro, you haven't played nothin' till you played LSL4 - The Missing Floppies! Even Al Lowe currently disavows all knowledge!