What happened to Sierra?

[milkanannan]

Like a lot of us here, I grew up playing ALL of their games and staying abreast of upcoming company projects/endeavours (as much as possible) through their publications and the tidbits you could glean from a few places on the internet in the 90s. Their repeated hit titles and general prominence in PC gaming made the seemingly ‘sudden’ disappearance of Sierra quite shocking â€"how could a company pushing tech boundaries in gaming for two decades burn up faster than Roger Wilco on Ortega without his thermoweave underwear?!

Despite what I could read online at places like Ken’s blog, the story of Sierra’s final act has always been kind of murky. For anyone else interested, this Vice piece sheds a really interesting light into what happened: https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vem8/inside-story-sierra-online-death-cuc-cendant-fraud

[FormosaFalanster]

I always thought they were dissolved by all the acid of Ron Gilbert's spite and hubris...

Very interesting article, thanks a lot for posting.

[milkanannan]

I always thought they were dissolved by all the acid of Ron Gilbert's spite and hubris...

Haha actually it's interesting in the article to see how Ken Williams actually viewed the evolving medium of games and how he considered Disney and Microsoft to be his true competitors in the space (as opposed to LucasArts or Broderbund).

Yeah, I really enjoyed the article. Must have been such a cool time to be involved in the gaming industry. Actually, Metal Jesus, who worked at Sierra once upon a time, made this really cool vid explaining what it was like to be a part of that world (the good, bad and ugly):

[FormosaFalanster]

I always thought they were dissolved by all the acid of Ron Gilbert's spite and hubris...

Haha actually it's interesting in the article to see how Ken Williams actually viewed the evolving medium of games and how he considered Disney and Microsoft to be his true competitors in the space (as opposed to LucasArts or Broderbund).

Yes it shows you a classy person he really is, as opposed to Ron beating Sierra's dead horse as late as in Thimbleweed Park.

Funny how I always prefered Lucas's games to Sierra's by far, but 25 years later what I learnt of their respective personalities make me respect the Williamses much more than Gilbert. This article shows more humanity than anything the "grumpy gamer" ever wrote.

But do not regret anything about not having been around at the times in this industry, milkannanan. You are living much better times with such a big online community keeping the medium alive without all the problems of businesses at the time.

[Olleh19]

Hi milkannan, I'm not gonna lie.
I only played one game series, Larry.

But as a kid i thought the covers of Space Quest looked amazing.

Which games are MUST play from Sierra? Oh, i forgot. i Played Willy Beamish aswell, lovely graphics and vibe.

[Danvzare]

I always thought they were dissolved by all the acid of Ron Gilbert's spite and hubris...

Yes it shows you a classy person he really is, as opposed to Ron beating Sierra's dead horse as late as in Thimbleweed Park.

Funny how I always prefered Lucas's games to Sierra's by far, but 25 years later what I learnt of their respective personalities make me respect the Williamses much more than Gilbert. This article shows more humanity than anything the "grumpy gamer" ever wrote.

What's with the hate for Ron Gilbert?
He always comes across as a really nice man, and LucasArts as a company sounds like it was a real dream job with how everyone describes working there back in the day.

You kinda sounds like how a Sega fanboy sounded back in the 90s whenever Nintendo was brought up.

[heltenjon]

I only played one game series, Larry.

But as a kid i thought the covers of Space Quest looked amazing.

Which games are MUST play from Sierra? Oh, i forgot. i Played Willy Beamish aswell, lovely graphics and vibe.

Which games are a must would depend on your taste. Based on that you like the Larry series, I guess the Space Quest games with their humorous approach would be a good place to go.

If you're into horror in the monster hunter sense, I'll recommend the two first Gabriel Knight games. Another personal favourite is Conquests of Camelot.

[Cassiebsg]

Stick with the real Gabriel... the second is a wuss... 
And yes, SQ! my favorite!

If you like exploring, investigating and "being on the right place at the time" kind of game, give Colonel's be quest a chance (but don't use a walkthrough, the first 3 times (at least) that you play it. 

Oh, and keep in mind that you should save often and use several slots while playing Sierra games, you can die and/or end up in a dead end.

[Babar]

What's with the hate for Ron Gilbert?
He always comes across as a really nice man, and LucasArts as a company sounds like it was a real dream job with how everyone describes working there back in the day.

You kinda sounds like how a Sega fanboy sounded back in the 90s whenever Nintendo was brought up.

To be fair, Ron created a persona out of being a "grumpy old man", it seems FormosaFalanster was just leaning into that.
Very few will deny that the LucasArts/LucasFilm games were better designed, and I say this as an avid fan of both.

*Flames lit, Sierra vs LucasArts GO!

