27 ms·

“Sierra… well, it was the poor victim of a hostile takeover by criminals”

326 points by kevbin 12y ago

rcthompson 12y ago
People actually went to jail for financial fraud? What different times it must have been back then.
- 1wd 12y ago
  Back then in 2007
  - rcthompson 12y ago
    Yes, exactly.
andrewfong 12y ago
I miss the old Sierra games. I'm glad we're starting to see a revival of adventuring gaming via Kickstarter and episodic channels, although I often feel like a lot of the AAA games coming out these days lack a certain spark found in those old Sierra games. Maybe it's because I'm just older and more jaded now, but this quote spoke to me: ''' So I guess my thinking is that the big problems came when game developers lost control of their companies. The Broderbund guys were programmers and gamers and developers. Ken was. Quite a few of the other -- Activision was founded by a game player, and Accolade. A lot of other companies were founded by guys who knew games and as long as they were in charge, it seemed like things were better. But when gradually their companies hired professional management -- professional managers love spreadsheets and they loved evidence, because they didn't have gut feelings that said, "Yeah, that's a great idea! Yeah, that'll sell! People will love that! Look at that!" Instead, they would say, "Well, what are the numbers here? How do we compare this? What are your comparables?" ''' Compare to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179624
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > So I guess my thinking is that the big problems came when game developers lost control of their companies Some willingly sold their companies to bigger ones (Garriott sold Origin to EA, and Origin's legacy was lost forever since). > But when gradually their companies hired professional management Yet professional is what's badly needed. Look at the Doublefine mess with Broken Age (massively over budget, massively late, massively under-delivering in every area).
  - nazgulnarsil 12y ago
    it has good reviews and sales enough to fully support the release of act 2.. so ?
    - fit2rule 12y ago
      Protip: you're probably replying to a professional manager.
    - ekianjo 12y ago
      Reminder: the initial budget secured was supposed to be for Act 1 & 2. Not just Act 1.
      - BSousa 12y ago
        I was one of the backers, and while I got out of at the loop, wasn't there also an issue with Doublefine doing a strategy game (spacebars 9 or something) probably using Broken Age money? (not to mention they sold it on early access on Steam and then decided to just stop developing it since it wasn't profitable for them)
        makomk 12y ago
        The game you're thinking of was Spacebase DF-9, and I don't think they did use their own funds to develop it. The initial development was funded by investors; you can find press releases bragging about how they them back early using money from people buying the incomplete game on Steam Early Access. Subsequent development was I think intended to be funded entirely by Early Access sales. The reason Double Fine gave for abandoning it was that they weren't making enough money from selling the game to pay the development costs and they didn't want to sink any of their own money in. Basically, they shifted the risk of the game never being finished from themselves and their investors onto their customers, and their customers got shafted and ended up paying money for a game that was abandoned, unfinished, in a state that was apparently really unfun to play because there just wasn't much to do.
brandonmenc 12y ago
That video of Ken and Roberta accepting the award - what a sweet, genuine, down to earth couple. They seem like best friends still to this day, and few things make me happier than the thought of them traveling around the ocean in their boat (http://www.kensblog.com/About_San_Souci http://www.kensblog.com/About_San_Souci), together. With the exception of the takeover, a fairytale story about running a company and making your mark.
pavlov 12y ago
Someone should make an indie game about Sierra's rise and fall. It should be made with the classic Sierra engine (the late-'80s EGA one used in Space Quest 3 and others). The player would be a game designer who joins Sierra, gets to design her own series of Quest games and faces all sorts of absurd puzzles (often in the form of trying to herd artists and programmers). Sudden death would lurk around every corner. At the end, the protagonist would try to fight the takeover by corporate criminals. You could call it "Quest Quest".
- jedrek 12y ago
  You're referring to the Adventure Game Interpreter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Interpreter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Interpreter
  - shdon 12y ago
    No, he mentioned "Space Quest 3 and others". There, it was the Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI, the early EGA version of which was called SCI0).
