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(re: re: re: We did it – ONE THOUSAND USERS!!!) Yeah! Well done, Ken! You can be proud of yourself. It’s been great to be a part of this website you’ve been running these past couple of months. Thank for that.
(re: re: We did it – ONE THOUSAND USERS!!!) I’d offer everyone a celebratory “adult beverage” .. but, worry that pouring it into my modem might not accomplish the desired objective.
-Ken W(re: re: Software Ratings) Ratings systems that describe the product, rather than simple symbols (like: G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17) are better. These allow parents to make an informed decision before buying a product. Some parents are ok with nudity in a product, others aren’t. Some are ok with violent content, others aren’t. Some have different feelings about cartoon violence and “real” violence.
I’m generally opposed to everything related to sex or violence when it comes to young children. There were plenty of Disney cartoons that I thought were a little too violent for our kids when they were young. Other parents feel completely differently. There are even parents that don’t have an opinion (these people should rethink their responsabilities as parents).
I still have mixed emotions about having published Half-Life. It seems obvious to me that some percentage of teens who play violent games are going to lose sight of the fact that “it’s just a game”. 99.9% of teens understand the difference between a video game and reality – but not all. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think so. If in a video game, you give someone “real” seeming weapons, and then you have them chase “real” looking bad guys through real looking buildings, and then you give them points each time they “kill” someone – it sends the wrong message.
I’m a VERY anti-censorship kind of guy. But, that’s with respect to adults. There is a time in our lives when opinions are still being formed, and a time when we’ve made our minds up. This is not meant to be a political website – so, I’m not sure I want to comment more on this topic (especially since my opinions ae likely to alienate LOTS of people) – but, I really think that children, and even young teens, should be sheltered from violent content – especially realistic simulations – until they reach a certain age.
-Ken W(re: Software Ratings) Interesting. I certainly agree that that there are contents that kids under certain age shouldn’t be exposed to, and that games like “Leisure Suit Larry” or “Police Quest” were in this category. But as with any rating discussion, this one brings up the question of where the line is drawn.
I have a 1996 box of a “King’s Quest” collection (games 1-6 on two CDS). It’s marked as suitable for all ages (though this box came from England – maybe there were different ratings for these games in different countries). But is it really? Sure, the “King’s Quest” games had a fairy-tale background that could appeal to children. On the other hand, they also had scary and violent moments – these games were filled with monsters chasing the gamer and countless spots where the main character could die. And what about “Space Quest”? The contents of the SQ games weren’t nearly as extreme as the LSL series, but some of its humor did lean a bit in the “adult” direction. My point is, sometimes the line between “for kids” and “for adults” isn’t clear when it comes to contents.
The problem with rating today’s games, I believe, is different. The majority of today’s popular games come from the first-person-action genre, and these games have a very wide appeal. Unlike adventures, where you could say “this is a kid’s story” and “this is an adult story”, FPS games revolve around pretty much the same concept: you shoot people (or monsters). Though some people may argue that this is inappropriate for children, I can’t really see the game companies giving up the young audience for these games, which I imagine is pretty big.
Another angle here is that most of today’s game developers somehow refuse to acknowledge any kind of connection between their games and the real world. I remember reading the manual that came with Microprose’s “F-19: Stealth Fighter” simulation. That manual actually went through length to explain the political background of each campaign and actually made a serious attempt to discuss the moral implications of what you do in the game and what real-life combat pilots do. When have you seen something like that in a recent game? <sigh>(re: re: re: re: Browsing in multiple windows) I think I fixed it with the version of the code I released yesterday. At least: I can’t repeat it here. Let me know if it happens again.
-Ken W(re: re: re: Browsing in multiple windows)
I reported Emily’s problem in my initial bug report when the site first started!
(re: re: re: re: If it were me…) “I think that answers any questions I had. I can understand where you’re coming from.
I’m looking forward to seeing how revolutionary your web site development idea can be. Since you mentioned doing research, what have you found in any research you have done about other companies with products like this? I’m curious as to your take on products such as
Link: PHP-Nuke(http://phpnuke.org/)
.
– Mike Belisle”
Thanks for the link to php-nuke. It seems like a cool project, and one worth studying. I love all the stuff in this category. I’ve always been a fan of anything that brings people from around the world together.