[FormosaFalanster]

What's with the hate for Ron Gilbert?
He always comes across as a really nice man, and LucasArts as a company sounds like it was a real dream job with how everyone describes working there back in the day.

You kinda sounds like how a Sega fanboy sounded back in the 90s whenever Nintendo was brought up.

Oh no you got me wrong, I am not a Sierra fan, as a matter of fact I never really liked their games. My favourites were Lucas games. I still consider the 9 verb interface to be one of the best systems ever.

But that was 30 years ago. I know I am in the minority but I did not really like Thimbleweed Park, for many reasons but one being that it looked like such a self-indulgent ego trip for Ron Gilbert. I was referring to a crude joke in Thimbleweed Park where a character said something like "if it were a Sierra game I would already be dead". He did that joke much more cleverly and elegantly in Monkey Island when Guybrush seems to be dying in Sierra style, so there was no need to make this joke again in such a non subtle manner, it was kinda mean and unfunny, at the time we were playing MI it was relevant, nowadays it just seemed like he was scorning his long-vanished rivals and rubbing it to their face that he was still around years after they disappeared. So even though I liked his past games much more than theirs, I did not think he was acting classy and that reflected poorly on him.

Ron Gilbert did wonderful games in the past and created plenty of awesome things, and I have nothing against him as a person, good if some loved to work with him, but he is not God Almighty and not beyond criticism either. In contrast this article shows the Williamses as great people even though I never really liked their games. That's what I found interesting: 25 years ago I would never have thought I would have felt this way.

[Furwerkstudio]

I know I am in the minority but I did not really like Thimbleweed Park, for many reasons but one being that it looked like such a self-indulgent ego trip for Ron Gilbert. I was referring to a crude joke in Thimbleweed Park where a character said something like "if it were a Sierra game I would already be dead". He did that joke much more cleverly and elegantly in Monkey Island when Guybrush seems to be dying in Sierra style, so there was no need to make this joke again in such a non subtle manner, it was kinda mean and unfunny, at the time we were playing MI it was relevant, nowadays it just seemed like he was scorning his long-vanished rivals and rubbing it to their face that he was still around years after they disappeared. So even though I liked his past games much more than theirs, I did not think he was acting classy and that reflected poorly on him.

Ron Gilbert did wonderful games in the past and created plenty of awesome things, and I have nothing against him as a person, good if some loved to work with him, but he is not God Almighty and not beyond criticism either. In contrast this article shows the Williamses as great people even though I never really liked their games. That's what I found interesting: 25 years ago I would never have thought I would have felt this way.

I thought I poke my head in about this, while I did kind of thought Thimbleweed Park was, well great at first, but then I played the clown pieces which I could not stand and kind of brought down the enjoyment a lot to "it's good", and for a while I kept thinking everything was pointing to some kind of robot version of the body snatchers replacing everyone in town because it was leading that way.

Spoiler

But revealing it was all a video game, because meta-lols just ruined the entire game for me, and now I will never trust or play another Ron Gilbert game because I would be on the look out for the "haha, gotcha!" twist that is trying so hard on being different and meta.

[close]

[Danvzare]

Ron Gilbert did wonderful games in the past and created plenty of awesome things, and I have nothing against him as a person, good if some loved to work with him, but he is not God Almighty and not beyond criticism either. In contrast this article shows the Williamses as great people even though I never really liked their games. That's what I found interesting: 25 years ago I would never have thought I would have felt this way.

Ah, ok. I get it now.

I thought I poke my head in about this, while I did kind of thought Thimbleweed Park was, well great at first, but then I played the clown pieces which I could not stand and kind of brought down the enjoyment a lot to "it's good", and for a while I kept thinking everything was pointing to some kind of robot version of the body snatchers replacing everyone in town because it was leading that way.

Really? I personally found the clown pieces to be the parts which brought up the whole experience. To be honest, Ransome was the only one who got a decent ending in my opinion.

Also, since everyone is giving their opinions on Thimbleweed Park, personally I found it fun. To me it felt as though it was another LucasArts game from the early 90s that I somehow missed (not a perfect game by any means, but an instant classic for sure). From an outside perspective though, to me it looks as though that rather than being a "self-indulgent ego trip" it was actually an attempt at tying up loose ends. By revisiting Maniac Mansion, the 9-verb system, having multiple characters and actually making that concept work, as well as the fact that it was an adventure game (and no doubt was using an ending that he's been saving for the past 30 years). It personally felt like a farewell to the classic Adventure Game genre and days gone by. But at the end of the day... it's just a game. 
It's poetic really, if you consider the ending.
Either that or I'm looking too deep.