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As I am now into similar positions, my mindset is more like yours, I am frustrated with people who do not execute and have mindsets for excuses and hiding behind their incompetencies. On the flipside, I do not have time to motivate or increase the value of these folks, even though I know they are smart. My perspective is to be successful, you should be (not in any order):
1) Smart
2) Able to execute
3) CreativeSo, that said, Ken, what would you have done to motivate the folks that are not performing? I am sure they have their reasons, but is it a manager’s responsibility to get those out, when time is already limited to keep company’s respect and position in the industry?
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…mxCoder, 2006-03-31 12:42:20…I would suggest looking for engineers with management training….
I’ve always thought that management skill is a little like art skill …. you got it, or you don’t. There are certainly engineers that will never be managers, and managers that should never try to manage engineers.
If you can get a great engineer, with strong management skills — you’re going places!
Actually – I don’t know that I was ever a great manager. I did well in two areas: I was a solid engineer and the teams couldn’t bull me about what could, or couldn’t be done, and often, I could immediately have a better sense of when the code would be complete than the programmer who was writing it. I was also a good leader. I was aggressive, competitive, and not standing still for anything. I’d rather be wrong than slow in acting. People followed me because they knew I was often right, and never boring.
As to being a good manager: Overall, I’d give myself a C or D. I was slow firing sluggish or incompetent people. I never discovered how to motivate people who didn’t want to be motivated. But, what I did do well was to empower people to succeed or fail. I was highly intolerant of excuses. There were people who never seemed to get things done, but who were expert at having good excuses. I was very good at waving goodbye to these people. I was also intolerant of people who tried to hide behind paperwork. When I asked how a project was going, and someone said ‘let me ask’ or ‘let me check my notes’, I sought someone else who was on top of their project. Generally, I divided the world into people who were there to win, and those who were there for the paycheck. I suppose an A-List manager could manage the C players successfully. That wasn’t me. I did my best to ship those people off to other companies with better managers.
-Ken W
I couldn’t stop laughing when I read this:
View39262 was the most shocking find, however. It looks like an animation of the sparking wire in the endgame with a word written in each frame. Strung together, they spell “Marcia Bales is a moron.”
Very hilarious, but absolutely inaccurate. Marcia Bales was awesome, and someone I was very fortunate to have worked with.I’m not sure what she is up to these days, but am sure it is something great. The last I saw her, she had ‘gone over to the other side’ and was working for a business software company in Seattle.
-Ken W
Wow. Every time I hear any news about the tragedy I haven’t heard before, it really makes me sad. 🙁
I think I understand Vivendi’s ‘peculiar behavior’ in terms of
big-business thinking. The bigger a company gets, the less close-knit
it becomes and it’s hard for corporate executives to believe that
someone just wants to ‘help out’ or do anything for the good of the
company without personal gain. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it
draws a little bit of suspicion.While Ken may genuinely want to help and asks for no money, Vivendi by
natural instinct has to be cautious and assume the worst — an
infiltration? a hostile takeover? access to something? — it’s
terrible, but it’s true.I used to work for a movie theater company that started out small in
the 90s and is now one of the largest chains after being bought, sold,
split, merged and chopped over the years. With every change came a
sweeping reform in policies, shuffling of staff, reorganizing of
locations, etc. Whenever a different person was put in charge, the
company lost a little more of its ‘soul.’ Much like CUC placing someone
with no software knowledge in charge of Sierra, most of the people in
charge of that theater company are real estate, communications, or
travel executives. Hardly any real theater experience.That said, Ken you are a remarkable person, and I think your modesty
and care towards the people that surround you make all of your
accomplishments far greater than they would be on their own. One day,
I’ll sit down and write the letter I’ve been meaning to write since 7th
grade. Back then, I had to submit an essay about a ‘famous person whose
shoes you’d like to fill’ and I wrote about Ken Williams. Which is why
when you said, ‘A lot of people (1,000 Sierra employees) were hurt
horribly by what
occurred. Thousands of others who would have someday worked for Sierra
will never work there.
A brand name that once was amongst the finest in
the world, now means little. Games that would have existed will now
never be created. Thousands of lives were ruined.’ a piece of me died.
But you’ve made the trail, and maybe if I make enough money selling off
my Sierra collection, I’ll blaze that trail and start the SECOND
greatest adventure game company that ever lived. 😉Take care!
-Tom.
Where I work we are ate up with engineers as managers. I would suggest looking for engineers with management training.
Ken,
Thanks for your wishes. I do see your point how these companies were different then. I have printed out your learnings and put it in the wall in my home-office to act as a mindset more so then a ‘list of items’. These are all good points, and it will be important as we grow. The engineers in management is a great point. Being in Chicago, you do not see that much, but it is a very important aspect of running a technology company.
Manish
Hello,
I haven’t posted here in a while, but I recently discovered something that I felt was worth relating to other people who have played Shivers.
SCI Studio (http://bripro.com/scistudio/index.php) is a program that allows you to view the resource files of Sierra’s various SCI games. It has also recently released a version that allows you to view various resource files from VGA games as well, and remarkably, Shivers 1 can be viewed as well!
I’ve been looking at the game’s files, and I’ve made several interesting discoveries.
For example, the following view numbers…
View12221
View16905
View50700-50900
View51300-52010
View52100-52200
View52300-53101
View54000…appear to be simple renditions of the game’s puzzles that look almost as if they were done in MS Paint. It’s interesting to see them in the final game. You’d think that the programmers would have removed them. 12221 looks like an early blueprint of one of the museum’s floors, and 16905 is an early version of the note you find on the theater’s podium (interestingly, Beth and Merrick’s handwriting styles have swapped places in this version).
