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July 24th, 1996. A day some of you may know the significance of, and a day of unsurpassed importance in the history of Sierra. On that day, Sierra’s shareholders and other officials met and the decision to sell Sierra On-Line, Inc., to CUC International, Inc., was finalized and agreed upon. 12 years ago today, Sierra was sold, at the peak of it’s game, to CUC, for over $1 billion in stock money. This day marked the turning point in the company’s long and storied history. That same day, the shareholders of Davidson & Associates, Inc. (the owners of Blizzard Entertainment) also met and finalized the sale of their company to CUC as well.
By July of the next year, CUC would own Sierra, Davidson, Blizzard, Knowledge Adventure and Gryphon Software.
Where would all these companies end up?CUC merged with HFS Inc, a leading franchiser of Hotels, in December ’97 and formed Cendant Corp., and for a few months existed as one of the largest and most powerful companies on the planet, but ended up being involved in one of the biggest accounting scandals in history. Many of CUC’s leaders were jailed and Cendant survived but in a much weakened state, it’s name forever tarnished. The company would splinter itself into different parts and spin off those parts and the Cendant name would go out of business nearly ten years later.
Sierra in the first year and a half after the sale was extremely successful and acquired 3 different companies in that year and a half and continued to grow but when the Cendant scandal rocked the company, and it was discovered that CUC’s accountants used Sierra’s name to cover a lot of it’s illegal dealings. This nearly shattered the profitability of the company and resulted in many good people losing their jobs and pensions. It later suffered numerous layoffs and was sold again, to Havas, who was in turn sold to Vivendi shortly thereafter. Sierra was under much stricter and colder management following the scandal and many layoffs and dissapointing game titles ensued and Sierra’s studios were all systemically closed over a period of 6 years. With the closure of the Bellevue offices in 2004 by Vivendi, the company now exists only as a brand name on Vivendi products and is considered a minor company by Vivendi but the name and it’s legacy survive and haven’t been forgotten, and as it is used on Vivendi products, it is still well known, albeit not the same as it once was.
Davidson & Associates, Inc., was divested and digested by CUC after it’s founders left in early 1997 and it’s products and brands were transfered to Knowledge Adventure, who distributed and released them as if they were their own products. The Davidson website became Knowledge Adventure, and was absorbed totally. It exists now only as the seldom used and mentioned legal name of Blizzard Entertainment and has largely been forgotten by today’s gamers, almost as if it were erased from history.. Like Sierra, Davidson’s name was also used by CUC for it’s illegal dealings, which resulted in a lot of good people losing their jobs.
Knowledge Adventure managed to generally escape the ill effects of the Cendant scandal, having been purchased later and it’s name wasn’t used for any of CUC’s dirty work unlike Sierra and Davidson. Probably to it’s benefit, Knowledge Adventure was sold by Vivendi in 2004 to a group of investers who took an interest in restoring the company and who wanted to take a much more active role in it’s management. It is doing fine now, and it’s products are still widely available, and is probably the leader in the (now very small and much less profitable than it once was) field of educational software.
Blizzard Entertainment was separated from Davidson shortly after the CUC sale and became a separate brand. It too suffered for a while because of the Cendant scandal, and from 1998 through 2003, numerous key employees left the company because of what they deemed was a lack of creative control. Like Sierra, it was sold to Havas in 1998 and is a subsidiary of Vivendi. However, Blizzard recovered. It shutdown and integrated the members of it’s famous Blizzard North studio into it’s main headquarters, and unlike Sierra, Vivendi gives the company total creative freedom. Blizzard’s management is still the same as it was in 1996, and Blizzard is now one of the leading PC game developers with nearly 3000 employees around the globe.
Gryphon Software was a small developer of educational and children’s software, and after being bought by CUC in early 1997 was quickly and quietly digested by Davidson & Associates, and like Davidson, it disappeared off the map shortly after. As Davidson & Associates doesn’t exist anymore, whatever Gryphon did is unknown and where it’s employees went, is unknown as well.
