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(Which games are now public domain?) I have no idea which old Sierra games can be posted for download. My guess is that none of them have been made officially “public domain” — but, that it is very unlikely that anyone from Sierra would ever prosecute someone who was making the “really” old games available for download. That said, Roberta and I gave up all rights to all our old games when we sold Sierra. We can’t authorize anyone to do anything with respect to anything Sierra.
Here’s an interesting rumor for you…
On Friday morning, I (Ken Williams) received an email from Al Lowe which was some sort of press article talking about horrible financial results at VU (Vivendi Universal) Games. VU is the company that currently owns Sierra.
It has been frustrating to watch a company that Roberta and I built, over a nearly 20 year period, struggle. After reading the news clipping, I called the secretary of the current CEO to request his email address. Assuming I can get her to pass along my request, and I get a response, my plan is to ask how I can help.
I really don’t know what sort of help I was offering, or what help I could be. There is no scenario in which I would ever go back to running a software company. Eight years of retirement has spoiled me. I can’t imagine a life of riding around on airplanes and wearing a tie. Been there, done that. There are some good things, like getting to hang out with amazingly creative and talented people — but, like I said — been there, done that.
I am convinced that if Sierra, or VU Games, really wanted, that we could find a way that I could make some contribution – without having to be a “real” employee. I wouldn’t do anything for the money. It just feels wrong to see something I care so much about in trouble, and not offer to help.
All that said, we’ll see if they ever call…. I’ll be surprised if they do, but hopefully they will.
-Ken W
—–Full year revenues drop sharply for Vivendi Games Rob Fahey 12:33 06/02/2004
Uncertainty over future of games division blamed for poor results Media conglomerate Vivendi Universal has announced its revenue figures for the fourth quarter and full year of 2003, revealing that the company’s videogames division suffered a 28 per cent drop in revenues during the year.
Full year revenues at the division were €571 million, while the fourth quarter – traditionally the most important of the year for games companies – saw revenues of €254 million, down 13 per cent from the same period in 2002.
The company had expected better sales during the holiday season, and its results certainly took a hit from the failure of Half-Life 2 to materialise during 2003, but overall it was simply a bad year for VU Games – with a fairly weak line-up of products, and constant speculation over the future of the division taking its toll.
Even now, it’s not entirely clear what Vivendi plans to do with its game publishing business. The firm has abandoned plans to float it, and efforts at selling the division fell through some time ago – but with the sale of the majority of the company’s other media assets to General Electric last year, VU Games doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the company’s portfolio any more.
Declining revenues and the ongoing exodus of key staff from star development studio Blizzard certainly won’t help the company to secure a good price should it decide to put VU Games on the market again – but in the absence of a visible, solid future direction for the division, it’s hard to see Vivendi holding on to it in the long term. -
(Which games are now public domain?)
Ken, Wasn’t Mystery House put into the public domain at some time? (I would say early-mid 90s) Even so, I would guess this would be the only Sierra game that could be legally distributed for free. On this VUG bad revenues issue, I feel all the more guilty as I am French, and the big boss of Vivendi at the time Sierra was sold to Vivendi was born in the same town as me (Grenoble)… I’d also really like to help in some way, if I was given the chance… Vincent.
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(Which games are now public domain?) Vincent:
Vous avez raison. Mon frère, John, a déclaré officiellement Mystery House comme dans le domaine public. Je l’ai oublié.
Est-ce que le homme dont vous parliez Jean-Marie Messier ? Je ne l’ai jamais rencontré mais mon frère l’ai rencontré plusieurs fois et était très impressionné. J’était choqué par ce qui lui est arrivé.
Aujourd’hui est lundi. Espérons que J’entendrai quelque chose aujourd’hui.
Excusez-moi mon mauvais français. Je ne suis qu’un débutant à votre langue…
-Ken W -
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(Which games are now public domain?)
