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I think you’re mistaken. Blizzard has so much more going for them than just (World of) Warcraft. Blizzard is developing games for the console market and has still one of the greatest worldwide multiplayer tournaments. Even Discovery covered the Starcraft championship. I think WoW will dominate the MMORPG market for the coming years. Blizzard is going to release the first expansion at the end of the year so most players are going to buy it. I know I will 😉 Blizzard even said that in the future they might even update the graphics. Don’t know how they are going to do that but still… They Warcraft well is like an inexhaustible well.
It’s is true that Blizzard doesn’t develop a lot of games, but they don’t have to. Almost every games they develop is a real gem and sells millions. Just wait and see, if Blizzard announces a new game (Diablo 3), the world is going crazy! Look at Rockstar, they ‘only’ have one franchise and that is GTA. As long as people are interested in GTA, they are going to sell millions of GTA games.
Blizzard is here to stay…
I asked my friends if they knew if it was the dome but they don’t remember. The mountain top does resemble the logo so let’s assume it is 😛
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…nico, r., 2006-08-06 02:20:23Hi Ken
As a successful businessman that spent a lot of years in the entertainment industry, what is your advice on how to grow and manage an up and coming company, what marketing and business strategies are the best for a business to develop from ”rags to riches” so to speak? I’m very into the business aspect of things, and I’d like to start a company but I don’t know where to begin. My personal belief is unlike the business where the $ is the chief interest; my motto would be to serve the customers, for it’s the customers that truly run the company; do right by the costumers and the bottom line will follow. I was wondering if this is the right attitude to have in a business atmosphere…
That’s a very open ended question, and I have no idea where to begin an answer.My focus at Sierra was on providing a great product, and great service, but at a premium price point. But, this isn’t the only successful strategy — there are certainly companies that provide mediocre products, with no service, and a very low price point, and do very well.
In other words — there really isn’t one right answer.
Here’s how I look at it:
It’s all about demographics. Identify a target customer group. Decide what their ‘hot buttons’ are. What does it take to sell them a product? What do they care about, and what don’t they care about? How many of them are there? How much are they willing to spend?
Define your customer base. Size your customer base.
An example:
You want to sell flowers. There are lots of ways to spin this, any or all of which could be viable:
- A neighborhood flower shop. Know your customers. Personal attention. Hand selected arrangements. Premium pricing.
- An internet flower shop, with direct delivery. Target persons who want to reach recipients in other cities. In this scenario, price and selection is probably not as important as sending a professional message, and giving the person confidence that the delivery will occur
- The flower department at Wal Mart. Low price is everything. Put them out, people will select and buy. On the buy side, focus on what is available in large quanity that can be delivered below market.
There are 100s of ways to spin any given business – some of which work, some of which don’t. Actually, most do work if you match expenses to revenue.
So…
I guess my answer would be, if you want to succeed in business – start by studying demographics and marketing. Build good quantitative skills.
-Ken W
I would be VERY surprised if it were me.
For a while, both Sierra and Blizzard were owned by the same people, so I did speak with Blizzards developers from time to time, but that’s it. I never had anything to do with any Blizzard product.
-Ken W
Hi Ken
I had gotten the game Diablo II by Blizzard and I was surprised to find your name listed among the game credits. Apparently, you’re credited as the producer of the game and also with Blizzard’s Business Development and Operations. This is not only in my game manual but also on this website: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo-ii-collectors-edition/credits Just was wondering if this is true or not, or if it’s a totally different Ken Williams.
EDIT: My apologies, apparently there is a totally different Ken Williams that works for Blizzard.
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11647/The Sierra logo was based on the mountain ‘half dome’ at Yosemite. I can’t tell from your picture if that is half dome or not.
One way or the other, it does appear to be the Sierra Logo!
Here’s Half Dome: halfdm1.jpg
-Ken W
Hey guys!