As to how revolutionary my code will be: that’s an interesting question. I’m kind of curious myself. My primary focus on “revolution” is on the simplicity side. Sierra fans are not representative of the rest of the world. Sierra fans are smart, aggressive, inquisitve, ultra-computer literate – and, persistent. Normal people aren’t bad – but they don’t have the computer literacy that the readers of this board have.
Remember TSN? The revolution I reached for with TSN was to open online gaming to senior citizens. This is forgotten now, but the first 100 users of TSN were in their 70’s and 80’s, and had never used a computer. I’m VERY passionate about computers. Opening their use to a new class of people excites me.
My goal for this code is to open website creation to people, and groups, that would never dream of doing such a thing. Currently, only about 1 millionth of 1% of the world has ever built a website. I personally think it would be cool if everyone could. And, I mean a REAL website – not just a couple of static webpages. Websites are communities without geographic boundaries.
If my long-term goal is simplicity, “why is this site so confusing to use?”, you might ask. I would respond that it isn’t finished yet. I see this as a 20 year project, not a 90 day project. That said, there are already some things I like a lot. Building a new website, with a unique URL, with user authentication, multi-level security, file upload/download, photo galleries, etc – takes about 15 seconds. The resulting website is VERY configurable by the person who created it – and, very dynamic. Putting up a departmental intranet is no big deal. Putting up a website for your church group is easy. Cub scout troops with their own websites – easy.
I will know if I’ve succeeded or not with this code, and if I’ve done anything revolutionary or not, when if a year or two from now there are groups that would NEVER before have considered doing their own website – who build them regularly.
Make sense?
-Ken W(re: re: re: LSL without Al???)
Ok let me reiterate what I posted. I didn’t feel like writing a huge thesis on here about what this game might be like. Ok, it’s most likely going to suck, BIG, and maybe it’ll be the thing that finally kills this beast of a Sierra. What I was trying to say was that who knows what this game is going to be like. Yeah, No Al=sure fire death to Larry, but an attempt is being made, albeit a poor excuse of one and Al should have been the one to do it. I agree Larry isn’t Larry without Al Lowe. Unfortunately, we don’t have him involved with the project. Although I feel that if we do a boycott before the game is even out, it’s more reason for Sierra to not do anything with any of the old franchises and we’ll never see them again. I’m not a huge PC gamer these days for obvious reasons. I only turn my machine on to play the old games that we all are on here to remember. There’s nothing out there worth playing in my eyes, and Sierra doesn’t seem to want to listen to what we have to say. Well they did with this new Larry but are doing it all wrong. My point being in my last post was that who knows what this is going to end up turning into. Hell the project might even get shelved like all the other attempts Sierra has made. We don’t have the old company to work with here and they’re not giving up the rights so who knows what will happen. As for my referencing of the Hobbit, I only mentioned it because it’s the first in house developed game that I’ve personally seen lately, that was all. It’s probably going to suck as well, but it did look nice, is all.
(LSL without Al???) I don’t know whether anybody ever replied to the question that had come up concerning an e-mail address one might possibly send complaints or ideas to. However I wanted to ask once again in case somebody has any suggestions.
The idea that stands behind it is to try to organize some kind of petition in case there actually is something to those LSL rumors and Al Lowe really is not involved!
doern(re: re: re: If it were me…) I think that answers any questions I had. I can understand where you’re coming from.
I’m looking forward to seeing how revolutionary your web site development idea can be. Since you mentioned doing research, what have you found in any research you have done about other companies with products like this? I’m curious as to your take on products such as
Link: PHP-Nuke(http://phpnuke.org/)
.
– Mike Belisle(re: re: re: re: Does anyone have a Mac???)
OK, I concur that it does work in Internet Explorer on the Mac. Don’t know what I did that it didn’t work the first time…
– Mike Belisle
(re: re: If it were me…) Here’s a link to an interview with me that answers many of your questions:
http://adventure-treff.gamesurf.tiscali.de/artikel/interviews/ken_williams_e.php
Link: (http://www.sierragamers.com/default.asp?msgId=16271)There is “zero” chance I’ll ever again be Sierra’s, or any other large company’s CEO. Been there, done that.