Ken, > Vous avez raison. Mon frère, John, a déclaré > officiellement Mystery House comme dans le domaine > public. Je l’ai oublié. D’accord. C’est bien ça. > Est-ce que le homme dont vous parliez Jean-Marie Messier ? Oui, c’est bien lui. J2M de son petit-nom. 😉 > Je ne l’ai jamais rencontré mais mon frère l’ai rencontré > plusieurs fois et était très impressionné. J’était choqué > par ce qui lui est arrivé. Est-ce qu’il s’intéressait particulièrement à Sierra ? Je pensais qu’il n’en connaissait même pas l’existance, étant donné que Sierra appartenait à Cendant, qui appartenait à Havas Interactive, qui appartenait à Havas, que Vivendi (La Générale des Eaux à l’époque) venait d’acheter. Dans quel cadre votre frère a-t-il rencontré Jean-Marie Messier ? > Excusez-moi mon mauvais français. Je ne suis qu’un > débutant à votre langue… Vous êtes tout pardonné. Ceci constituera un bon exercice de lecture et de compréhension écrite. 😉 You can reply in English of course. Vincent.
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(Which games are now public domain?) Vincent:
Je vous ai compris sans problème, mais, comme vous m’avez suggéré…
So that all the non-french speakers can keep up, I’ll continue in english, and begin by explaining what we are talking about…
Sierra couldn’t have had worse luck post-acquisition. In 1996, Sierra was acquired by a company called CUC. About a year after the acquisition, CUC merged with another company called HFS to become Cendant. Shortly after that merger, it was discovered that CUC had been cooking its books for over five years, and had fabricated 500 million or so in profits. This wiped out much of the value of Cendant stock, and triggered both civil and criminal litigation which continues to this day. Many people who had worked with me for 10-20 years at Sierra were wiped out by this disaster. Roberta and I also lost a ton of money to this fraud, and sincerely hope that the culpable parties rot in jail for many decades to come.
After the crash, Cendant decided that the software business, which consisted of a consolidation of Sierra, Blizzard and Davidson, would be sold off to a french company called Havas. What had previously been called Cendant Software was renamed to Havas Interactive.
Havas was a subsidiary of a giant megacorporation called Vivendi. I was long gone by the time of the sale of Sierra to Vivendi, and never personally met anyone from Vivendi. I did receive a small amount of news though. My brother was still working for Sierra, in a senior marketing position. Also, Sierra’s corporate offices in Europe were located in Versailles, just outside of Paris. Much of Sierra’s revenues came from Europe (nearly half) and the management in our French office was very strong. Through my brother, and from my former collegues in France, I would hear from time to time about life under Vivendi.
Sometime after acquiring Sierra, Vivendi also acquired Universal Studios, and reconsolidated the games business into a new group called “Vivendi-Universal Games”, or, VU Games. My brother was able to sit in on some of the meetings with the french during this period of consolidation, some of which were attended by a gentleman named Jean-Marie Messier (aka J2M). At the time, he was world famous as the Bill Gates of France. People spoke of him as if he were one of the most important people in the world. And, indeed, at the time he was.
Alas, happy endings and Sierra don’t always seem to go hand-in-hand. Monsieur Messier had his own scandal brewing. I have since forgotten what the scandal was, but the bottom line was that Vivendi stock crashed, and Mr. Messier was tossed out. Vivendi has been a problem company ever since, selling off bits and pieces of itself, trying to pay down its debt. The software business has been on the block for at least a couple of years (something which has been sometimes admitted and sometimes denied). It has had declining revenues and lost money while they were trying to sell it – and, has not been sold. Who knows what its future will be?
My guess is that all of this uncertainty makes it tougher for those in the software business. It’s tough enough to ship great games, and even tougher when the world around you (corporately) is going through so many changes.
-Ken W -
(Which games are now public domain?)
And for those of us who skipped French Class to play games like King’s Quest, who would like to follow along with the founder of said game, the internet provides us with a very useful tool. http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr Instant French. -Brad
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(re: Which games are now public domain?)
Ken,
> Alas, happy endings and Sierra don’t always seem to go
> hand-in-hand. Monsieur Messier had his own scandal
> brewing. I have since forgotten what the scandal was, but
> the bottom line was that Vivendi stock crashed, and Mr.
> Messier was tossed out.He was victim of the Internet and mobile phones crash. When he became CEO of once was “Générale des Eaux”, he transformed what was a century-old National water company into a modern new-technology and communication company, progressively buying successful smaller companies. Havas was one of them, although it was already a very big company. Other companies included Canal + (a French pay-TV that finance most of the French movies), and Cegetel, which includes the second French mobile phone company, SFR. After renaming the company to Vivendi, he made it merge with Universal roughly at the time the IT stock exchange crashed. Most of the newly-acquired companies did poorly the following year, and Mr Messier was laid off as a result. It also happened to the CEO (Michel Bon) of the French first telephone and mobile phone company, France Telecom.