Some while ago, I took a roadtrip with 2 of my best friends from San Diego to Las Vegas. After a couple of weeks, we finally arrived at Yosemite National Park. I vaguely remembered that the Sierra Logo originated from a mountain in Yosemite National Park, so ofcourse I wanted to find the mountain. Our second day at YNP we took a 3.5 hour hike and on our way I found the Sierra Mountain. I took the following picture: Sierra Mountain.
I giggled like a little girl when I saw the mountain. My friends thought I had gone mad because of the height and when I told them the story they just nodded and carried on…
So, is it the Sierra Logo or is it not?
I’m sorry to say, but I have no idea what happened to him.
Hopefully, some day he will discover this board, and post something saying how his life turned out.
-Ken W
DosBos will work good too. I’ve gotten just about every game I’ve tried to work in it. King’s Quest VIII is tough to get working. I had to download a glide wrapper, and even then it would freeze after I got the ax. There’s a site that offers a save game right after that point, though.
I find it hard to believe they’re making them XP compatible too, but that’s really what they’d need to do if they hope to make any money off of it. They’ll need the games to work out of the box, and that would be hard to do with King’s Quest VIII. Another thing they should do besides including IIgs sound is include MT-32 sound only in mp3 format or something so that you could play a game with MT-32 sound and not need an actual MT-32 card.
With KQ5, search this site for information on VDM sound. KQ5 is the best. I run it on a 300Mhz Win98 emachine.
I found KQ7 at GoodWill for $4.00 and last night I found the Red Baron for the same price.Thanx everyone for helping me. Although I must admit its a little hard to believe that they may be working on the game to make it compatible with xp. I have the 1994 collection (number 1-6) and besides not having sound they all work fine on my xp (except for #5…it says it cannot r4ecognize the sound card). If anyone knows where to find KQ 7 and 8 please tell me. I’ve looked on ebay but all i can find is numbers 1-5 and weird remakess by people not associated with sierra.
What games are you playing because there is no way Oblivion, Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R. and games like that are going to work on your computer. My brother’s computer is probably from around 2001 too and he can only play these games with low FPS and the lowest graphic settings possible. Plus he had to upgrade his RAM, which cost a lot since his RAM type is ancient. I think the push towards technology and upgrades has increased rather than plateaued. My computer became obsolete just a few months after I got it. And soon there will be Windows Vista and DirectX 10 which will force more upgrades.
I’m frustrated with how fan-remakes don’t aim a little higher than the standards of 1993. It’s ironic that fans are making remakes of a game that would need another remake. I’d like to see some innovation and at the very least hi-res 32-bit graphics. Why don’t fans create high resolution games? Is it really that hard to produce such graphics as opposed to 320×240? I always thought the lower resolution graphics of the older Sierra games was due to limitations. After all, the backgrounds were hand-painted. Some amazing things can be done with 2d graphics to make them seem fresh and new. I wish I had the technical expertise to go for it myself.
That’s why I think copyright laws should be changed and why I think abandonware is a good thing rather than a bad thing since if a company isn’t selling or supporting a game, then they’re not making or losing any money over it. So then a fan is left with no option other than to wait for the company to re-release the games (unlikely) or to make it freeware (extremely unlikely). And then of course, many games were released on multiple systems with varying differences. So someone who grew up playing the Amiga version of King’s Quest IV is out of luck since that particular version will never be released again and any attempt to try to acquire it is considered illegal beyond buying it on ebay if you’re lucky enough to find it and for below $80. And in that case, the company still wouldn’t be making money off that game, only the price-gouging ebayers would be. I’m already afraid for the many Apple IIe games I grew up playing in school labs that are probably gone forever.
It’s all just a rumor. It doesn’t mean that they’re not being worked on or coming out. But some of the things like that they’ll be Windows XP compatible sounds unlikely, although maybe that’s why they’re taking so long because VU is trying to patch the games to work in Windows XP. I’m not keeping my hopes up though. If I were working on the compilations, I’d make the games bootable from XP with no emulation, and I’d include graphic settings similar to DosBox like OpenGL. And most important, I’d include new midi sound in any game that didn’t support midi, or at the very least I would incorporate the Apple IIgs sound from the AGI games. And I’d have different options to play the game as it would play on different systems so people could get that kick of nostalgia that they want.