One of the background shots, Pic20441, has a view of the left column by the stone sarcophagus (closed) in Tombs and Curses with large red lettering reading “NEED SHOT” scrawled on it. Perhaps it was a plea for a shot of the same scene with the sarcophagus open.
View39262 was the most shocking find, however. It looks like an animation of the sparking wire in the endgame with a word written in each frame. Strung together, they spell “Marcia Bales is a moron.”
Marcia Bales was the designer of Shivers. This must have been the work of a truly disgruntled animator. Did word of this scandal ever get out?
Also, I found a bizarre animation of one of the walls in the tower morphing to become this huge, octopus-like thing and “float” away. I haven’t encountered this, no matter how many times I visited the spot where this seems to appear (2 clicks up from the door). Maybe it was cut from the game.
Two last observations:
What the heck were those eyes you see when leaving the subterranean world exhibit? The crackling noise makes it seem like it is the thunder and lightning Ixupi, but if you don’t move when they appear (which a couple of the walkthroughs I glanced at strongly advised against), the eyes merely vanish, with no loss of life essence on your part.
Secondly, is the identity of the character who did all the exhibit descriptions ever revealed? It was a bit unnerving to keep hearing this voice and wondering who it belonged to in the context of the game world. I was expecting to find a journal entry from Windlenot saying, “I’ve hired this fellow to provide museum-goers with recorded introductions for all of my fine exhibits”, but no dice.
I’ve posted a streaming version of the making of gabriel knight and other videos on my site:
http://www.sierra-collector.com/about/interviews.cfmI plan to add demo and intro videos to the games section over the next few weeks.
Steve.
Manish:
Good luck with your company!
As I mentioned in the interview, Sierra’s role models were Microsoft and Disney. Unfortunately, neither of these companies are what they once were.
Here’s some of what we tried to model from each:
Microsoft (at the time, in the 80s)
– Aggressive competitor
– Pick a category, and build a long-term plan to ‘own’ the category
– Technology and product driven
– Culture of hard work and long hours
– Serious about what they were doing
– Focus on hiring smart, aggressive engineers
– Engineers in senior managementDisney (in the 70s/80s)
– Ownership of intellectual property
– Heavy investment in building (and owning) brand names
– Internally created product
– Hire creative people, but then manage team tightly. Rigid control of where the product is going.
– Emhapsis on the company branding as a mark of quality, almost more so than an individual product. I remember taking our kids to DISNEY films. We knew it would be great, or it wouldn’t have the Disney brand.Ken W
Hey, this is Broomie, Head of PR and animator for King’s Quest III VGA.
As Brandon stated, yes we were hacked and the site and forums should be up and running very soon. Seeing as it’s close to April Fool’s Day I just want to assure you that this isn’t a prank. However, during this time we did see fit to give you a small surprise anyway once we return, just to say we’re back and better than ever. 😉
Anyway, we will have a voice pack included and there will be some surprises in it aswell. So hold tight, we’ll be bringing KQ3 to you very soon.
Cheers,
BroomieHi Ken,
I read the interview, thank you very much for the insight. Sierra, like for many people, was an amazing time of my life. In 1991 , I started college and seperated from the Sierra world, only to find out upon graduation, things at Sierra have changed a lot from a games and corporate perspective.
One statement that surprised me about the interview was that you were heavily influenced by Bill Gates. This surprised me quite a bit, since Sierra was very product-oriented and more consumer market oriented, while Microsoft isn’t as product and innovation oriented, but instead about marketing and corporate relationships. I parallel you (and Sierra) to Jobs (and Apple), in the sense both companies are very creative, highly focused on innovation and product development, and dedicated to consumer markets (vs business). Both companies have pushed technology, creativity, and usability to the limits in the respective industry. Regarding Walt Disney, at the time, compared to today, it was a very creative company, which makes sense.
I did start my own software company creating higher-end web sties on a platform, and I’ve taken a lot of my learnings from yourself and Steve Jobs. So, thank you not for only the fun-times, but for the professional insight.
Manish
Here is a very nice review of Game Quest from someone in Vancouver who bought my novel. Just in case you want an opinion on it other than my own which is, admittedly, biased.
http://www.deirdrakiai.com/2006/03/25/its-a-book-review/
Thanks. Game On!
Quest for Glory I is now #3 on the ‘Top Ten Most Played’ list on Gametap!!! This sure makes me happy 🙂
Just let me know what format (quicktime, mp4, realvideo, windows media), and also send me your email address
through the feedback form on my site:
http://www.sierra-collector.com/feedback.cfmI’ll put the movie on my site this weekend for you and send you the link.
It is interesting to see that Microsoft has now delayed their release of Windows Vista to the same date as the new release date for the compilations. Do you think that VU had a heads up of the OS delay? And, that they may be making the new compilation games Windows Vista compatible.
Now I will have to update my Windows 3.1 !
I just noticed that Quest for Glory 1-3 have been added to Gametap, and Quest for Glory I got editors choice! WOOHOOO!!!
http://www.sierragamers.com/m/-8498&parm1=tid&parm2=7286
please, get link
Just wanted to clarify between you wanting the exact file (uncompressed AVI), vs, the same video unedited (file as MPEG4 etc.).
I’ve not seen the uncompressed video online.
Steve.It’s quite simple, really. It means an unaltered copy taken directly from the cd-rom, with the same timestamp
What do you mean by unmodified?
I’m planning to put a flash version of it on my site in the next few weeks, but it will be streaming only.
Ah, my copy also came bundled with a computer! I thought that’s why it didn’t have the audio track, but seeing as you got it this way as well, I wonder what went wrong when they printed my specific copy.
Well, tough luck, I guess.
