(re: re: re: re: re: Sierra video promos)
Wow! What a great link! (
Link: http://www.queststudios.com(http://www.queststudios.com)
) A VERY well done site.
I listened to the music to “Girl in a Tower” from KQ6, and it brought back some fun memories.
My apologies if I’ve already told this story, but:
I was always trying to find ways to “hype” our products through conventional media. I thought of Sierra as being part of the broader “Entertainment Industry”, not as just a computer game company.
Anyway…
I had the idea to try to get airplay for the Girl in the Tower – to see if I could get it to start showing up on radio bestseller charts. My vision was that if we could start getting momentum behind the game music on radio, then I could start a new category at music stores, for game music. In Japan, you see game soundtracks all the time in music stores. Why not in the US? We spent a lot of money on top composers.
So…
We put into the initial boxes of Kings Quest 6 a flyer with the “dial in” request line numbers for the radio stations in major cities, and told people that if they agreed with us (that Girl in the Tower was a great song) they should call their radio station and request the song. We also mailed to all these same stations a copy of the CD.
We sold around 400,000 copies of Kings Quest 6 the first week. Imagine 400,000 people calling radio stations at the same time to request the same song. Some played it – but, most just got angry and called me, or had their lawyers call me. We jammed the phone lines. Radio stations threatened to sue me. I don’t remember what crime they alledged that I committed, but in my opinion, the radio stations were the the criminals for ignoring their customers – something I believe no business should ever do.
Oh well… I was younger then – and, the song WAS great.
-Ken W
