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I found this site from an interview recently posted on Slashdot. Glad to see there’s a place us old Sierra fans can gather.
When I was a kid I used to get almost every game Sierra produced. Nearly every one of them was a great game. I liked the company so much that I wanted to become a programmer with the sole purpose of working for Sierra. When they were sold and changed drastically and their game style completely changed I ended up losing interest in writing video games because no one else was creating games quite like them. It was like Ken said in the interview, they were trying to come as close to perfection as possible with each game and almost all the time they had.
At any rate I’m just glad I still have all my games so I can still enjoy them any time I want.
-Greg
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(re: I miss Sierra) No offense to the old games but my favorite game of all time is Counterstrike which was produced by Sierra. I don’t feel their quality of gaming has gone down, they have just shifted their emphasis. I know everyone likes to knock the “New” Sierra for Ken’s sake but I think they are doing a good job. I spent hours and hours of my college life couped up in a basement with 8 other guys on PCs playing Half Life and I can’t even begin to tell you how intense and how fun it was. Don’t get me wrong, my first PC game was King’s Quest V, and I still like to play it every now and then, but I can appreciate the new with the old.
Counterstrike vs. KQV
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(re: I miss Sierra)
Trust me, were not knocking the new Sierra for Ken’s sake;). You can’t compare the old games with the new. CS is a pretty good darn multiplayer FPS, and if you like FPS that’s going to rank that game up there. If however you like the old fashioned adventure games, KQ5 and the multitude of other adventure games Sierra made back then are golden.
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(re: I miss Sierra) No one should adjust their opinion one way or the other “for my sake”. I’m a big boy and am of the opinion that if 100% of the world ever likes me, I’m messing up somewhere.
That said: Half Life was my product – it, and Homeworld were amongst the last products I started at Sierra.
-Ken W -
(re: I miss Sierra) Ken,
Are you serious? That is amazing. You are a God. I can’t believe that you had a hand in that project. Don’t take any offense but I thought that you could only do those adventure/mystery games. Not that that’s bad because those games were always top notch but wow I can’t believe that you really started Half-Life. That is a serious achievement and that game is so different than most other FPS’s. You HAVE to get back into the business, forget what I said about living the dream, it’s a must. How does everything you touch turn into a masterpiece? You know what? I changed my mind about the “New” Sierra, cutting you out was the biggest mistake they ever made. Ken, you need to pull Roger Clemens and sign with the hated Yankees. Did Sierra even have a rival or an arch nemesis back in the 80’s and 90’s? I think you mentioned EA but whatever it’d be great to see you on board a project, the publicity alone would sell those games. -
(re: I miss Sierra) I’m sorry, but I can’t see how Sierra should be given credit for CounterStrike. No complaints about the game, but it started off as a fan-made mod to Half-Life, and was only purchased and published by Sierra when it had become big enough. There’s no Sierra in there, except in the packaging and shipping. Ok, it shows that Sierra isn’t completely hopeless when it comes to finding a good deal today, but that’s about it.
I would really like to know what the latest Sierra game was that actually was developed by the company, and not only published. It seems to me that it’s mainly a publishing company today, and I’m not sure if they develop in-house games anymore. Companies like Valve works very independently of Sierra. They have little more than a business deal about publication of their games. Also, Sierra today stands next to two gaming giants, namely Blizzard and Fox Interactive, which I assume have outgrown Sierra by far and currently are Vivendi’s real cash-cows.
It is my view that Sierra has not merely gone from an artistically creative company to a corporate entertainment giant like Electronic Arts, but that it has gone from a leading artistically creative company to a corporate entertainment company that’s not very significant at all among its competitors. Of course I could be wrong, so feel free to disagree and I will listen… -
(re: I miss Sierra) I have no idea how Sierra is doing today. Counterstrike was after I left, and I’ve never played it.
During my time (1979-1997), 99% of development was internal. We had approximately 700 people in development.
My understanding is that the current owners have de-emphasized internal development, and that most development is being done outside. That said, I couldn’t even remotely tell you how many people they have in development now. Nor could I give you the names of any products they’ve released in recent years.
I personally opposed the publishing metaphore, and would not have gone that route.
-Ken W -
(re: I miss Sierra) Despite the shift in genres and development houses, Sierra is still at the top of its game when it comes down to it. The company may not produce or publish adventure games (right now 😉 ), but the genres of profit they produce for are of top-notch stuff. Action games like Half-Life and SWAT are quite good, and their strategy/simulation games are amazing, such as Pharoh or Zeus. If anybody gets the chance to purchase “The Great Empires Collection II”, I suggest you do so :), that’s a whole lot of gaming for 30 bucks.
What I wish they would do is start cranking out new collections! Like I said above, Great Empires is a good collection, and they recently released a new Half-Life Collection that has just about everything a Half-Life newbie needs. But what about adventure collections? I wouldn’t mind a new King’s Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, or Leisure Suit Larry Collection updated with the proper software enabling them to run properly on new systems (like Windows XP). It’s not like it would cost them a bunch, just some new modifications to tweak the system requirements.
Another thing bothering me about Sierra lately is: are they even really a company anymore? Everytime I read GameSpot or IGN they list most Sierra pulished games, like Half-Life 2 I’m assuming, as Vivendi Publishing. Why not Sierra? They don’t do that for Universal Games or Blizzard, so why Sierra?
Oh, by the way, I’m new! Let the iniation begin!
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