- ciroduran 12y ago
  Well... there's this guy called Neil Cicierega who's making a game about computers in the early 1990s, will full 256 colors, palette cycling, VGA - https://twitter.com/iconarchitect10 https://twitter.com/iconarchitect10
- michaelbuckbee 12y ago
  How about Game Dev Tycoon -> http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/ http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/
- bentcorner 12y ago
  > Sudden death would lurk around every corner. The early Sierra games with non-interrupting text input were notable for this. I recall playing Police Quest 1 and if you didn't walk around the car to do an inspection, you'd crash and die. All in the first 5 minutes of the game. I think you could also lose really early by not attending the police briefing that morning as well. I like the angle Lucasarts took with the genre (no dying), but the absurdity and difficulty of the Sierra games also has a place. > gets to design her own series of Quest games and faces all sorts of absurd puzzles Haha, that would be awesome. Leaving for work in the morning? You need to make coffee (not the decaf kind) otherwise you'll miss your stop and get fired. Don't forget your laptop and badge at home either, and you'll need to make lunch. If you bring milk you'll die because it's spoiled (you need to throw it away, and also take the garbage out - if you just throw it away, it'll smell up your apartment and you will fail your date that night). If you let someone tailgate you, they end up stealing a bunch of stuff, including your laptop. At that morning's standup, you have to ask george about the feature he's working on, otherwise he'll spend the day playing solitaire and won't be able to help you tomorrow on the presentation.
rodgerd 12y ago
Interesting that he feels the stories went away. I finished up Sleeping Dogs recently, and it's definitely a strong story. The Last of Us, Dragon Age, Bastion, Remember Me, Shadow of the Colossus, even the Saints Row series (as long as you don't mind it veering into Paul Verhoeven-self-satire). That's just off the top of my head. Seriously, if you were interviewing a filmaker who proundly said, "I haven't owned a TV in 15 years, because I know it's all shit", would you take their opinion seriously?
- fit2rule 12y ago
  >> if you were interviewing a filmaker who proundly said, "I haven't owned a TV in 15 years, because I know it's all shit", would you take their opinion seriously? If they'd been making good films all the while, then sure. Why not? Otherwise it'd just be prejudice.
  - Goronmon 12y ago
    Well...the point would be that even if he's a good filmmaker, if he literally hasn't watched any TV/movies in 15 years other than his own, how would he be a reliable judge of the current crop of TV/movies?
    - washadjeffmad 12y ago
      Most games produced wash out over time into collective styles of the period they were created. After all that, a few stand out as exemplars to represent this mass of games that, in the end, aren't all that different. Sure, there are individual differences, and if you took the time to experience them you'd probably enjoy many of them in their own way. But ultimately, it's a matter of taste. Al has been around long enough to see the trends and recognize the themes. If Alfred Hitchcock rose from the dead today and saw our current climate of remakes and benign comedies, he might enjoy them as novel. Or he might see them as knockoffs of ideas he'd seen done better a dozen different ways in his time, and for all the technical differences like format and cutting, not have a high artistic opinion of them or their methods. Al has that sort of background and experience (although not the lasting acclaim). He's not that impressed by fps or texture sizes or other period-sensitive qualities. He may not be giving them every chance to prove themselves, but why should he? He just thinks the big industry hype doesn't match the products, and I don't disagree.
cloudform 12y ago
I miss Sierra games because it was clear they were made by auteurs. Whether Al Lowe, Roberta Williams, or Jane Jensen it was clear the game came from a singular voice. All my favorite games nowadays embody this and are mostly indies from a small team like Fez, Braid, and Gone Home. With more money spent on the big games and more people Required for AAA projects as technology leads to increased production costs , I think they'll always be a niche for auteurs on low budget games. In fact since it is easier to distribute, we see more nowadays. Maybe one day we'll see AAA titles directed with an auteur voice, but if Hollywood is any indication that isn't likely. That's the big loss.
- babuskov 12y ago
  I was inspired by Braid, Fez and Limbo to create a puzzle platformer myself because I really enjoyed playing such games and there aren't many challenging games of that type around. I started developing about 5 months ago, learned how to draw pixel graphics in the process, and will have a free playable demo (about 2hrs of gameplay) out in a couple of days. If you're interested, watch my twitter profile and/or blog, where I'll announce when it's ready.