If someone asked my advice about how to run any consumer product company, I’d say things like:
Focus on happy customers Focus on great product Focus on building product that is unique in the market. (some people run surveys to see what sells to decide what to build – I ran surveys to see what people wanted, that wasn’t already in the market) Focus on long-term results. If you always focus on a 10-100 year plan, the 3 month plan usually takes care of itself
With respect to games specifically, it’s not easy to say what I would do. Somewhere on this site there’s a powerpoint presentation I did a few years ago about how to build great games. I’ve been out of the games business for nearly seven years. I’ve played exactly zero games during that time. I’ve visited a computer store maybe five times (to see what new games Sierra has shipped). I’ve visited Sierra’s offices only one time. In other words, I am a horrible person to ask about running a game company in today’s market.
Things I do know:
Outside development is a sucker trap. Sierra shut down the internal development group and went outside. Don’t ask me why. There ARE times to publish products developed outside, such as Half-Life, but that should be the exception, not the rule. Even with a Half-Life, there are traps you can fall into. The big money in games today is not on the PC – it’s on the video game systems. I’m not saying that no one should produce games for computers – but, my sense is that the industry for PC software today, is like the old days when I had to make a decision about how much to spend on building games for the Mac – you need to match spending to projected revenue- and, if the market isn’t big enough to justify the investment, you make tough decisions. Multi-player gaming would still be an area I’d be interested in, but with caution. Lots of money has been lost chasing multi-player games. Sierra’s success came from my support of creative talent, and by focusing talent on products that made sense for them, and, on my strong belief that one strong author makes or breaks a project. Even when our products weren’t perfect (which they never were), the designers personality still came through in the product – and, if you like the designer, you’ll overlook flaws in the game. If you don’t like the subject matter, or the designer, a “perfect” game won’t entertain. Marketing is everything. Sierra was a well-oiled marketing machine. I’m a huge believer in supporting developers, but only after marketing has confirmed that the target market exists, and that the sales forecast justifies the investment. Focus on people, not product. Good people tend to build great product. Look at a persons track record. If their last game sold well, there next one is likely to. Don’t get fooled into supporting losers. I’ve watched lots of people who were clever talkers, and who spend days explaining why their game would have been a hit – if marketing had pushed it harder, or if the packaging had been better, or this or that. I’ve seen whole companies ship dozens of products in a row, all of which failed, each of which had a “good excuse”. I was known in the company for having zero tolerance for failure, and extreme support for winners. If your last product sold, you get a bigger budget for the next one. If it didn’t, I’ll still help you, but only to write a resume. If you study the entertainment business you will see that companies that are brutal about only hiring people who have “commercial success” tend to fair better than those that have a reputation as “nice guys”.
Anyway…
As I said earlier, I haven’t the vaguest idea how Sierra is doing, or how the industry is doing, or even what kind of games sell these days. If I were running a software company today, my first six months would be spent researching, and only then I would have meaningful opinions.
When I called Sierra last year to see if I could help, there was a specific thing I thought I could do for them. My hope was that they would have me visit with the developers every 3-6 months during product development, to look at two things; 1) is it on track to ship, and 2) does it look like it will be fun? Neither of these things require any “current” industry knowledge, nor any major time investment on my part – yet, are both skills that I definitely have.
Does that answer the question?
-Ken W(re: re: re: re: re: re: If it were me…) Well, say they did call you to ask your opinion, what would you say? What suggestions would you give to help make Sierra more profitable? Would you suggest they start producing adventure games again? Would you suggest they re-hire some of the old designers? More aggresive marketing? Suggest they re-hire you as the CEO 😉 ?
You say he said the report was to find out why Sierra was failing; they’re failing? I knew they weren’t doing as well as when you were onboard, but they’re failing? Seemed to me their action games were doing pretty well.
