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The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

filfre.net

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Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#31

Post by [deleted] »

MegaButts wrote: post #20
Scubabear68 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After having read a number of school board “audits”, and read about Enron etc, and looked beyond that to other instances, it’s clear that audits are generally worthless as a rule. The auditors are shown what they are shown and not allowed to color outside the lines. Find a discrepancy and every damn time the auditors will say “oh, that information was not provided to us”. It’s like if you hired a judge for your own p…

Just as a counterexample (not saying this disproves the trend), UBS auditor recently said there is something wrong at the bank. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ubss-auditor-issues... I think this says more about how worrisome UBS is than how unreliable auditing is.

[deleted]

Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#32

Post by kencausey »

HellDunkel wrote: post #11

The business side of things with sierra is certainly spectacular. But the story of the characters making the games would be so much more interesting. Where did the humor come from? What was office live? How come the games were both topsellers and also extremly silly? I remeber a space quest scene where a room full of computers was a joke on sierra offices. How did that make it into the final product?

Browse the blog archives, Mr. Maher has written repeatedly about Sierra and their games: https://www.filfre.net/sitemap/

Edit: common homophone issue

Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#33

Post by selimthegrim »

snoman wrote: post #5
vunderba wrote: post #2

Sierra was responsible for creating two of my favorite games of all time - King's Quest VI (designed by Roberta Williams / Jane Jensen) and Conquests of the Longbow (designed by Christy Marx). It's such a contrast then to read (what I find profoundly distasteful) quotes like this from the other side of the company. Ken Williams: "I read books about business executives who owned yachts and jets, and who hung out with…

The Colonel’s Bequest (also by Roberta Williams) still holds a special place in my heart. I can’t play a game like Luigi’s Mansion without feeling like that was one of the inspirations.

A love letter to New Orleans.

Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#34

Post by aaronbaugher »

HellDunkel wrote: post #11

The business side of things with sierra is certainly spectacular. But the story of the characters making the games would be so much more interesting. Where did the humor come from? What was office live? How come the games were both topsellers and also extremly silly? I remeber a space quest scene where a room full of computers was a joke on sierra offices. How did that make it into the final product?

There's some of that in Steven Levy's book Hackers, which has a section on the 80s called "Game Hackers: The Sierras."

Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#35

Post by drooopy »

KerrAvon wrote: post #25
sys32768 wrote: post #10

Old Man Murray wrote a great peace in 2000 about who killed adventure games, the answer to which I won't spoil since it's an easy read: https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html

Important context that's come to light since then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_hair_mustache_puzzle

Crazy to think that the same game contains both the worst puzzle ever conceived (cat hair) and arguably one of the finest, "Le Serpent Rouge".

Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#37

Post by throwup238 »

TheBlight wrote: post #28

People don't strictly want to play games as much as they want to experience alternate realities. That's why Doom/Quake resonated. People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible.

> People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible.

What do you mean by that? Do you mean in the context of that era?

IME people what games to be fun because every single genre has a multitude of conceits to make the game playable and technologically feasible. The ones that eschew (most of) those conceits like ARMA and flight simulators are very niche or like Dwarf Fortress and Factorio, complexity is the point (which requires its own conceits to be feasible).

People want to ride into battle and swing swords and conquer civilizations, not manage the intricacies of military campaign logistics and foraging operations and tax collection.

Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#38

Post by themadturk »

tmsbrg wrote: post #4

Jimmy Maher is really a great history writer. The way he writes is very compelling. He made a whole history of windows which I somehow read through completely[0]. I can also recommend his other site, Analog Antiquarian[1] where he writes more about the larger history. His Magellan series that's going on now is really amazing, makes you feel like you're really experiencing the epic voyage through South America and Sou…

He really is great, I'm glad to see him writing "analog" history as well as digital. Excellent work for a guys who's essentially a hobbiest.

Re: The End of Sierra as We Knew It, Part 1: The Acquisition

#39

Post by zoky »

TheBlight wrote: post #28

People don't strictly want to play games as much as they want to experience alternate realities. That's why Doom/Quake resonated. People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible.

That’s a pretty broad statement to make given that of the seven bestselling video game franchises of all time (Mario, Tetris, Call of Duty, Pokémon, GTA, Minecraft, and FIFA) only one (Call of Duty) is a realistic simulation, one (GTA) could be best described as a totally unrealistic simulation, one (FIFA) is a simulation of an actual game, and the rest are a mix of abstract fantasy and/or pure puzzles.
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