brandonmenc 12y ago
> Yeah, Apogee was one, but was trying to think of the other. The guy from Vegas who did the captain -- captain something or other. Captain Comic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33VX9NvLf4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33VX9NvLf4s Back in 1988, the first Nintento-like shareware game for the PC. A few years before Keen.
- npongratz 12y ago
  I remember the end of Captain Comic 2 (which was even better than the first!) promising another sequel, for which I'm still patiently waiting :)
- shdon 12y ago
  Michael Denio. A nice guy who had become disillusioned by the game industry and dropped out entirely. Such a pity. Even years after that, I had a short conversation with him by e-mail and he obviously loved his games and was very friendly and gracious to a fan (me).
- archagon 12y ago
  Oh man! Comic was one of my very first DOS games, and still remains an inspiration to this day. I love how non-linear the environment was: even though the items had to be collected in order, you could actually peek at the later stages just by entering the doors at the start of the game.
IvyMike 12y ago
> What do you think caused the downfall of adventure games in the '90s? I think 90's era adventure games are looked at with rose colored glasses. A lot of the time, these games were non-intuitive and won thru repetition ("try everything") rather than logic. Case in point: http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/79.html http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/79.html [this is the last page of a 3 page article, but you'll get the point]
- minikomi 12y ago
  I'm a huge fan of old Sierra games but I still have very sad memories of having saved space quest II quite near the end, after having being kissed by the alien - and thus being unable to make few final moves :( edit: oh, the painful memories.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SqKTBE0yC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SqKTBE0yC0
  - 72deluxe 12y ago
    Very informative, thanks! I have never played those old games but I will look out to try from now on, very captivating.
  - fixermark 12y ago
    Between my friends and I, we have a term-of-art for whether I will enjoy a puzzle adventure game: "Does the game let me eat the pie?" If it doesn't, I'll play it. I'm an adult now, and there are many more games on the market; I simply don't have time anymore for games that let me eat the pie. http://everything2.com/title/King%2527s+Quest+5+design+flaw http://everything2.com/title/King%2527s+Quest+5+design+flaw
    - serf 12y ago
      I love that kind of gameplay. That's what draws me to many J-RPGs. Didn't do X? Can't get Y, no matter how bad you want it. Most especially so when the game warns you in obscure ways. Plays which reward the player for being investigatory. Example : A placed readable book on the shelf warns player not to do X if they want Y far before the decision comes about. Or the player has a bad premonition or dream about it. Foreboding which has obvious intent once that player has passed the threshold of no return. It was stated earlier in the thread, but I think there is real value to setting an atmosphere in a game which rewards the player for being cautious, but curious. For example, the pie you're talking about had no real obvious use until the mob which requires it, right? Unless inventory space becomes an issue, a cautious player would likely hold on to that pie until faced with a challenge where they've tried other avenues. The type of player which tries every item in their inventory to succeed definitely isn't the target for this mechanics. Reminds me of the colored potion system in nethack.
wodenokoto 12y ago
Maybe it was an oversight on my part reading the article, but what has Al Lowe been doing for the past 15 years where he didn't make games?
- ddunkin 12y ago
  As far as I know, he's into comedy and model trains. I learned about the model train thing when I ran into him at a model train event at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds a few years ago.
- stonemetal 12y ago
  According to his wikipedia page he retired in 1998. He also worked on a couple of small things that seem to have mostly fallen through.
spiritplumber 12y ago
"I'm gonna stage a hostile takeover of your company and I'm gonna offer 50 percent more than the going price of the stock. If you fight me, every stockholder in the country will file a lawsuit against you for not accepting this wonderful offer from me." "Ok, I will fight you. By company bylaws, you have choice of weapons. Meet me Monday at dawn." I had no idea what happened to Sierra... turns out what happened to it is basically the prelude to Terry Pratchett's Going postal.
agentultra 12y ago
