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(re: Sierra and Half-Life 2)
Some evil hackers stole the source code for Half-Life 2. It won’t be coming out until April at the most.
(re: Sierra to get new owner)
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2/news_6076823.html
Vivendi is not selling VU Games. I don’t think an offer was made for Sierra.
http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6074546.html
this actually happened a long time ago or rather a month ago.( Space Quest 4 CD at right speed and voices)
The only solution I’ve found is using Abandon Loader. Install SQ4 for Windows …NOT for DOS!!!! Abandon Loader has a slowdown utility that works after you started the game. Before you do this, familiarize yourself with Abandon loader, it’s not easy at first. Start Abandon Loader and start SQ4 for Win within the A.L., thenAlt-Tab to A. L., switch on the slowdown checkmark after choosing the percent of slowdown you need and then Alt-Tab back to the game. Just be sure that the “command” instruction for the A.L., was changed from the default that it has to the Windows one…ah! and be sure to put your desktop on 256 colors before starting the game. That is the only way I could play SQ4 at a normal speed.
(re: re: Sierra Video Catalog) Other than a bunch of games, I did hold onto a letter from Sierra answering a hint question for Gold Rush. It has pictures of Sierra characters down the side such as Rosella, Larry, Hero, etc. As for the Catalog, mine didn’t have QFG on it, and I’d really be interested to see the ad blurb for that on video. I do have non-Sierra stuff like a hundred holograms from the adventure game Dondra which got me into Sierra games. It was like a Sierra game, but no animated character. I think I have a few later date Interaction magazines too. My parents are cleaning the attic so I’m finding things I’d forgotten about. I also have most of the Sierra Quest hintbooks in the Companion series, I.E. KQ Companion, SQ Companion. I am currently doing a project for my computer art class in which I am making paintings out of classic Sierra game screens. Currently I have done Manannan’s house in KQ3. Looking for other ideas. Also would like any material on Sierra art from anyone as I need to write a paper on it as well. Currently I have the archived Sierra Newsletters from 1988-89 but anymore would be great. There are a lot of students in my class interested in my work so perhaps I can reignite a spark in them. I’ll talk to everyone later.
Aaron(re: re: Sierra to get new owner)
Thanks for th info emily! Still, it seems just a matter of time before a deal goes through.
(re: Sierra to get new owener)
i read over at gameboomers that the bid had been rejected.
-emily
(re: Sierra Video Catalog) I have been reading about this project to archive all of the Sierra magazines and am very excited. I would be willing to pay money to own this complete compilation of the history of one of the greatest game companies. I remember owning a Sierra Video Catalog with live action for games such as KQ4, PQ2, and ads for Manhunter. I wonder if anyone else had this as well or transfered it to a computer file. My brother taped a show over my copy years ago and I was really mad. It’s great that this site is up, as I grew up with these games on my Apple IIGS! Look forward to seeing this archive CD.
Aaron:
Thanks for following our progress! We are definitely working on creating the magazine archive, and are also working on creating a video archive as well. I suspect the magazine archive will come first, and others will follow. We plan on making a very high quality archive, with nice packaging and labeling, basically good production values all around, and will be distributed to any one that wants one at cost. So stay tuned for further developments. I am very sorry to hear that you had your copy taped over. Which catalog was it? I personally own the 1988-89 catalog, It has Colonel’s Bequest, Space Quest III, Quest for Glory, Hoyles, Manhunter.. sounds like your was a bit different – quite a shame. Any other Sierra goodies that you own?
-Brad(re: re: re: re: Wanted: Lost Sierra shows on TalkSpot) The renaming was deliberate – I rename everything that is uploaded, so that there is no confusion when two different people upload files with the same name (which may be completely different content).
Oops, that’s right! I forgot about that.(re: re: Website Related) Collector:
I decided that I don’t like this new layout … I’ve got something completely different that I’m thinking about. I should be able to upload it in about a week (or, two). I’ll test the different font sizes when I install the new upgrade.
-Ken W(re: re: re: Wanted: Lost Sierra shows on TalkSpot) Ok, I uploaded the two KQ shows I got. They’re about 8mb each and 2 hours long. For some reson the file names didn’t come out right. They’re supposed to be 121198.rm and 121698.rm
Ken, you might want to check this out as it’s a possible bug causing this. When I enter the edit pages the file names are correct, but the links have different filenames.Posted by: Petter Holmberg on 10/14/2003
The renaming was deliberate – I rename everything that is uploaded, so that there is no confusion when two different people upload files with the same name (which may be completely different content).
-Ken W(re: re: Wanted: Lost Sierra shows on TalkSpot) Ok, I uploaded the two KQ shows I got. They’re about 8mb each and 2 hours long. For some reson the file names didn’t come out right. They’re supposed to be 121198.rm and 121698.rm
Ken, you might want to check this out as it’s a possible bug causing this. When I enter the edit pages the file names are correct, but the links have different filenames.(re: Wanted: Lost Sierra shows on TalkSpot) I didn’t know about the QFG discussions… 🙂
I remember seeing the archive of talkspot back in 1999 about King’s Quest and Roberta, I listend to it but never kept it.