On the matter of you helping VU Games, I would suggest to use what Vivendi still holds, and more precisely SFR, the mobile phone company. When Vivendi merged with Universal, the mother company decided to sell music from the Universal catalogue to SFR users. I think this did quite well, but I do not think this has really been done with the VU Games catalogue, although the market is really heading towards mobile phone games. I would imagine that games like Gobliiins or Dr. Brain could be very fun to play on mobile phones, and quite easy to port. Even Powerchess could be resurected on mobiles phones.
Of course, I suppose no one could possibly listen to me at Vivendi, but I’m sure you can be taken very seriously if they ever want to listen to you. Sierra glory restoration would be very welcome, and I’m sure many fans would like to see it.Also, BTW, maybe my older post about imaging your collection of games was pushed too far when you were hard at work finishing the new version of your software. I have to add that it seems to be quite complicated to properly configure a machine for Disk2FDI, so I could be of help for this, at least. In any case, you said you wouldn’t come to Seattle before May, so we have some time.
Vincent.
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(re: Which games are now public domain?)
oh ok
Ken, what kind of help are you referring to? Cause if it means that you’ll offer help with maybe Sierra bringing back some old classics and say continuing them with you and Roberta’s help then that would be great!!
Sierra could currently use a good boost right now, it really has gone majorly downhill lately.
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(re: re: Which games are now public domain?) I’m not sure how I could (or, even if I could) help Sierra if I were involved today.
I did manage to get through to one of their top people. It would be better for me not to comment on the discussions until I see where they go – so, for now, I’ll refrain from further comment on this topic. I’ll post an update when I know more….
-Ken W -
(re: re: re: Which games are now public domain?) I did manage to get through to one of their top people. It would be better for me not to comment on the discussions until I see where they go – so, for now, I’ll refrain from further comment on this topic. I’ll post an update when I know more….
Ken, I hope I speak for others when I say that no matter how small a step this may be … it makes some of us wet our pants.
It seems kind of strange that these games have stuck with me for so many years. It has been 20 years or so since I was introduced to King’s Quest. It’s not right that games stick with you for that long. 🙂
Anyway, it’s exciting to think that you might be able to help out what was once a great company (that must have been painful for you to watch go down). We’ll all keep our fingers crossed, and hope that you can slap some sense into them. I have to go change my pants now. -
(re: Which games are now public domain?)
Emily is right. Betrayal at Krondor was released for free, the 10 meg download version, on Sierra’s website, presumably to promote the upcoming Betrayal in Antara. This is at the same time that Sierra had that underwater shark screensaver for free on their website (which incidentally never worked on my computer).
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(re: re: Which games are now public domain?)
More news about Vivendi… looks like they might keep the game division now?
Vivendi Signs Tie-Up with Game Developer Radical
Tue February 10, 2004 12:23 PM ETBy Ben Berkowitz
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The video game arm of Vivendi Universal, redoubling its production efforts under a new management team, on Tuesday said it had signed an exclusive deal with developers Radical Entertainment that includes the right to buy the privately held firm.
Vivendi Universal Games said Radical would develop six multi-platform titles based on new and existing franchises. It will have the right to buy Radical at any time during the deal.
Radical most recently developed “The Simpsons: Hit & Run” for VU Games; that title was released last September and has sold nearly 2 million units.
Radical, founded in 1991, has more than 200 employees and is best known for sports and action games.
In mid-January, Vivendi, which had been seeking to sell its video game arm, brought in a new management team to the unit, installing Bruce Hack as chief executive. Hack, formerly vice chairman of Universal Music, was instrumental in negotiating the sale of Vivendi Universal Entertainment to NBC.
Hack has said that Vivendi is now committed to both keeping the game unit and investing in it to foster growth.
Luc Vanhal, North American president and chief operating officer for VU Games, told Reuters the Radical deal was the first sign of the company’s renewed commitment.
“We want to be successful by bringing our key development in-house,” Vanhal said. “This is for us hopefully the start of a new beginning.”
Vanhal said one of the most important elements of the deal was Radical’s four teams developing console games. Most of VU Games’ internal development is focused on the PC.
“We think this is a great partner. …we consider this an engagement prior to a marriage,” he said.
The first game under the deal, Vanhal said, is likely to be a “Hulk” sequel for 2005. All six games, he said, should be out over the next three years.