Everyone is getting their dates and stuff by looking at internet shopping sites like Amazon and Wal-Mart. They must be getting their information from somewhere about compilations being released, but pre-release date inforatmion from these sites is almost always unreliable unless it has been unofficial announced by the publisher, and even then it could be changed. So there’s really not much you can do other than wait and not worry about it. If they’re released then they’re released, and if not then at least you didn’t kill yourself waiting. Just check these Sierra fan sites every couple months and I’m sure you will see a stickied thread titled SIERRA COMPILATIONS RELEASED!!!!!!
Afaik, it is still uncertain if the complilations are going to be
released at all. Like you said there a lot of different release dates
out there and most websites I emailed told me that they couldn’t
provide me with an accurate release date. I’ve been reading rumors
about the compilations since february 2005 so I’m a bit sceptic 😛I do hope that the compilations will be released soon…
That would be the million dollar question. Well not really. The King’s Quest and Space Quest Compilations’ release date has been pushed out over and over. I don’t even think Vivendi Universal, the current dictators over Sierra, have acknowledged the creation of the compilations. We are all in a wait and see mode.
I too would like to play some of the games that I could not afford when I was younger. I’m just not crazy enough to download them for free.
I guess I will have to find a chair at the supper table and just sit banging my fork and spoon on the table. : )Quote:
…theresa_achour@hotmail.com, theresa, 2006-07-31 09:04:49I am looking for Nascar Racing 2003 Season for a PC.My son wants it so bad and I’m looking all over the world to try to find it for him.I did bid on the game on Ebay and won.I sent the seller the money and now the seller is refusing to send me the game or my money back. It broke my heart to tell my son that I found the game and then need to tell him he still can’t have it.Please help me….
Teresa:
I don’t have a copy. I checked eBay, by entering the search term: ‘nascar (sierra, papyrus)’ – and found 27 copies. On eBay, each selling has a rating showing the total number of transactions, and how they rated. Never buy from a seller who doesn’t have a lot of transactions and a perfect, or near-perfect record. Generally, I won’t buy from someone who doesn’t done 100s or 1,000s of transactions, with a 99% or 100% rating. This means paying more, but I’ve done a couple of thousand transactions on eBay and never been ripped off (at least not in recent years).
The price that Nascar is going for shocked me — $80-100. I wouldn’t have expected that. It was a GREAT game, but I don’t understand the high price. Wow!
What did the seller give as an excuse for not shipping?
-Ken W
The Event was a great success, and Phoenix
Online Studios would like to thank everyone who found time to attend. A
log of the chat should be available shortly for those who couldn’t make
it.We released a number of treats during the chat, and I’ll share those with you now.
The winner of our present contest was Rob McKay, who designed a sample box cover for the game. Check out his great work at http://www.tsl-game.com/home.php
We at Phoenix Online Studios have always been immensely proud of
our composer, Austin Haynes. To see just why we’re so proud, have a
listen to ‘The Day You Were Gone’, the love theme from ‘The Silver
Lining’. The music was composed and performed by Austin, with lyrics by
César Bittar and vocals by Amy Kurylo. http://www.tsl-game.com/media/music/cd/To show off the impressive work of our artists, as well as to give you
a few more hints on the game’s secret storyline, we’ve released eight
brand new desktop wallpapers of the game’s major characters. http://www.tsl-game.com/media/wallpapers/Finally, we promised to release a demo, which needs no further explanation. Download it now at http://www.tsl-game.com/trilogy/
Michael A. Bright
PR & Web Assistant
The Silver Lining Development Team
Phoenix Online Studios
Just a reminder that this year’s ‘The Silver Lining’ special event will begin momentarily. If you’ve been following the project at all, you will NOT want to miss some of what will be revealed in the next few hours. Join us at http://www.tsl-game.com/chat/
Yes thank you. You really should consider writing a book on Sierra, it’s quite an intereseting and complex story and it’d make for a very good read.