I’ll try to do some searching across the net for this… I hope I’ll get the QFG discussions too… it makes me extremely curious to think what details and subjects were discussed!
-Eyal(re: Wanted: Lost Sierra shows on TalkSpot)
Petter, would you post what you have to the Sierra Museum area here? All I have is just the Sierra Reunion. Thanks.
(re: re: re: re: Museum of Sierra Logos) Ok, let’s see if I can shed a little more light on the logo/subsidiary issue here. It’s kind of complicated… 😉
After the name change from On-Line Systems to Sierra On-Line, which I also believe was in 1981, some of the On-Line games were released with new cover art, for instance Mystery House. These boxes had a SierraVenture label on them, without the Half-Dome picture but in the same style as the On-Line part of the first Sierra logo. Also, the arcade games such as Frogger and Jawbreaker were released under the similar label SierraVision. I don’t know the reason for these labels, but I suspect it had to do with if the games were developed in-house or by contract programmers. What label the non-games (such as the HomeWord Speller word processor) had I don’t know.
The “classic” Sierra logo was created sometime after King’s Quest 1 but before King’s Quest 2, wich means 1984 or 85. I believe this was the time Sierra moved into the famous Redwood building, so the logo change probably had to do with the move.
Sierra’s first significant acquisition was that of Dynamix in 1990. They added the phrase “Part of the Sierra Family” to their logo.
The second acquisition Sierra made was BrightStar Technologies in 1992. Their lip-synching technology was included in the SCI 1 engine and was first used in the multimedia version of King’s Quest 6.
In 1993, Sierra bought Coktel Vision, a Paris-based software developer. I guess this was mainly done because Sierra wanted to expand in the European market. I don’t know if they adapted the same phrase as Dynamix did though, but it is possible.
At this time, Sierra moved its HQ to Bellevue, as it had grown too hard to run such a big company from such a remote town as Oakhurst. This coinceded both with the 15th Anniversary and the new logo with the colored stripe at the bottom, so the logo change could reflect the whole reorganization step of moving the company rather than the anniversary. The relocation was accompanied by a restructruring of the company into four separate development and marketing divisions: Sierra Publishing, (which was the core gaming unit operating mostly in Oakhurst) Dynamix, (keeping their own brand) Bright Star Technologies (the lip-synching company) and Coktel Vision (based in Paris). Development was separate at these divisions, but manufacturing, distribution and sales was jointly managed from the Bellevue HQ.
In 1995 Sierra was expanding into several areas outside the core of games (primarily adventure games). They bought Green Thumb Software, who created gardening and landscaping software, Arion Software, who focused on culinary software and was acquired in September that year. They also acquired the rights to use a DTP program called Print Artist and made a joint venture with P.F. Collier to develop a multimedia encyclopedia.
Three major acquisitions were also made in the gaming area in 1995: Impressions Software with their strategy games, Papyrus Design Group with their acclaimed racing games and SubLogic, developers of the Pro Pilot flight simulator.
These acquisitions resulted in great financial success, which was the incentive for CUC’s offer to buy Sierra in 1996, along with Blizzard, Davidson, Gryphon Software and Knowledge Adventure. This was the decision that ultimately led to Sierra’s great problems, which were created on a higher level. But for a moment it looked good, and Sierra itself made additional acquisitions in 1997: Berkley Systems (publishers of You Don’t Know Jack and After Dark) and Books That Work (a home productivity software company) were acquired in April, and later Headgate (a golf software company) and PyroTechnix (another game company) were added to the list.
But at this time CUC decided to shut down a number of groups within Sierra (although I’m not sure which) and transfered control of the company to Davidson. They also laid off almost 50% of the staff in Oakhurst.
I doubt that Ken can clarify this much, as this was the time when he had left Sierra and only stayed for a while to help out with the transfer. It must have been a blur of executive decisions.
1997 was also the year when CUC joined with HFS and became Cendant, and Ken left Sierra completely to create WorldStream Communications.
At the end of this turmoil, sometime in early 1998, Sierra was finally organized into the five sub-brands with their respective logos: Sierra Attractions (for casual gaming), Sierra Home (for home improvement), Sierra Sports (for sports), Sierra Studios (the original core of the company along with Impressions and PyroTechnix, and the publisher of independent developers, like Valve) and Dynamix (now with the new logo saying “Dynamix, a Sierra Company”)
Sierra Publishing, which now essentially meant the Oakhurst facility, became Yosemite Entertainment (also sub-labeled “a Sierra Company”) in May 1998. They didn’t release their games under that logo though, but under the logo of a sixth sub-brand: Sierra FX.
All of these brands and subsidiaries collectively operated under the Sierra umbrella with its newly designed logo, for the first time without the Half-Dome silhouette. However, the design of the S in the logo still pays homage to the mountain image, and the Yosemite Entertainment logo includes a new version of the Half-Dome silhouette.
At this time the Cendant fraud was under investigations (the irregularities found concerned their reported 1997 net income) and Havas bought the stock-plunging Cendant in Januuary 1999. In February they shut down Yosemite Entertainment, the event known as Black Monday. The facilities were taken over by Codemasters in mid-september.
