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(re: re: Gabriel Knight Area) half.com is another good site if you’re too impatient for ebay. that’s where i bought my copy.
-emily(re: How do I break into the business?) Aha …. my son Chris interviewed there (for QA) and couldn’t get hired. Oh well…
It turned out OK though. He got hired at EA in Seattle, but then laid off when they shut down most of the office. After 4 months of starving he got the worlds greatest job for a company (Dwango) programming cell phone games. It’s perfect for him because he is fluent in Japanese and is a gifted programmer.
A old friend of mine is at EA now (as a hauncho), Jerry Bowerman – if you see him, tell him I said Hi. I’m not sure which office he works out of.
-Ken W(re: How do I break into the business?) Wow thanks for the quick response, Ken!
Like you said I do have to support myself somehow, and right now I’m working in the QA department at Electronic Arts in Vancouver 😀 I know this is one of the best ways to get into the industry and I’m excited to work with new technology. I suck at art (seriously) and I have a friend who is designing textures and models for me. Since I’ve been composing music myself for almost 10 years, that shouldn’t be a problem either. Anyways, thanks again for your input.
If anyone’s interested in hearing some of my music, it’s here:
Link: http://www.jeku.com/audio/(http://www.jeku.com/audio/)
If there’s one song I’d recommend, it’s Isolation.
– Jake Jensen(re: Breaking into the business) I think it’s very possible for someone with no money to break into the business, if they are willing to work hard.
Build your own game. You don’t really need a publisher. Buying the development kit from Jeff Tunnel’s company, garagegames.com was a good first step (assuming you are a talented programmer). Jeff is awesome. I have to believe his garagegames engine is good enough to build a professional quality game.
Being broke means that you have to work evenings and weekends, while supporting yourself in some other way. Obviously, it would be best if a game company would hire you, but if not – then you have to find a way to build a game without their help.
You can fake the art yourself, or find a friend that is an artist. My guess is that there are artists and musicians everywhere to be found on the net, that also want to break into the business. The garagegames.com website has a want ads section for people looking for team members to do games. Form a small team, and start working on a game.
If you get something fun to play – you should be able to sell it. I just met up with a couple of ex-Sierra guys who are making a fortune selling games from their website (popcap.com). Online distribution is happening.
-Ken W
PS Good luck!
(Photo Gallery Demo)
This is an example of a photo gallery!
Remember: attach your pictures to a message first – any message – and, then all you have to do is to put the phrase “photo gallery” surrounded by braces “{}” anywhere in the message description.
-Ken W
PS Photo gallerys are handy, because the “thumbnails” are built for you automaticallySaddams boat – I was impressed that it was still floating after twelve 500 pound bombs hit it.
Logo for a film festival in Seattle — I did a website for them with this technology – siff.talkspot.com
Jim Williams, no relation)
My Boat
Cabo Del Sol – just put this here as a live demo for someone(re: re: Gabriel Knight Area) Look on ebay … I just checked – there are plenty of copies for sale.
-Ken W(re: Older games?)
ken makes a good point about the cell phones. someone posted on adventuregamers a few months ago that he had converted several AGI games to run on cell phones. he said his company was talking to sierra about it. never heard anything else and i can’t find anything about this on the web, so it might be a hoax, but if it’s true i think it’s a great idea.
as frustrating as it is that sierra won’t give up the rights, they are relatively lax about abandonware. you can still find the games all over the web if you look (not that i’d ever do a thing like that!
) or maybe their lawyers just don’t know where to look… i think most nostalgic sierra fans prefer the real thing to a download, anyway. i regularly scour the goodwill store for oldies. (picked up the VGA rerelease of PQ1 yesterday for $3.99, boxed and everything!)
-emily
(re: Ken Williams – after Sierra) Ken, if Sierra wants to sell you should reaaly consider to get back in and refocus the company.
Key success factor was for sure the vision and coherent pursuing of a craft: adventuring by you and your wife. With nowadays technologies you could do again very well, but please, do avoid too real stuff (like shivers….), as a cartoon style look let’s more imagination run !
Thanks for all the fun,
Giovanni(re: Older games?) This is interesting stuff!