> I'm amazed that any game makes any money at all because there's just so many. > I guess the real truth is that one percent are hits and maybe five percent make a profit and the other 95 percent either break even or lose money. That's a tough way to make a living. So many game developers are saying this... I wonder if there is any validity to it. Anyone run the numbers? Precious few indies are gracious enough to share their numbers but it's curious to me because the games continue to be made.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  An indie developer released his numbers lately and it made the front page of HN. I don't recall the game and actually never even head of it, but I remembered being impressed by his revenue, especially considering how simple the game was. >but it's curious to me because the games continue to be made. I think the numbers are more impressive than we assume and the work, especially for an indie-quality game, can be done with a very, very small team. Only a handful of the top played games in Steam are actually AAA games. That leaves a lot of dollars available for smaller shops. 2014's success story? Goat Simulator with 1.4m copies sold. Even at its modest $9.99 pricing, that's pretty decent money for what is essentially a joke game. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/steam-gauge-measuring-the-most-popular-steam-games-of-2014/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/steam-gauge-measuring-...
  - GFischer 12y ago
    But developers that fail usually don't share revenue numbers. A coworker had a failed game launch (a Mario Cart clone for Android), he made U$ 25 off it (but he did get some consulting gigs out of it). I've also met or listened to other hopeful game studios, one with dozens of failures, that eventually pivoted into productivity software.
    - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
      My understanding is that mobile is so over-saturated that its the equivalent of gambling. I have no proof other than my limited experience in the industry, but Steam tends to be more of a meritocracy. If you make a good game in a genre people want to play, you have a decent chance of making some good money. There are people waiting and wanting those types of games. They'll forgive the lack of 3D graphics or fancy voice overs, etc if the game itself is solid. The top sellers in 2014 were almost all non-AAA titles. With mobile, your marketing budget is more important than your game. Anyone can code a ad-driven clone of $popular_game, like your friend did. If anything, mobile is a lesson in attracting the wrong kind of developers (quick cash kiddies making clones) and a lesson in how poorly organized and run the various App stores are. Not to mention, how unsophisticated the mobile buyer is. Its grandma looking for a distraction, not the next Half-Life.
mschuster91 12y ago
Anyone knows who holds the rights and the source code (or has copies of it) to Earth Siege 2, by chance?
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  "You brought back a lot of salvage that time!" That was one of my favorite armored mecha games. I'd check first with Activision/Blizzard, then check the names of other Dynamix franchises to see if anyone, anywhere has ever made a sequel to any of them, and see if they got anything else along with that deal.
  - mschuster91 12y ago
    Most times I never even got a reply... looks like I have to continue with reverse engineering :( By the way if you want you can still play it on Win7 x64 (!), although without joystick support so you will need a numpad for controlling your herc. I haven't found out yet why exactly it is broken but I guess that "something" deep deep in the engine can't parse what Windows API returns to it... And if you've lost your disc, I put up some ISOs onto a google docs site that you'll easily find with google ;)
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      That might be the only way to do it, then. Blatantly violate the copyright, publish your service-of-process address, and wait to see who sends the takedown notice. I wonder if that could be considered a form of adverse possession for intellectual property. But I still have my install discs. Dusty, but still there.
nathanb 12y ago
> "We were storytellers. We were kinda thrown by the wayside. The innovations that adventure games made over the course of their lifespan were absorbed into the other genre of games. You have inventory. You have object manipulation. You have puzzles. You have all these things that adventure games that are now a standard part of most games. So the adventure-game part was kinda absorbed. But what they didn't do is grab the stories. We told stories." I could not have put it as well as this. But this.
tinco 12y ago
