(blush) — thank you!
Actually .. here’s a bit of a fun ‘scoop’ for you… I sent the email that follows to Activision CEO Bobby Kotich last week. They recently announced that they are acquiring what little there is left of Sierra. The following email should be self explanatory:
Bobby:
Greetings. I’m the Ken Williams who founded Sierra. We met a few times a life-time ago.
I understand that in a few months you’ll be owning what’s left of my prior company. My apologies for the idiots who bought the company, and the mess they made of it.
I’ve been a deadbeat since selling the company 10 years ago (mostly boating and traveling the world).
I’m toying with the idea of dropping back in. I’m well set for life, and don’t want to work full time, so don’t worry that I’m looking for a job. Specifically what I’m thinking is that it would be fun to have one small development team, and focus on doing something cool and innovative. I’m thinking small projects that break ground in some way.
For instance, I’d like to think about what kinds of games are possible on the iphone, that really take advantage of the features that are unique to iphone; some sort of platform game. Alternately, I’m still interested in something massively multiplayer. Remember that I did The Sierra Network (TSN was renamed as the Imagination Network) that was on the bleeding edge of multiplayer gaming. I’m not interested in running a big project with a big budget. My preference would be to think if there is something small that could be done with a small team (4-5 people) which can break through because it does something people haven’t seen before. A big budget would be better – but, I’m not interested in managing a big team at this point in my life.
My favorite project is if you get the rights to the old Leisure-Suit Larry line. I’d like to either do some sort of a fun platform game for the iphone using the Larry license (I have some “out there” ideas), or do something massively multiplayer on the PC, like the old Larryland (it was part of TSN).
I realize all of this is stuff that belongs much lower in your organization, and I’m not even 100% certain I want to do it – but, figured if you thought it would be cool to do, you could point me at the right bus-dev guy. The one thing I can guarantee is that I’d do something that would surprise people, or at least not burn through much money experimenting (which could all or partially be mine – I haven’t thought that far ahead).
Anyway, if this sounds like something you think is worth talking about, let me know who to contact, and I’ll do some soul searching to decide how serious I am about getting involved ..and, then make a call.-Ken Williams
I honestly don’t know if he’ll write me back or not, and am not sure if I care one way or the other. I do think I could do some cool things, but there’s also a good argument that once you’ve been gone for a decade, you should stay gone. If he calls back I’ll have some serious thinking to do. – Ken W