The Havas name disappeared at a business alliance in the summer of 2000 between Vivendi, Seagram and Canal+ to form Vivendi Universal, when it was renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing.
The current Sierra logo was adapted in mid-November 2001, possibly because they wanted people to identify it with the original Sierra because it had more business potential, and the name-change to Sierra Entertainment followed only three months later to better reflect the company strategy (“On-Line” is mostly associated with on-line gaming these days, while Sierra considers itself an interactive entertainment company).
Recently, Vivendi Univeral Games, of which Sierra is now considered a studio, has chosen to adapt their studio websites to the same design. The trend has been that Sierra games are more often viewed as Vivendi games today.
So, if I didn’t miss anything, the complete list of Sierra Subsidiaries (some of which nothing is left today) is:
Dynamix (1990, games)
BrightStar Technologies (1992, lip-synch software)
Coktel Vision (1993, games, based in Paris)
Green Thumb Software (1995, gardening and landscaping)
Arion Software (1995, culinary software)
Impressions Software (1995, strategy games)
Papyrus Design Group (1995, racing games)
SubLocig (1995, flight si
***CONTINUED***mulators)
Berkley Systems (1997, casual gaming)
Books That Work (1997, home productivity)
Headgate (1997, golf software)
PyroTechnix (1997, games)
Throughout the years, the core Sierra group has been known as:
“On-Line Systems” (79-81/82?)
“Sierra On-Line” (81/82?-88/89?)
“Sierra On-Line, Inc.” (88/89?-02)
“Sierra Entertainment, Inc.” (02-)
And the logos that have appeared on Sierra boxes are:
“On-Line Systems”
“Sierra On-Line (version 1)”
“SierraVenture”
“SierraVision”
“Sierra (version 2, classic)”
“Dynamix, part of the Sierra Family”
“Sierra (version 3)”
“Sierra (version 4, without Half-Dome)”
“Sierra Attractions”
“Sierra Home”
“Sierra Sports”
“Sierra Studios”
“Dynamix, a Sierra Company”
“Sierra FX”
“Sierra (version 5)”
In addition to this I suppose some of the other subsidiaries have used their own logo with references to their owner like Dynamix did. For instance, I guess there could have been a “Coktel Vision, part of the Sierra Family” logo.(re: re: re: Museum of Sierra Logos) I’m not sure which logos were used, and when. To figure it out, I would have to see some boxes, and their release dates.
My recollection is that: for a while, we were using a logo (for our subsidiaries) that had the phrase “a part of the Sierra family” under it.
I tried recently to recall all of our subsidiaries, and couldn’t do it.
Here’s the ones I know:
Dynamixs
Headgate
Papyrus
CoktelVision
Impressions
Berkley Systems
BrightStar
??? Some company in the bay area that did our productivity products, like 3d Landscape Designer
And, at least one more
-Ken W(re: re: Museum of Sierra Logos)
As far as I know, Sierra On-Line became Sierra On-Line Inc. in late 1988, after they converted to a newer logo. The logo you have there (with the INC) was replaced in 1984… I’m confused. Maybe Ken can shed some light on this matter?
(re: re: re: Sierra 25-year anniversary – next year?) According to
Link: http://www.sierra.com/partner_studios.do(http://www.sierra.com/partner_studios.do)
Sierra still have its own development studio in Bellevue, as well as 2 acquired studios that are too working under Sierra.(re: Old games under DOS) Emily & Qfgs,
Thanks for the replies. I’ll look for that line of code, but I don’t think there’s any hope. Unfortunately, it is a BIOS problem that there doesn’t seem to be a permanent fix for. I guess I’ll just have to get used to 3/4 game screens. No big deal, at least I don’t have to hassle with Windows to play them. 🙂
Aside from that issue, picking up a $50 laptop for gaming, word processing, and tinkering with my old BBS was a great investment. Anyone having trouble running games in Windows should consider it!
Joshua.(re: Kinko’s scanning) just curious — who owns the copyrights on these magazines? the current Sierra? is selling scans of the magazines (for cost or not) going to create problems?
my brother-in-law is an account manager at Kinko’s. i haven’t asked, but it’s possible he could help us get a good deal for something like this. Brad, if you want to email me (
Link:fov@yahoo.com (mailto:fov@yahoo.com)
) with the information you’re using to get your quote, i can talk to him. however, we are in the san francisco bay area (expensive!), so it’s very possible a quote here would be higher.
-emily
ps BUT… i do share brandon’s concern that kinko’s — or any 3rd party vendor — may not produce something as high in quality as people who have an interest in the old Sierra would.(re: Shadow of Darkness) Wow, that was also my favorite game! I’m listening to the music from it right now.
I had the same problem in the swamp. I fixed it by going to a slower computer to play that part. On a fast computer, even with moslo, it crashes.
Best,
Eric Shashoua(re: Shadow of Darkness) Wow, that was also my favorite game! I’m listening to the music from it right now.
I had the same problem in the swamp. I fixed it by going to a slower computer to play that part. On a fast computer, even with moslo, it crashes.
Best,
Eric Shashoua