This is sort of off-topic, but I got interested in the criminal, Walter Forbes, and was wondering whether he is in prison at the moment or not, and what kind of prison. Google searches for him directly did not yield any information. He's been convicted without leniency for 12 years, which in theory should mean he still is in prison right now. But all news is from around the day of the trial. Is there a way to know if someone is in prison at this moment or at least recently? And perhaps in what prison? edit: Ok that was actually easier than I thought. I read that he's in a Federal Prison. On http://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ http://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ you can look them up. This is what I got: Located at: Otisville FCI Release Date: 07/21/2018
osi 12y ago
If you're looking for recent games with good stories, check out the stuff from Spiderweb software: http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/products.html http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/products.html The Banner Saga also has an excellent story as well, http://stoicstudio.com/ http://stoicstudio.com/
mkramlich 12y ago
related to this, I was the engine architect and programmer of a Leisure Suit Larry game homage named The Adventures of Khaki Pants Pete. it was an iOS app done to indirectly promote the Klondike Bar. bonus: I also worked for Cendant! later era, back when they bought Cheaptickets and Orbitz
pugio 12y ago
Sierra made my favorite game of all time. I'm sad such a creative team was destroyed by maliciousness and greed. Quest for Glory V - Dragon Fire I've been a gamer all my life, and I'd still recommend this game as equal to anything out there today. (http://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory http://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory) It was action-packed, subtle, had deep quests, an engaging storyline, and a wacky sense of humor. Each puzzle could be solved differently by the different character types. For example, in one quest you had to assault a mercenary fortress under cover of darkness. As a thief you could sneak behind every guard and blackjack them one by one, then use your grappling hook to climb up the garbage shoot into the fortress proper. A skilled set of sneakery, and you could take the entire base out without the alarm being raised. The wizard would go in fireballs blazing, but had a lot of cool spells to use when dueling the fortress's wizard. All combat was real time - you're ability to deflect enemy spells, block attacks (as a fighter), or chuck a stream of daggers was all reliant on your fast-twitch skills. And the humor – in one quest arc you had to repair a cable car to get to science island, pass a ridiculous multiple choice quiz: 2. What is the goal of the True Scientist? a) To get tenure at a major university and be set for life. b) To impress babes with your towering intellect. c) To plot to take over the world! d) All of the above. And then, to gain the scientist's acceptance, you had to construct the perfect pizza out of ingredients scavenged in the field (how's that for crafting?). You needed access to their lab so you could get their pterodactyl skeleton, coat it with wax and pegasus feathers, and launch yourself out overseas to fly to Hydra Island. And that was one quest. It was also one of the few cross platform games of its time. I'm fully aware of the rosy colored glow of nostalgia but in this case... man, they don't make 'em like they used to. RIP, Pre-Takeover Sierra
- elliptic 12y ago
  I remember I was incredibly excited about the release; it was some years after QFG IV, right? But I didn't feel it was quite as good as I or (especially) II. Still, even the weaker III and IV had such intellectual variety and even wonderful emotional range...Humor to pathos, and everywhere in between.
  - bentcorner 12y ago
mcguire 12y ago
"...that people weren't looking for deeper games with deeper puzzles and thought-provoking concepts and all these things we were hoping for." Some of us were. Frankly, I don't remember really enjoying any games since the demise of Sierra. Certainty, I haven't finished anything since long before that.
michaelbuddy 12y ago
I really don't like how someone in the article is saying that new games have no stories, but sierra, their team were these great storytellers had all kinds of funny in them. When I was a kid in the 80s, yeah kings quest and space quest had lighter moments, but they weren't all that funny. As an adult I definitely don't think they are this hilarious rose-colored gem that has never again met competition in the modern age. They were quite the pain in the ass too. I think these games desperately need a remake to make the more fun. They worked for the time because they had no competition, I mean you could argue that having to repeat a large portion of the game was annoying but you didn't have reference to other games that made it easier. When the puzzle is how to word a sentence to match the game word syntax, it's not really a game to me. Sierra did a lot of great things first, but it's silly to think they were these geniuses of fun and story.