Sierra’s current business policy is a mystery to me. A good example is the Leisure Suit Larry Ultimate Pleasure Pack, which contains all of the LSL games in one great collection. However, it was obviously never printed in big enough numbers, as you can hardly even find a used copy of this collection on eBay or Amazon, and when you do the price is simply insane. Al Lowe himself has written about his frustration concerning this collection. Sierra won’t sell more copies of it, even when there is a huge demand on the product and their development cost of the product is zero. Can’t they afford the printing and warehouse costs? Come on! Of course they can! May it be that they have left the old Sierra products behind as part of a strategy to “cut the cords” to the old Sierra? Maybe… but it doesn’t seem like a very good idea. People loved the old Sierra, and still do, while people couldn’t care less about the current Sierra even though they buy the occasional game published by them. Or can it be that they don’t want to have “old” games using old technology associated with the name of a company striving to release the coolest games with the latest technology?
But my money would be on the assumption that they simply don’t know what their customers want anymore.(re: Older games?) The future may be a lot closer than you think, many people are slowly realising that there is more than just fancy graphics.
Like you said, a lot of the games don’t run under XP Dos and fast P4’s, however there is a project that I have been made aware of that will enable one to run older DOS games in an emulated DOS enviroment (much like the Apple Emulator on the Roberta Williams Anthology – btw great collection!) and quite a few games are able to run under it. For those interested, have a look at:
Link: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net(http://dosbox.sourceforge.net) I really wish that they would put together collection games, but I suppose that that way they would be afraid that they would have to support it. But if they don’t want to support it then they should state that xyz is classed as abandonware for the general public enjoyment. Sigh! We can only wish.
(re: Older games?) I’m not sure what I would do if I was running Sierra. My guess is that I would not officially authorize the products as “abandonware”, but would look the other way as people download them and pass them around.
Here’s why:
Sierra made a lot of money (like $20 million a year during my day), selling obsolete products as compilations on CD. We would put 10-20 products on a CD and sell it for $9.95. Selling old games at a reduced cost was a material part of our revenue, and a huge chunk of our profit. Plus, it’s a win for everyone. Those who bought the cheap CDs got a lot of value for what they paid.
That said, the old 286/386 games don’t even run on most computers. But, who knows what the future holds? Perhaps a 286 based cell phone will release someday, or a PDA. It’s difficult for a company to “turn off” a potential source of future revenue.
Anyway … my sense is that most game company management teams would like to make these public domain, but can’t really if there is a chance they represent future revenue. Therefore, they ignore the piracy, but would clamp down if suddenly a way were found to monetize the older products.
-Ken W
(re: TSN/INN reborn) Awesome!!! I had thought they had single-player only demos going. I’ll check it out.
-Ken W(re: TSN/INN reborn) Ken,
I’m not part of the project but I can tell you from being on there today that the post office, phone booth, and clubhouse are all active right now. Inside the club house i believe that two games are playable, i’m not sure what they were because I didn’t stay on that long. There were a few people on there chatting though. Take care, James(re: TSN/INN reborn) Is there any kind of estimated schedule? Are we days, weeks, months or years from playing? I’m not rushing you, but am certainly curious (and, impatient)
-Ken W(re: TSN/INN reborn) I just downloaded it and got on … its pretty cool man. I can’t wait until I can play Yserbius.
(re: Talkspot – or, life after Sierra) Greetings!
For anyone who might be interested in tracking down the Sierra Reunion that Ken mentioned above, I have it available in the Downloads section of the Virtual Broomcloset. Best wishes!
Jess(re: Talkspot – or, life after Sierra)
Ah, now I know where this great show comes from, that was a really good one.