Sorry the large amount of questions, there’s just a few things I’ve been wanting to know.
1) I’ve heard that KQ7 was originally much larger than the final released version, and that there were several lands and plot points which were cut, such as a Rubber Jungle, amongst other things, and that KQ8 was a much different game than the one that was released. Is this true?
2) I’ve read that many Sierra designers wrote detailed biographies and facts of and about their characters to aid in the patenting process. In fact, I’ve read these bios and fact sheets were so detailed that Roberta could ”undoubtebly tell you what Rosella’s favorite color is” and that Lori Anne Cole could ‘tell you about the Bookwyms childhood’. Is this true, and if so, does Roberta still have any of her old character bios and would she be willing to allow the fans to see them?
3) At this point, even though it’s been a long time, do you ever contemplate jumping back in to the gaming business or at least buying some Sierra stock? Activision Blizzard, the company which now owns Sierra, is once more a publicly traded company.
4) Another thing I’ve read is that some designers would use up and coming designers as ”ghost writers”, and to help groom them into say an ‘A-List’ designer, they would be assigned to write or design part of an ‘A List’ designer’s game. Is that true?
5) Has Roberta changed her mind at all on letting her Design Documents be seen by the public?
6) Do you have any old Design sketches or any nifty old Sierra stuff still around? Or perhaps any interesting tidbits or stories about Sierra or the creation of some of the games, like KQ5 for example, that you’d care to tell?
7) Would you be interested in getting together via Radio, Chat or other form of distant communication, with some of the other Sierra veterans, like you did in 1999?And a last, non-Sierra question: Have you played any games lately, new or otherwise?
Almost all of the games that were done for non-PCs were made by sub contract to third party companies. We never developed the inhouse capability to develop for other platforms and strictly thought of these as financial transactions. Someone would offer us some amount of money for the rights to a game on a platform (for instance, someone might say “we’ll give you $150,000 for the rights to LSL on the Sega, as an advance against a dollar a unit sold”). We would cash the check and that would be about the extent of our involvement. I considered these deals non-strategic, and really didn’t spend much time thinking about them. We usually had a clause that gave us the rights to inspect the games, but once again, I confess to not spending a lot of energy on those.
As to Sega CD specifically: I have zero memory of ever doing Sega versions of the games. There were some of these games that we did do at Sierra, but I can’t remember any that turned out well. There were things we did very well, and things we weren’t very good at. Normally, developing for non-PC platforms fell into the “we don’t do that very well” category.
-Ken W
Ladies And Gentlemen
I Just Spoke With Ms.Marx And Something came up And she is unfortnualy unable to be with us today…however we are in the process of rebooking this event but as of now there is no set date for a return chat ..please stay with this site to find out The Latest News when she will be able to come back and chat with usalso id like to announce that Brittany Brimhall of Himalaya Studios Is Sechudled To Do A Chat Session Around Augest 16h 2008 at 5pm Est brittany as you might know is the one who brought us Al Emmo And The lost Dutchmans Mine
Once Agian I Aplogize but ‘Real Life’ Things Do Come Up
Thanks Agian
Faith
I do remember this version because I owned it. I have looked for this version for years. I do remember being able to hand an empty bowl to the couple and then after they place it on their table you can type “fill” and then the couple would see that the bowl would fill up with stew. This would provide them with food….forever. Does anybody remember doing that?
*CHAT UPDATE*
The Chat Session With Special Guest Christy Marx Is Scheduled ForSat,July,19,2008 At 5 PM (EST) (Eastern Standard Time)
We Hope There Will Be A Big Turnout also please don’t forget to email me your questions to ask Ms. Marx the info on where to send your questions is in another post in this same section
Very good sir. That extra dollar (or less if the board had a breakfast that didn’t agree with them) will come in helpful with the bandwidth charges the army of faithful fans are heading toward this month in the download department 😉
SierraVault was doing good to hit 30 gig a month before I put out the word the whole collection of InterActions was available. I’ve done 30 gig in the first five days of the month this month. I’m really not worried I’ll hit my limit or anything – I just figured you might like to know that the Sierra fan base is still very active and interested.