326 points by kevbin 12y ago

rcthompson 12y ago

People actually went to jail for financial fraud? What different times it must have been back then.

1wd 12y ago
Back then in 2007
- rcthompson 12y ago
  Yes, exactly.

andrewfong 12y ago

I miss the old Sierra games. I'm glad we're starting to see a revival of adventuring gaming via Kickstarter and episodic channels, although I often feel like a lot of the AAA games coming out these days lack a certain spark found in those old Sierra games. Maybe it's because I'm just older and more jaded now, but this quote spoke to me: ''' So I guess my thinking is that the big problems came when game developers lost control of their companies. The Broderbund guys were programmers and gamers and developers. Ken was. Quite a few of the other -- Activision was founded by a game player, and Accolade. A lot of other companies were founded by guys who knew games and as long as they were in charge, it seemed like things were better. But when gradually their companies hired professional management -- professional managers love spreadsheets and they loved evidence, because they didn't have gut feelings that said, "Yeah, that's a great idea! Yeah, that'll sell! People will love that! Look at that!" Instead, they would say, "Well, what are the numbers here? How do we compare this? What are your comparables?" ''' Compare to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9179624

ekianjo 12y ago
> So I guess my thinking is that the big problems came when game developers lost control of their companies Some willingly sold their companies to bigger ones (Garriott sold Origin to EA, and Origin's legacy was lost forever since). > But when gradually their companies hired professional management Yet professional is what's badly needed. Look at the Doublefine mess with Broken Age (massively over budget, massively late, massively under-delivering in every area).
- nazgulnarsil 12y ago
  it has good reviews and sales enough to fully support the release of act 2.. so ?
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    Protip: you're probably replying to a professional manager.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    Reminder: the initial budget secured was supposed to be for Act 1 & 2. Not just Act 1.
    - BSousa 12y ago
      I was one of the backers, and while I got out of at the loop, wasn't there also an issue with Doublefine doing a strategy game (spacebars 9 or something) probably using Broken Age money? (not to mention they sold it on early access on Steam and then decided to just stop developing it since it wasn't profitable for them)
      - makomk 12y ago
        The game you're thinking of was Spacebase DF-9, and I don't think they did use their own funds to develop it. The initial development was funded by investors; you can find press releases bragging about how they them back early using money from people buying the incomplete game on Steam Early Access. Subsequent development was I think intended to be funded entirely by Early Access sales. The reason Double Fine gave for abandoning it was that they weren't making enough money from selling the game to pay the development costs and they didn't want to sink any of their own money in. Basically, they shifted the risk of the game never being finished from themselves and their investors onto their customers, and their customers got shafted and ended up paying money for a game that was abandoned, unfinished, in a state that was apparently really unfun to play because there just wasn't much to do.

brandonmenc 12y ago

That video of Ken and Roberta accepting the award - what a sweet, genuine, down to earth couple. They seem like best friends still to this day, and few things make me happier than the thought of them traveling around the ocean in their boat (http://www.kensblog.com/About_San_Souci http://www.kensblog.com/About_San_Souci), together. With the exception of the takeover, a fairytale story about running a company and making your mark.

pavlov 12y ago

Someone should make an indie game about Sierra's rise and fall. It should be made with the classic Sierra engine (the late-'80s EGA one used in Space Quest 3 and others). The player would be a game designer who joins Sierra, gets to design her own series of Quest games and faces all sorts of absurd puzzles (often in the form of trying to herd artists and programmers). Sudden death would lurk around every corner. At the end, the protagonist would try to fight the takeover by corporate criminals. You could call it "Quest Quest".

jedrek 12y ago
You're referring to the Adventure Game Interpreter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Interpreter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Game_Interpreter
- shdon 12y ago
  No, he mentioned "Space Quest 3 and others". There, it was the Sierra Creative Interpreter (SCI, the early EGA version of which was called SCI0).
ciroduran 12y ago
Well... there's this guy called Neil Cicierega who's making a game about computers in the early 1990s, will full 256 colors, palette cycling, VGA - https://twitter.com/iconarchitect10 https://twitter.com/iconarchitect10
michaelbuckbee 12y ago
How about Game Dev Tycoon -> http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/ http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/
bentcorner 12y ago
> Sudden death would lurk around every corner. The early Sierra games with non-interrupting text input were notable for this. I recall playing Police Quest 1 and if you didn't walk around the car to do an inspection, you'd crash and die. All in the first 5 minutes of the game. I think you could also lose really early by not attending the police briefing that morning as well. I like the angle Lucasarts took with the genre (no dying), but the absurdity and difficulty of the Sierra games also has a place. > gets to design her own series of Quest games and faces all sorts of absurd puzzles Haha, that would be awesome. Leaving for work in the morning? You need to make coffee (not the decaf kind) otherwise you'll miss your stop and get fired. Don't forget your laptop and badge at home either, and you'll need to make lunch. If you bring milk you'll die because it's spoiled (you need to throw it away, and also take the garbage out - if you just throw it away, it'll smell up your apartment and you will fail your date that night). If you let someone tailgate you, they end up stealing a bunch of stuff, including your laptop. At that morning's standup, you have to ask george about the feature he's working on, otherwise he'll spend the day playing solitaire and won't be able to help you tomorrow on the presentation.

rodgerd 12y ago

Interesting that he feels the stories went away. I finished up Sleeping Dogs recently, and it's definitely a strong story. The Last of Us, Dragon Age, Bastion, Remember Me, Shadow of the Colossus, even the Saints Row series (as long as you don't mind it veering into Paul Verhoeven-self-satire). That's just off the top of my head. Seriously, if you were interviewing a filmaker who proundly said, "I haven't owned a TV in 15 years, because I know it's all shit", would you take their opinion seriously?