(re: Talkspot – or, life after Sierra) Wow! Thanks for the info. I guess it might be that you were a little too ahead of time. The whole Internet broadcast idea is still viable, and I know there’s lots of research being done on new protocols etc. that would allow real-time data streams to be received by multiple users, so that the sender won’t need loads of bandwidth to broadcast a thing like TalkSpot even if there are thousands of receivers. Maybe just a regular PC would do. Also, it’s now becoming more and more viable to broadcast live video as people get better and better connections. Surely someone with the right strategy (and luck) could quickly build a fortune out of these things…
Concerning the live Sierra show, “The Sierra Reunion” as it was called, it surely is a great show! I got it stored away somewhere. Also, I remember TalkSpot was used for promotion of some Sierra games. Unfortunately I haven’t found all of these things archived. For instance, there was a long 3-part live interview series with Roberta and Mark Seibert about the history of Sierra and King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity. Unfortunately I could only find the first two of those…(re: Question for Ken Williams)
Although I like computer games, I’m not really thinking of going into the industry myself. I was just curious about what you have to say about it. It’s definitely work, but it sound interesting. Thanks a lot, Ken. It was very enlightening. 🙂
(re: Ken Williams – after Sierra) I’ll start a new thread to talk about Talkspot….
Here is is: {LINK}14380(re: Ken Williams – after Sierra) But you haven’t been a total deadbeat, have you? 🙂 What about WorldStream Communications and TalkSpot? I really liked the online radio concept. But if I got it right, you changed it into a company selling online broadcast technology (as suggested by a venture capitalist) but had to shut it down in mid-2001. I don’t know the first thing about business, but I’m guessing it was mainly because the whole IT sector crashed.
Was the online radio idea ever really profitable? I think it was an exciting idea to add all sorts of interactivity to the medium, but did you ever get the amount of listeners you wanted (or at least had expected)?(re: Ken Williams – after Sierra) Check out {LINK}14356 it will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about my life … including what happened to our kids.
To make a long story short — DJ became a chef, and Chris is “sort of” in the business. He’s a programmer for a cell phone game company called Dwango. Both are REALLY good programmers.
-Ken W(re: Ken Williams – after Sierra) You ought to at least play a game once in awhile…. it’d be enlightening.
Although we’d all love to see you “into gaming” again, we totally understand. After all, the “King and Queen” of the graphic adventure “as we know it today” should have the right to sit back and enjoy “retirement”. Travel and enjoy each other – you’ve worked hard for it!
What about D. J. & Chris? Are they still involved in the industry?(re: Ken Williams – after Sierra) Nope — I’ve been a total deadbeat. I haven’t played a game, much less worked on one – for almost seven years now.
I called Sierra once (about 3 years ago) to see if I could help – but, they blew me off.
Roberta and I would love to do a game, but neither of us wants to sit still. We travel MOST of the time. Sitting at a desk working on a game for two years doesn’t sound that fun. Well … actually, it does and it doesn’t. A couple of times, like when I called Sierra, I had made the decision to drop back in. Who knows what would have happened if they had taken me up on my offer. Also, recently, I heard a rumor that Vivendi might sell Sierra. I dropped hints that I’d be willing to work with someone who wanted to buy it (perhaps as chairman or some R&D role) – but, fortunately, no one took me up on it.
-Ken W(re: Question for Ken Williams) This is a question I’m not sure there is any one right answer to.
At Sierra, it really was a matter of being “in the right place in the right time”. If market research told us there was a market for a fishing product, and I happened to know someone who fished, you stood a good shot of getting your chance. I usually picked designers based on targeting a demographic for a product, and then looking around for someone who had the pulse of the target market. (a fancy way of saying I identifyed the niche in the market first, and then looked for a person who fit the niche).
Now that I’ve confused you, I’ll tell you what I would do if I were trying to break into the business today:
My sense is that distribution is in the process of changing. In the past 99% of PC product was sold through retail outlets. My guess is that this numbers has dropped significantly, and that 10% or more of PC product is being sold over the internet. Selling games over the internet requires not much more than the ability to build a great game. Artists and programmers can be found who are also trying to break into the business. Check out
Link: http://www.garagegames.com(http://www.garagegames.com)
(Jeff Tunnel – formerly from Dynamix). I’d try to assemble a team and build a product – then distribute it free on the web. If people like it you can sell them a sequel, (or more of the same game) or use it as your resume to get an interview at a game company. Nothing speaks louder than success.
In other words, don’t wait for someone to GIVE you a chance. Instead TAKE a chance. Prove yourself – and, perhaps you will make some serious money, or break into the industry, along the way.
-Ken W
