(Why we’re not doing anything) After Sierra was sold, my vision had been that the new owners would WANT Roberta and I to continue doing games. I was always jealous of our own developers. They got to build cool products, and I got to go to meetings. My vision post-sale was that I would be able to focus on doing product – and try to build one hit game per year.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it works in the real world. I hate to sound bitter (which I’m not) – but, when someone buys your company, they want to do things their way, not yours. I’m not making this up, and it isn’t something that was unique to Sierra. It is common, in business, that post acquisition, the prior “regieme” (is that how you spell that word?) gets flushed. Neither Roberta, Al or me were ever offered another game at Sierra. It just hasn’t happened.
Roberta and I thought briefly about calling Electronic Arts, but never have. Maybe someday. I think it might be too weird for us to ever do a game for a competitor. Theoretically, we could start a new game company, but probably not. It’s a lot of work to start a company, and we like the creative part, but not the “business” part. Nearly 20 years of running Sierra was plenty for me.
Al Lowe is thinking about doing games again. I hope he does. My favorite game was always Leisure-Suit Larry – I want him to do games so that I can play them!
-Ken Williams