fit2rule 12y ago
>> if you were interviewing a filmaker who proundly said, "I haven't owned a TV in 15 years, because I know it's all shit", would you take their opinion seriously? If they'd been making good films all the while, then sure. Why not? Otherwise it'd just be prejudice.
- Goronmon 12y ago
  Well...the point would be that even if he's a good filmmaker, if he literally hasn't watched any TV/movies in 15 years other than his own, how would he be a reliable judge of the current crop of TV/movies?
  - washadjeffmad 12y ago
    Most games produced wash out over time into collective styles of the period they were created. After all that, a few stand out as exemplars to represent this mass of games that, in the end, aren't all that different. Sure, there are individual differences, and if you took the time to experience them you'd probably enjoy many of them in their own way. But ultimately, it's a matter of taste. Al has been around long enough to see the trends and recognize the themes. If Alfred Hitchcock rose from the dead today and saw our current climate of remakes and benign comedies, he might enjoy them as novel. Or he might see them as knockoffs of ideas he'd seen done better a dozen different ways in his time, and for all the technical differences like format and cutting, not have a high artistic opinion of them or their methods. Al has that sort of background and experience (although not the lasting acclaim). He's not that impressed by fps or texture sizes or other period-sensitive qualities. He may not be giving them every chance to prove themselves, but why should he? He just thinks the big industry hype doesn't match the products, and I don't disagree.

cloudform 12y ago

I miss Sierra games because it was clear they were made by auteurs. Whether Al Lowe, Roberta Williams, or Jane Jensen it was clear the game came from a singular voice. All my favorite games nowadays embody this and are mostly indies from a small team like Fez, Braid, and Gone Home. With more money spent on the big games and more people Required for AAA projects as technology leads to increased production costs , I think they'll always be a niche for auteurs on low budget games. In fact since it is easier to distribute, we see more nowadays. Maybe one day we'll see AAA titles directed with an auteur voice, but if Hollywood is any indication that isn't likely. That's the big loss.

babuskov 12y ago
I was inspired by Braid, Fez and Limbo to create a puzzle platformer myself because I really enjoyed playing such games and there aren't many challenging games of that type around. I started developing about 5 months ago, learned how to draw pixel graphics in the process, and will have a free playable demo (about 2hrs of gameplay) out in a couple of days. If you're interested, watch my twitter profile and/or blog, where I'll announce when it's ready.

brandonmenc 12y ago

> Yeah, Apogee was one, but was trying to think of the other. The guy from Vegas who did the captain -- captain something or other. Captain Comic! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33VX9NvLf4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33VX9NvLf4s Back in 1988, the first Nintento-like shareware game for the PC. A few years before Keen.

npongratz 12y ago
I remember the end of Captain Comic 2 (which was even better than the first!) promising another sequel, for which I'm still patiently waiting :)
shdon 12y ago
Michael Denio. A nice guy who had become disillusioned by the game industry and dropped out entirely. Such a pity. Even years after that, I had a short conversation with him by e-mail and he obviously loved his games and was very friendly and gracious to a fan (me).
archagon 12y ago
Oh man! Comic was one of my very first DOS games, and still remains an inspiration to this day. I love how non-linear the environment was: even though the items had to be collected in order, you could actually peek at the later stages just by entering the doors at the start of the game.

IvyMike 12y ago

> What do you think caused the downfall of adventure games in the '90s? I think 90's era adventure games are looked at with rose colored glasses. A lot of the time, these games were non-intuitive and won thru repetition ("try everything") rather than logic. Case in point: http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/79.html http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/79.html [this is the last page of a 3 page article, but you'll get the point]