I actually have a thought about why Sierra isn’t doing as well these days. During your reign, most of the company’s games did well, but what I think really made the company so popular was its brand name. During the late 80’s and early and mid 90’s, when you saw a Sierra product, you knew it was quality made. You knew the people who created it actually cared about making a fun game, as well as making a profit. When you looked through a Sierra catalogue, you learned not only about a game, but it’s designers as well. I remember reading about Space Quest III in an older catalogue, I also read about Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe. You knew what kind of games they made, so next time you say their names on a Sierra box, you knew what kind of game you’d get. When you bought a Sierra product, it came with extras, like a comic, or some other thing. I know most of those things were just copy protection, but they were made fun to read and use, like for Space Quest IV, The SpacePiston Magazine. It had the copy protection within it (a necessary), but it allowed you to interact with the game without actually playing, giving more bang for your buck! That was fun! You also had good customer service and customer policies. Sierra seemed like a company that actually cared and tried to EARN people’s money. Nowadays, you don’t know anything about the designers of the games, there are no extras for the games (they just give you a box, the game, and a manuel), and there isn’t any real customer service. They just make a flashy product to catch your eye, but ultimately, doesn’t deserve your money. You’d think with all the CEO’s Sierra’s gone through, one of them (besides you) would actually care about the company and look into ways to make it more successful, instead of a quick fix to raise profits for that fiscal quarter.(re: re: re: Does anyone have a Mac???) This is probably a given, but it appears to be a problem associated with Apple’s use of Konquerer as a source. Well, it’s not really a problem so much as each browser tends to do its own thing since the web is so inconsistent. Emily could be right that it does indeed work in Internet Explorer on the Mac, and I’ll try again when I get home. I would/did find it very odd if/that it didn’t work. I’m currently on a PC running LINUX, and, just like on Safari, the menu doesn’t render in Konquerer. It works fine in Mozilla though, so, on second thought, I attribute the fact that it worked fine in Camino to the fact that Mozilla, Netscape, and Camino share the same codebase.
– Mike Belisle
p.s. I think you should fix this message: {LINK}13242
(re: re: LSL without Al???)
Al Lowe is awesome. In the 15 or so years he did games for Sierra, they always exceeded sales estimates, and came in on, or below, budget.
Al was very unique at Sierra in that he was one of very few designers who also managed the development of their own projects. On the early games Al even did some of the coding. On MANY occasions I tried to persuade him to take over all of development as VP Engineering.
Why Sierra elected not to involve him in the development of the latest Larry game is totally confusing to me. I’m sure someday I’ll hear their reasoning, and maybe I’ll go “aha.. that makes sense” .. but, I’m not betting on it.
-Ken W(re: LSL without Al???) I asked Al about it. Word from Al himself.
I have absolutely no involvement with any game currently in production. I heard from Sierra employees that a new Larry game is being developed. I offered my services to the person I was told was in charge of its development. To date, I’ve heard nothing. Why? I don’t know. I’d love to work on another Larry game. Perhaps they don’t consider me qualified.
No, Al you are the only one qualified. There is no way im gonna buy the game.(LSL without Al???) According to the latest news on the Allowe.com message board (who knows whether or not it is true) there will be a new LSL coming up. To me as a devoted LSL fan this is some great news…
But: What I read in some of the messages on this forum is quite a shock to me. How can someone possibly say LSL could ever exist without Al Lowe?? You can’t be serious. LSL is nothing without Al’s unique sense of humour and creativity. Personally I am convinced that Al put a part of himself into this awesome character and if Al won’t be there for Sierra, there can be no Larry for Sierra fans. Creating a new Larry without Al Lowe is like stuffing a puppet and I am not sure I would want to spend money to see this puppet dance. I really can’t help but not care about some Hobbit-screenshots. What I want is Larry Laffer and I want Al Lowe to make it for me. Just look at Daventry, or what become of it without Roberta’s supervision. It’s King’s Quest minus the charms and the magic. The result is nothing more than another dumb run-a-round and put-that-key-into-that-door kind of game. Does anyone here really want to see the same thing happen to Larry? I don’t!
If anything of those rumors should turn out to be true, it is time for the Sierra (Larry) comunity to show what it is worth and make Sierra hire Al in order to make our Larry live on!
doern(re: re: re: re: re: Rumor Is a New LSL Is In Development, But I Have a Question….)
While the game won’t be the same without Al attached to it, if it’s a good game who knows what will happen. Hopefully it’s good. I saw screenshots of a game Sierra is developing based on the Lord of The Rings series, called the Hobbit and the screenshots look pretty nice. So who really knows until the game is actually done and out. Al usually answers emails. I’ve talked to him many a times. I guess the best thing is to ‘wait and see’.
(re: re: re: Browsing in multiple windows) I found a bug in this area earlier today – and, believe I fixed it.
Let me know if it happens again.
-Ken W
