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Hi!
The new management of Sierra seems to be doing a little better than previous regimes but…They’re not making ”Sierra” products. Around 99% of the games published under the Sierra label are licensed products from Vivendi’s partners and are based on films or books. For example, Sierra has published games based on: Eragon (the 2006 Film version), 50 Cent: Bulletproof, Scarface. Very few titles based on legacy or original IP are being produced and the ones that are are very flawed and not up to par with the originals. The games Sierra publishes are either action or strategy titles, and nothing really innovative or ground breaking. Mostly retreads of what’s already out there. Sierra works as an umbrella for 4 of Vivendi’s studios: Massive Entertainment, Radical Entertainment, Swordfish Studios, and High Moon Studios.
The top guys at Sierra are: Martin Tremblay. He acts as “President of Worldwide Studios”, and Al Simone, who acts as Senior VP of Global Marketing. Peter Della Penna is the President of High Moon Studios and until this year was COO of Sierra.
Would you consider trying to contact any of these guys to maybe point Sierra in the right direction? Sierra should be focusing on it’s own IP, growing the titles that were hits…Not making game versions of crappy movies! I know you’ve tried before, but that was a different management team and at a different time in Sierra’s history….It can’t hurt to try, can it? -
Hi!
The new management of Sierra seems to be doing a little better than previous regimes but…They’re not making ”Sierra” products. Around 99% of the games published under the Sierra label are licensed products from Vivendi’s partners and are based on films or books. For example, Sierra has published games based on: Eragon (the 2006 Film version), 50 Cent: Bulletproof, Scarface. Very few titles based on legacy or original IP are being produced and the ones that are are very flawed and not up to par with the originals. The games Sierra publishes are either action or strategy titles, and nothing really innovative or ground breaking. Mostly retreads of what’s already out there. Sierra works as an umbrella for 4 of Vivendi’s studios: Massive Entertainment, Radical Entertainment, Swordfish Studios, and High Moon Studios.
The top guys at Sierra are: Martin Tremblay. He acts as ‘President of Worldwide Studios’, and Al Simone, who acts as Senior VP of Global Marketing. Peter Della Penna is the President of High Moon Studios and until this year was COO of Sierra. Bruce Hack is the CEO of Vivendi Games, and he’s the one who made the decision to ”revive” Sierra in the first place.
Would you consider trying to contact any of these guys to maybe point Sierra in the right direction? Sierra should be focusing on it’s own IP, growing the titles that were hits…Not making game versions of crappy movies! I know you’ve tried before, but that was a different management team and at a different time in Sierra’s history….It can’t hurt to try, can it? -
It’s bad timing for me to do anything with games. I’m in San Diego now taking delivery of a new boat. For the next year, we’re 100% focused on the boat and not thinking about much else. A year or two ago, I would have been thrilled to offer free assistance to Sierra, but that time has past.
Too bad . it would be fun. but, it’s just the wrong time.
-Ken W
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OK .. one more thought on this topic.
My suggestion to Sierra Management would be for them to read my various postings on this website, and perhaps send me an email, or post here with questions. If they think I’m way off base, and that the ideas that worked 10 years ago wouldn’t work today, then they should say so, and I might agree, or I might disagree — but, were I them, I’d at least be curious to get my opinion.
-Ken W
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Actually, your ideas from ten years ago were the best, and were ahead of their time. In 1996, you said that you could foresee Online Multiplayer gaming becoming very important…It did. Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing games are the most successful, most profitable and most influencial part of the gaming market today. For example, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, an expansion pack released in January, sold 2.7 million copies in the first day of release alone in the U.S, Europe and Australia. Within the first month, after being released in Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa, it sold 3.1 million copies.
World of Warcraft, the online gaming nextwork by Blizzard has over 6 million customers and has allowed Blizzard to go from having just 360 employees in 2004 to having 2,700 (Blizzard has only 250 in development; they have over 2,000 in customer service and tech support to manage and help players with Warcraft)
In an interview in ’96, you mentioned that Sierra knew how to program a DVD drive. That’s something that the majority of companies have only managed to do in the last 2-3 years, and it’s role in the PC game industry is growing.
I remember reading an interview where you said you were interested in console and using a console system to go on the internet for multiplayer gaming. That idea is very ”new” and is a hot seller today…Just check out an XBOX 360 and it’s XBOX Live Arcade, which is a console based internet system through which you can play with players all over the world. There’s even a headset and microphone with which you can communicate with said players!
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