(re: sierra’s future ) I was curious at the rate it appears the parent comnpany of sierra is going, do you feel the company will be around in 10 years?. I had also wanted to know if you had a chance to view the trailer of LSL and if you did what do you think of the game ? Do you think it has a poential to be successful from what you seen ? I have seen they dramrically changed the look of larry and as a fan of LSL it has me concered that the game may do well .
Thank you for your time Ken if you can answer this
I think it’s arguable that Sierra is already gone… at least in the sense I think of a company. It’s tough for me to believe that Sierra has any employees. No one has identified themselves on this site for several years as a Sierra employee. I doubt there is a Sierra President, or a big-picture Sierra philosophy. I doubt Sierra files a tax return. I doubt there’s even a Sierra coffee pot anywhere. My guess is that Sierra has become not much more than a name that you put on a box.
That said, I have no way of knowing if this is true. Sierra may have a million employees. It has been many years since I spoke with anyone at Sierra (and, in fact I doubt there is anyone there to talk with). Hopefully, someday someone will call and say “Hi. I’m Sierra’s President, can we have lunch?” I’m just not expecting that call to come…
And, that said…
I am trying to think about how to refocus this board in a more positive direction. It seems that the site (or, at least me) is caught in a loop. We talk about how cool Sierra was a decade ago, and then I whine about how they’ve screwed it up, and then the process repeats. It’s not bad to be nostalgic — but, I’m hoping there’s more to this site than just that. Also, I hate whiners and fear I am in danger of becoming one. Whiners don’t make great things happen. It’s better to focus on where you’re going, not where you’ve been.
My hope for this site was to capture the industry’s history, Sierra’s history, AND, to become a hub for people to talk about fun stuff that is computer or game related. To some extent, we have done that — if you read through the messages, there is a LOT of great Sierra history here.
However, I’ve dropped the ball on getting bigger-picture industry history here. I’m overloaded now, so that will have to wait until later — but, over the next year, I want to try to capture more stories here about “the old days” – that weren’t necessarily Sierra related.
And, on a topic that is much more fun: I want to think of something fun to do that is part of this site. I don’t know exactly what that means. My first thought is that it would be fun for all of us to build a game together. How I’ll accomplish that, I don’t know. It may be impossible — or, it may be more work than I want to do. We’ll see. Step one is to set the goal, and step two is to decide if the goal is achievable. Step three, which I hope we get to is to actually do something.
I’ve got some ideas in this area. I’ll be stuck at sea for the next couple of months. I’ll make it my project to try to come up with some realistic ideas. Don’t expect greatness though. Modern computer games cost millions to develop. I’m thinking of something more along the lines of a budget that would compare to lunch at McDonalds.
Anyway … trying to do something fun, whether we succeed or fail, beats the heck out of me continuing to focus on Sierra. Been there, done that.
-Ken W