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“Ken, I hope I speak for others when I say that no matter how small a step this may be … it makes some of us wet our pants.”
I laughed out loud at this message because it’s so true. My reaction to Ken Williams talking in any capacity to VU Games induces me to pee with excitement. Sad, but true.
How amazing the pull these games have had upon us all. Things from these games have stuck with me for years and years. I still revere them after all this time. And how much would we love to see these characters and game creators return to the fold? There are characters and themes that have nowhere near tapped their potential, and after all this time the market would certainly not be saturated with similar product. Gabriel Knight? Space Quest? Laura Bow? These are fantastic concepts whose return is overdue.
If you need any evidence for the VU guys, Ken, point out how almost a decade after the decline of Sierra adventures there is still a thriving community online. People lovingly remake them with no hope of remuneration, and the originals go for so much on ebay I can’t even afford them (tried to pick up Roberta’s anthology last night… no dice!).
I worked in a Gamestop for five years and I can’t count how many times people would bemoan the loss of Sierra without my prompting them. This occurred very, very often. The thing is, these people were often women or non-gamers who were accompanying their gamer friends or boyfriends into the store. While the friends checked out the latest FPS, they would bemoan the fact that there was nothing for them to play. Usually, the story would be that they hadn’t played anything since the last King’s Quest, or Quest for Glory, or whatever. They would ask if I could recommend anything at all, and while occaisionally I could recommend the one adventure title that came out that year, they would mostly leave the store emptyhanded.
Not only is there a built-in market for any quality game in the Sierra style (us), there’s also a large market of lost gamers who need only to be reached by an ad campaign to return to the fold. Now we just need the games…
Michael
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(re: re: re: re: re: Which games are now public domain?) I did get through to the VU Games CEO, a gentleman named Bruce Hack (who I’ve never met before).
Actually… the VU Games people have, thus far, been amazingly nice and accessible. They seem very open to talking. I think they were nervous at first that I had some ulterior motive in contacting them. It has taken several emails to convince them that I really am not looking for a job – nor money of any sort. I understand how they feel. I can’t imagine, that during my tenure at Sierra, I would have believed it if someone had said “can I help?” Sad as it is, few people ever say that and really mean it (in the big-business world).
Specifically, I told them that if they were a public company, I would be lobbying to be put on the board. I’m not ready to settle down and work a regular job. I feel bad that people might think I’m being lazy — but, I worked HARD for almost 30 years (nearly 18 of which were at Sierra) — and, I need some time to relax. Roberta and I spend most our time traveling now, and are having a blast. As I write this, I’m in Rio for Carnival. Life is good…
Anyway….
The next step is for us to meet “face to face”. That will take a month or two to make happen, but I do believe that we are on track for me to have some voice at Sierra. I’m excited thinking about it, and hope that it works out for them, for me, and most importantly: for all the people who want great games. It’s way too soon to say what will emerge from these discussions, but the indications are very good.
I’ll report more, as I know more…
-Ken W -
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Wow Ken!
That is the best Sierra news I’ve heard in…..well, a long time! I will be praying that something great comes of this, Sierra needs some serious help and I can only imagine the good direction you could bring to the table!
Hope everything comes together!
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That is great!! Hopefully they’ll allow discussion of possibly a King’s Quest 9, a Laura Bow 3, or even a Phantasmagoria 3 this time with Victoria back. With either you or Roberta’s inputs in the future of Sierra I and thousands of fans would be ever so happy at such news. And believe me we all are from hearing VU will talk to you!
–Manon W.
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Excellent! I am looking forward to seeing what comes of this too. There is definately room for a new voice at Sierra and your 18 year tenure there proves your skills. They would be crazy not to take up on your offer. I’ll look forward with everyone else to seeing how this pans out, but I know I’m not along in wishing for the best!
Anyway, have fun in Rio for Carnival, I’ve always wanted to go down to South America myself, but I’ll probably have to wait for own my retirement.
Levi
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Ladies and Gentlemen,
All AGI Sierra quests DO run on the mobiles today!
Check out http://opentrap.narod.ru The sad thing that VUG was not interested in that…
Oleg
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(re: Which games are now public domain?)
If you haven’t seen this, Freddy Pharkas is available at:
http://www.freddypharkas.com This site has the CD ISO file download, so it’s better on a fast conntection, if you have one.
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