Tough question.
I know nothing about how Vivendi is organized today, and less about how Blizzard is organized. I only know Blizzard is still around because my son is addicted to the multiplayer version of Warcraft. Whether or not today’s Blizzard has anything to do with the Blizzard when I was in the industry, and whether or not Davidson is involved – I have no idea.
All I can comment on is what I knew 13 years ago when Sierra was sold (and, the 18 years I ran the company before that).
At the time of the acquisition of Davidson and Sierra, the two companies were flying high. Sierra was dominant in entertainment and Davidson was dominant in education. Actually it was a perfect marriage in that Sierra lead the market in education outside the US, and Davidson had an entertainment hit in their Blizzard subsidiary. Together, the two companies should have been unstoppable.
Unfortunately, it sounds easier as a theory, than it was as a reality. When first approached by CUC, about being acquired, I was fine. But, then when CUC spoke about their strategy of consolidating us with Davidson, I worried that it was a ‘marriage doomed to failure’. There were companies I could envision being teamed with, but Davidson wasn’t one of them. I had tremendous respect for Bob Davidson, and thought he was a brilliant businessman. But, I didn’t think he was the right guy to run a combined Sierra/Davidson, and I didn’t think he would be willing to subordinate his company to Sierra. On this basis, I refused to ‘do the deal.’
My fear had to do with Sierra’s product line, rather than anything personal. Sierra published a wide range of products, including both entertainment and education products. Davidson also published both entertainment and education. That Davidson could publish children’s education AND Warcraft was a positive. However, during the negotiations, there were rumors that Bob and Jan Davidson were concerned about Leisure-Suit Larry and Phantasmagoria — two of Sierra’s biggest hits. To me, it was clear that they were non-supporters of the products. Putting Davidson in charge of selling these products, which were a huge percentage of our revenue, I felt would be a mistake. I just didn’t think it would work.
During the negotiations, CUC convinced me that the ‘Davidson Issue’ was a ‘non-issue.’ CUC put a structure in place which created a consolidation of non-product related functions, such as manufacturing, while leaving Sierra and Davidson independent for the purpose of creating product. In other words, I was assured that only non-product related groups would be merged. Davidson would not be dictating product strategy at Sierra, and neither of us would be reporting to the other. This is quite different than what actually happened.
One the deal was done,Bob Davidson was put in charge. However, even this had problems -CUC and Davidson had their own conflict, which resulted in Bob Davidson leaving the company. By the time all this occured, I had been transferred out of the software business, and neither CUC nor I wanted me to get reinvolved. At the time, I used to say ‘Put Bob Davidson, or myself in charge of software, but don’t ask us to co-exist. Either of us could do the job, but WE can’t do it together.’ Bob won the short-term battle to run the software business, but then he and his new bosses didn’t get along. My personal theory is that it’s possible that they didn’t get along because Bob sensed that things weren’t completely right at CUC (several members of CUC’s management have been found guilty of, or admitted to, ‘cooking the books’.)
Does this answer your question?
-Ken W
Hi Ken
Seeing as you worked around Blizzard and Davidson after the CUC sale, I was wondering what the arrangement was between the two companies under CUC–I’ve heard Blizzard was a Davidson subsidiary, but it always seemed to exist as an almost separate brand and company from Davidson. Not only that but it seems that the Davidson & Associates name has vanished in the last few years, but it still exists because apparently Davidson is now ”doing business as” Blizzard. What’s that about?Great question!
CUC put me on the board as Vice Chairman, and also into the Office of the President, in response to my fears that Sierra would be ruined by being part of CUC. They also formed a software board, which I was to be part of, that was to make the important decisions for the software business. I wanted to know that I had the power required within the organization to give Sierra the maximum chance of surviving. I refused to support the transaction unless I thought there would be a viable software business post-transaction.
Unfortunately, they were just telling me what I wanted to hear, to get the deal done. My titles gave me no power, and I dropped almost all involvement in the software business immediately after the acquisition.
It was a very painful time.
-Ken W