Hope you enjoy the scans!
Andy
The E-mail you can send your questions to is
My apologies – I missed the messages about you going to Oakhurst, or I would have assembled this sooner.
Here’s a KMZ (Google Earth) file containing locations in Oakhurst.
There are four here…
- Roberta’s and my original home on Mudge Ranch Road, where the infamous Softporn picture was taken in our hot tub (the house burned down in around 1990, and was rebuilt by my brother)
- Our first large office building, which is now a medical center
- The “Old Barn” where TSN (later renamed the Imagination Network) was built
- Our last office building in Oakhurst — a giant aluminum shed
I’m not sure about the precise locations for the Barn and our old house. These locations should be fairly close.
http://www.sierragamers.com/uploads/49/sierra%20related.zip
-Ken W
Thanks Andy!
I’ve just returned from the trip, and I wasn’t able to locate it. It’s okay though. I spent the afternoon in Oakhurst, and I can only imagine how the developers lived in such a small town. Personally, I loved the atmosphere. 😀
Perhaps next time!
I was able to find the Ditton Realty location, this is where the talking bear easter egg from Quest for Glory came from. 😀 Picture coming soon.
Thanks again!
I’ve got ScummVMDS on my R4 card, and it’s really easy to set up and use. It does play some old Sierra games, but by old that means REALLY old – only the AGI games. The interface is a bit difficult on the DS, since tapping keys with the stick is much much slower than actually typing on a keyboard, but it’s still nice to have the games on a handheld device anyhow. The Lucasarts games are great, though. Only one hasn’t worked right for me so far and that was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Now, speaking of AGI Sierra games, I’m DYING to get my hands on that rare AGI version of KQ4 to put on this thing, but of course I can’t find it anywhere. The SCI version won’t work, unfortunately.
To:Andy Linnenkohl, Sierra Employee #987123721
From: Ken Williams, Sierra Employee #00000000
Date: 7/2/2008
Subject: InterAction Scanning ProjectMr Linnenkohl,
I wish to formally thank you for undertaking this massive task. The result is amazing, and I shall be downloading continuously for the next few days. Yours, and your teams efforts are to be commended.
Therefore, I shall formally suggest to the board that your annual bonus (usually six dollars) be augumented by an additional 1 to 3%, the true amount of which shall be subject to industry conditions, fuel prices, and of course, what the board had for breakfast.
Thank you again, and now, please get back to work,
Ken Williams
PS As requested, I shall speak with Mr. Lowe on your behalf.
To: Ken Williams
From: Andy Linnenkohl, Sierra Employee #987123721
Date: 7/2/2008
Subject: InterAction Scanning ProjectMr Williams,
Some time back you made an idle comment about how you would like to see all of the copies of InterAction scanned and posted online, available for people to download. At the time I agreed with your statement and emphatically said so from the back of the room where I was shuttling coffee to Al Lowe and taking verbal abuse for it taking far, far too long (what’s up with that guy anyway?). It’s possible you didn’t hear me over the sound of Jim Walls going crazy because no one liked his submarine game, quitting the company and deciding to go to work for some wave company down in Florida. That’s totally cool. You’re a busy guy and I understand.
I wanted to drop you a quick memo to let you know that I, with the extensive help of some of the other unpaid interns back here, have burned out five scanners, created more than a little bit of the good ol carpal tunnel syndrome and produced 38 scanned copies of the entire InterAction, Sierra Newsletter and Sierra News Magazine line. Those are now available online at:
SierraVault InterAction Archive
Some of the scans may have some room for improvement and I’ll be running back around to clean those up, touch up a page here and there right after I go find my wife who left me. She mumbled something about me being much more interested in twenty year old publicity materials for some defunct game company than I was in the new floral wallpaper for the kitchen. I think she’s living in a hotel down the street. With your permission I am going to go try and convince her to come back. My dog left. Turns out the neighbor kept trying to feed him anti-freeze soaked hotdogs but he finally decided bad attention was better than no attention at all and he now looks at me through the slats in the fence when I go out to mow the lawn every few months after the home owner’s association sends me those letters talking about something called a ‘reasonable level of care’ I am supposed to be paying to my lawn. Like a $25 dollar fine is going to make me not harass people for The Sierra Newsletter Volume 1, Number 3…. sheesh. Those people need to get a life.
