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

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

#61

Post by pstuart »

Scubabear68 wrote: post #18
alexey-salmin wrote: post #16

It's important to remember that the deal was audited by Ernst&Young and they didn't notice the hundreds of millions missing from the balance sheet. EY later settled in court at 300 million but never admitted any wrongdoing. So much for the reputation of the "big four" which at the time was still known as "big five".

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…

An audit that makes your customer look bad isn't good for repeat business.

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

#62

Post by crq-yml »

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.

It's not really about the content - it's a McLuhanesque phenomenon of "the medium is the message". When CD-ROM became affordable for consumers, investment into content that demonstrated the power of CD flooded in.

A few years later, the investment cycle moved on towards 3D and online. Different medium, different message. That really is all that is needed to explain the trends. Galaga remains fun and playable, but nobody is marketing Galaga as the next big thing, so it isn't making sales charts.

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

#63

Post by benoau »

acomjean wrote: post #60
KerrAvon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I mean its a bad example, but not the only example of obtuse puzzles in games preventing forward progress in game. Dead ends and not being able to finish if messed up a previous steps were real problems. This was a bigger issue when the internet wasn't available to help out. I like adventure games, but even still they can be difficult and frustrating (although maybe I'm not great at them) Puzzle Dependency charts in…

It used to be pretty common to buy strategy books for the really tough games!

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

#64

Post by pimlottc »

If you're feeling dejavu reading this article like I was, you might have read this previous piece on Vice [0] four years ago which also drew on Ken William's book, including many of the same quotes. It was discussed here as well [1].

0: https://www.vice.com/en/article/inside-story-sierra-online-d...

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24941667

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

#65

Post by wkat4242 »

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?

> I remeber a space quest scene where a room full of computers was a joke on sierra offices.

The pirates of pestulon base in space quest 3 I think. It was pretty funny. Making fun of the cubicle office which was pretty much Avant la lettre back then (i know in Europe we only really got those in the late 90s). In 2000 I still had my own office as a trainee

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

#66

Post by wkat4242 »

imiric wrote: post #29
havblue wrote: post #12

Aren't we primarily talking about adventure games here? That is, games that nobody played after the nineties?If they weren't acquired they certainly would have modernized, of course. I can't help but think they were in deep trouble even without the failed merger.

Adventure games didn't go anywhere. They're still popular with fans of the genre (Telltale, David Cage, etc.), and adventure elements are now part of other genres like Action-Adventure, RPGs, etc.

Hmm yes but telltale almost went out of business. And since their revival their games have been more actioney. I don't think their games were truly inventive either. Their monkey island episodes were ok but nothing as characteristic as the real ones.

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

#67

Post by freddie_mercury »

acomjean wrote: post #60
KerrAvon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I mean its a bad example, but not the only example of obtuse puzzles in games preventing forward progress in game. Dead ends and not being able to finish if messed up a previous steps were real problems. This was a bigger issue when the internet wasn't available to help out. I like adventure games, but even still they can be difficult and frustrating (although maybe I'm not great at them) Puzzle Dependency charts in…

I remember playing Space Quest IV and we got to a part where we were completely blocked. We got parents permission to call Sierra's 1-900 hint line (who knows how much that cost) to find out that the game won't process until you stand on a certain pixel in the back of the arcade. There was no reason to go there, so while we had walked around the arcade many times apparently we never stepped on that precise pixel.

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

#68

Post by influx »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #3

> Forbes first became associated with Sierra in 1991, when he agreed to join the company’s board. Ken Williams, Sierra’s co-founder and CEO, considered this a major coup... And then: > “Have you and Ken ever thought about selling Sierra?” asked her out of the blue one day in the lobby of the Paris hotel. > “No,” Roberta answered shortly. “We’re not interested.” > “But if you ever were, what sort of price would you be…

She also built most of the intellectual property.

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

#69

Post by Klaster_1 »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #67
acomjean wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean its a bad example, but not the only example of obtuse puzzles in games preventing forward progress in game. Dead ends and not being able to finish if messed up a previous steps were real problems. This was a bigger issue when the internet wasn't available to help out. I like adventure games, but even still they can be difficult and frustrating (although maybe I'm not great at them) Puzzle Dependency charts in…

I remember playing Space Quest IV and we got to a part where we were completely blocked. We got parents permission to call Sierra's 1-900 hint line (who knows how much that cost) to find out that the game won't process until you stand on a certain pixel in the back of the arcade. There was no reason to go there, so while we had walked around the arcade many times apparently we never stepped on that precise pixel.

Back then as a kid, I made dozens of attempts at SQ5, the best I managed before giving up was dying in some ventilation shaft towards finale. This was my first point and click adventure, but hostile game design decisions really put me off other Sierra games, the only one I finished was SQ1 VGA. Arbitrary actions you have to take with consequences hours later are such BS.

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

#70

Post by hibikir »

SamBam wrote: post #14
havblue wrote: post #12

Aren't we primarily talking about adventure games here? That is, games that nobody played after the nineties?If they weren't acquired they certainly would have modernized, of course. I can't help but think they were in deep trouble even without the failed merger.

Your argument seems like it might confuse cause and effect. Would adventure games have gone away anyway because no one played them after the 90s, or did no one play them after the 90s because their biggest creator, Sierra, got pushed out, as described in the article, so no one was making them?

Before Sierra's end, they had already been crushes, sales wise, by Lucasarts, which had far better game design principles. No dead man walking situations, or random deaths.

Still, the genre isn't dead today, but modern adventure games owe far more to Lucasarts than to Sierra. Even when the graphics are Sierra-like, like in The Crimson Diamond, we can see how far we've gone from the different Quest series

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