Anyway, I’ll be back in my (imaginary) cube in the basement of the Sierra Professional Building if you have any other assignments for me. I’ve been thinking that archiving all of the game manuals, box inserts, box cover art and other goodies might be a good idea. I’ve got a few gig worth of it already up at:
but there’s still a long way to go. Believe it or not I actually didn’t buy every game you guys put out. My parents who, at the time, were responsible for the money flowing into my pockets didn’t feel that a ‘buy first, ask questions later’ approach was the right way to teach their son about impulse control. Suckers. Luckilly those same guys that helped me out with the InterAction scans seem to have a few of the games I don’t and we’ve worked out a pretty good approach at how to share this stuff between us so I’m thinking we’re going to get that project done as well.
Did you know a bunch of these computer gaming magazines did articles on Sierra? It might be a good idea for me to scan those as well. I’ll do that in my spare time. Probably put them here:
I’ve probably taken up enough of your time. I’ll be the bloodshot eyed guy in the basement if you want to talk. Don’t mind the other guys down here – they are just scanning everything they can find with a half-dome on it.
Sincerely,
The SierraVault InterAction Scanning Project
Andy Linnenkohl
Brad Herbert
David Ko
Ryan
Jeffrey HuffineP.S. Can you get Al Lowe to stop calling me a butt muffin? It’s hurting my self esteem.
I planned a similar trip a few years back but got sidetracked at the last minute. View my plan with a healthy dose of skepticism as I never actually made it….
It was my understanding that Codemasters purchased the old Sierra building after the 99 shutdown. I searched for Codemasters (in some manner) on Google maps at the time and identified what I thought was the building. I just tried to do it again for you and end up looking at the side of a mountain between three trees somewhere east of Coarsegold. Somehow that seemed wildy appropriate.
My advice? Shoot Ken Williams or Al Lowe (al@allowe.com) an email and ask for directions or at least some landmarks. I’m sure they would be willing to help you out.
Andy
Amazing the gall of people now a days im sorry to hear about your loss at this past holiday season….I’m Lucky to not have anything like that happen to me..The program you speak of sounds cool though ill have to check it out
Faith 🙂
Hey there, everyone! 🙂
I’ve been a long time visitor to these forums, but not a frequent poster. Although now there’s something that is transpiring in my life that I would love to share, but I need some help on it if possible.
Starting tomorrow, I’m going on a vacation with my family to Yosemite. Trips like these used to be frequent when I was much younger, but it’s now been more than a decade since we’ve returned to the valley. This has been due to tragic events in life and many other factors, but we’ve decided to go this last time while we’re still able to do so (with budding families from new marriages, work, etc.).
On this journey, I wanted to make a side-trip to the old headquarters of Sierra On-line. Sierra, its staff, and its many amazing titles are the reason I’ve endeavored to be in career I am, and (along with some inspiring words from Ken himself) attempted to be the very best I can be, I’ve finally been hired into Creative Development department itself. 🙂 I get to work on the storylines and lore of the vast titles of my company, which is a fitting tribute to Sierra, since they inspired the love of story I have in computer games, and now I get to repay that favor to the world as best as I can as well. Now, with the press-release of our latest title finally given to the masses, I can take this sojourn with my family for this–sadly–short duration. Then again, when are lives inspiring moments long? 🙂
In any case (long story short–too late–I know), I am not sure where the building was actually located. My only wish is to get my picture taken with the building, but if I can’t find it, then it’ll have to be foregone. Sorry it took so long to pose these questions before departing, but my life has been on crunch-mode for some time thanks to the new title, but again it’s all worth it to bring an amazing game to everyone. I just have to make sure I help weave a story that captures the hearts and minds of people, as did King’s Quest, Quest for Glory, and Conquest of Camelot did for me.
Thanks for reading everyone, and hope all is well with each and every one of you Sierra fans. 😀 Let me know if anyone can help out, it’s truly appreciated!
Ah! Star Wars – Knights of the Old Republic…a game after my own heart. 🙂 I prefer the first one over the second one, personally, but both games are superb. I’m not so sure I’d call it an adventure game, per se; it’s far more RPG than anything else. It most certainly has some good adventure game elements in it, though, I must admit. The dialogue choices and your actions in battle most definitely influence the outcome, much like the dialogue trees and puzzles do in adventure games. A proper Star Wars adventure game would be interesting, though probably not very economically viable at this point in time.
To begin with, I prefer PC adventure games over console ones, and I prefer
point-and-click adventure games over text adventure games. I’m not 100%
absolute in this opinion because there are exceptions. For example, I enjoy
Trace Memory for the Nintendo DS. It’s of the point-and-click variety, but
it’s a console game. Overall, though, I lean more towards PC point-and-
click adventure games.SierraVault Series & Singles AGI and SCI Games
I’ve been archiving most of the Sierra On-Line manuals at SierraVault. Check about 3/4 of the way down the page. Let me know if you have problems.
Andy
Hello all. It’s been a while since I’ve updated this forum on SierraVault’s progress so I wanted to point out the update highlights over at SierraVault in the last couple of months. I’ve been working pretty hard to archive a lot of the game specific files (manuals, box covers and contents) and I’ve had several big submissions from readers as well. All in all I felt a brief ‘look at me!’ post was justified for those of you who might have forgotten about ‘the new Sierra site’ and aren’t checking me on a regular basis yet.
First things first. You can access my update log here.
Sierra Newsletter, News Magazine and InterAction scans
A reader, DaveJustDave, has mailed me two issues of InterAction magazine and the Sierra/Dynamix News Magazine. This now brings the total missing issues number down to six and the number of available issues for download to 32. Right now there is a slightly outdated ‘.zip’ archive of the issues available as well as individual downloads of each issue. At some point this weekend I’ll be updating the .zip to include all of the issues.If anyone is interested, the missing issues at this point are:
Sierra Newsletter Volume 1, Number 1
Sierra Newsletter Volume 1, Number 3
InterAction Volume 5, Number 3 (Fall 1992) King’s Quest 6
InterAction Volume 6, Number 4 (Spring 1994) Gabriel Knight 1
InterAction Volume 8, Number 1 (Spring 1995) Twisty Brained Kid
InterAction Volume 10, Number 4 (Holiday 1997) Lords of MagicIf you have a copy of any of these issues, please contact me at alinnenkohl@fusemail.com and we’ll work out a way to get them scanned and uploaded. Several of my readers have sent in items to me for scanning and I’ve started a thread on my forum so the readers can report back the reliability of getting their items back from me. That thread is located here. The first box of submissions went out in the mail this week and it’s return has not been reported. If you are concerned about getting your items back you can at least check that thread to make sure I’m not stealing and ebaying anything sent to me 😉
Sierra Hint Book Archive
Another reader sent in a DVD of his collection of carefully scanned Sierra Hint Books. Vasyl had worked at it and determined a technical way to alter his scan settings so the red ‘cover’ in the text books could be seen through on the scans. The PDFs are created with a scan of the page on one side (red cover intact) and then a second scan of the same page with the red cover gone and the answer visible. While I haven’t done a one to one check on whether or not all of the Hint Books are available I think everything I knew about is there.As with most sections of SierraVault, I have created a single .zip file with all of the Hint Books in it for download. You can still download each file individually as well.
While my readers have been stealing my thunder by sending in better submissions than what I’m putting out I am still working at scanning the original manuals, catalogs, box contents, diskettes and CDs. I am attempting to digitally ‘recreate’ the contents of each Sierra game by making PDF scans of each item available along with the best quality box cover scans I can find. This is very much a work in progress and I doubt, very seriously, I have ANY of the content mixes right. At the same time I’ve worked through about 80% of the manuals and box contents and those are available for download. As is always the case at SierraVault there is no abandonware – what I’m making available is everything EXCEPT the games. If you are one of these excellent OCD collectors and can give me a hand in determining which ‘files’ to link under which releases I’d love to hear from you.
As always, thanks for reading and I hope you like what you find over at SierraVault. My forums are here. If you like what you find, drop by and let me know about it. Thanks!
Andy
I’m inclined to say I prefer computer adventure games over console based ones. I suppose I just can’t imagine playing a lot of adventure games on a console (I remember playing KQ5 on NES as a kid, and it was difficult moving the cursor with the arrow pad). However, with some adventure games like Knights of the Old Republic, both translations are very well done. But the majority of adventure games I enjoy are computer based.
This all being said, I would much rather play a well designed console adventure game (ie Kingdom Hearts) over a poorly designed computer adventure game (ie Journey to the Center of the Earth).
D
As far as adventure games go, if we’re talking classic Sierra adventure games, I definitely prefer the parser over the cursor icons since it allows you to be more creative and offers more interactivity, but the icons can still be nice since they simplify things and streamline some of the tedious aspects of the games. For example, I’m torn between Hero’s Quest and Quest for Glory I VGA. I like both equally even though they both offer different experiences. I liked LucasArts’s SCUMM verb-object system, as well since it kind of merged parser creativity and interactivity with cursor icon simplicity.
I think with today’s games, you’re almost always going to have better control with a keyboard and mouse. But on the other hand, you’re probably missing out on things like force feedback. I buy my games for PC whenever I have the option because PC games are cheaper than console games, they offer better controls, graphics, and sound, unless you have an HD TV and surround sound and a system that can support it. Indigo Prophecy was a good game, but I only played it on PC so I don’t know how it compares to consoles. What was different about the console/PC experience? I didn’t know there was an uncut European version of the same game called Fahrenheit until I already won Indigo Prophecy, or I would’ve played that instead. Generally, PC versions almost always have better graphics if your computer can support it and offer customizable controls so your less likely to get frustrated. I’m sure there are some exceptions to the rule, but that’s usually due to a limitation of the game not taking advantage of the PC’s strengths.
I have a friend who hates computer games with a passion. She absolutely refuses to play a computer game because she doesn’t like the controls. She even bought an adventure game, tried it once, and threw it out when she became frustrated with clicking to move. I don’t understand that at all. I wish she remembered what game it was that she threw out.
The main advantage that consoles have that doesn’t really affect adventure games is multiplayer and co-op. And of course, if your computer isn’t the most capable gaming rig, you might be better off getting a console version instead if you have the choice.
Faith,
I like PC games better. The 3D of a consul games that I have played are very unrealistic. I bet that has changed by now. It feels like I am in a 3D world that has very little to do and everything is setup for your character to interact with in the simplest way possible. I like the keyboard control for 3D adventure games like Tomb Raiders and Battlefield 1942 (not a real adventure). Even though the keyboard is more complicated at first, it gives a more fuid control. In Tomb Raiders, I can run in one direction and keep my eye on the enemy. Syberia uses the point and click. When Kate Walker walks : ) down the street I may click near the end of the street but after the screen scroll I have to click again. I have heard in this forum that the text interface taught many people, young and old, learn the english language. In the game Ultima The Black Gate they use the mouse but when the mouse in not used to click where you want to go but in which direction you want to move. You only have to hold the mouse in the direction and you continue to move without clicking.
There is much more to talk about on this issue and many ways games use input device controls. Battlefield is a great combination of keyboard and mouse. It does get difficult to look 360 around when you have to pick up the mouse and slide it over and over. A track ball might work better.
Anyways thats my thoughts.