minikomi 12y ago
I'm a huge fan of old Sierra games but I still have very sad memories of having saved space quest II quite near the end, after having being kissed by the alien - and thus being unable to make few final moves :( edit: oh, the painful memories.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SqKTBE0yC0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SqKTBE0yC0
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  Very informative, thanks! I have never played those old games but I will look out to try from now on, very captivating.
- fixermark 12y ago
  Between my friends and I, we have a term-of-art for whether I will enjoy a puzzle adventure game: "Does the game let me eat the pie?" If it doesn't, I'll play it. I'm an adult now, and there are many more games on the market; I simply don't have time anymore for games that let me eat the pie. http://everything2.com/title/King%2527s+Quest+5+design+flaw http://everything2.com/title/King%2527s+Quest+5+design+flaw
  - serf 12y ago
    I love that kind of gameplay. That's what draws me to many J-RPGs. Didn't do X? Can't get Y, no matter how bad you want it. Most especially so when the game warns you in obscure ways. Plays which reward the player for being investigatory. Example : A placed readable book on the shelf warns player not to do X if they want Y far before the decision comes about. Or the player has a bad premonition or dream about it. Foreboding which has obvious intent once that player has passed the threshold of no return. It was stated earlier in the thread, but I think there is real value to setting an atmosphere in a game which rewards the player for being cautious, but curious. For example, the pie you're talking about had no real obvious use until the mob which requires it, right? Unless inventory space becomes an issue, a cautious player would likely hold on to that pie until faced with a challenge where they've tried other avenues. The type of player which tries every item in their inventory to succeed definitely isn't the target for this mechanics. Reminds me of the colored potion system in nethack.

wodenokoto 12y ago

Maybe it was an oversight on my part reading the article, but what has Al Lowe been doing for the past 15 years where he didn't make games?

ddunkin 12y ago
As far as I know, he's into comedy and model trains. I learned about the model train thing when I ran into him at a model train event at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds a few years ago.
stonemetal 12y ago
According to his wikipedia page he retired in 1998. He also worked on a couple of small things that seem to have mostly fallen through.

spiritplumber 12y ago

"I'm gonna stage a hostile takeover of your company and I'm gonna offer 50 percent more than the going price of the stock. If you fight me, every stockholder in the country will file a lawsuit against you for not accepting this wonderful offer from me." "Ok, I will fight you. By company bylaws, you have choice of weapons. Meet me Monday at dawn." I had no idea what happened to Sierra... turns out what happened to it is basically the prelude to Terry Pratchett's Going postal.

agentultra 12y ago

> I'm amazed that any game makes any money at all because there's just so many. > I guess the real truth is that one percent are hits and maybe five percent make a profit and the other 95 percent either break even or lose money. That's a tough way to make a living. So many game developers are saying this... I wonder if there is any validity to it. Anyone run the numbers? Precious few indies are gracious enough to share their numbers but it's curious to me because the games continue to be made.

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
An indie developer released his numbers lately and it made the front page of HN. I don't recall the game and actually never even head of it, but I remembered being impressed by his revenue, especially considering how simple the game was. >but it's curious to me because the games continue to be made. I think the numbers are more impressive than we assume and the work, especially for an indie-quality game, can be done with a very, very small team. Only a handful of the top played games in Steam are actually AAA games. That leaves a lot of dollars available for smaller shops. 2014's success story? Goat Simulator with 1.4m copies sold. Even at its modest $9.99 pricing, that's pretty decent money for what is essentially a joke game. http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/steam-gauge-measuring-the-most-popular-steam-games-of-2014/ http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/steam-gauge-measuring-...
- GFischer 12y ago
  But developers that fail usually don't share revenue numbers. A coworker had a failed game launch (a Mario Cart clone for Android), he made U$ 25 off it (but he did get some consulting gigs out of it). I've also met or listened to other hopeful game studios, one with dozens of failures, that eventually pivoted into productivity software.
  - drzaiusapelord 12y ago
    My understanding is that mobile is so over-saturated that its the equivalent of gambling. I have no proof other than my limited experience in the industry, but Steam tends to be more of a meritocracy. If you make a good game in a genre people want to play, you have a decent chance of making some good money. There are people waiting and wanting those types of games. They'll forgive the lack of 3D graphics or fancy voice overs, etc if the game itself is solid. The top sellers in 2014 were almost all non-AAA titles. With mobile, your marketing budget is more important than your game. Anyone can code a ad-driven clone of $popular_game, like your friend did. If anything, mobile is a lesson in attracting the wrong kind of developers (quick cash kiddies making clones) and a lesson in how poorly organized and run the various App stores are. Not to mention, how unsophisticated the mobile buyer is. Its grandma looking for a distraction, not the next Half-Life.

mschuster91 12y ago

Anyone knows who holds the rights and the source code (or has copies of it) to Earth Siege 2, by chance?

logfromblammo 12y ago
"You brought back a lot of salvage that time!" That was one of my favorite armored mecha games. I'd check first with Activision/Blizzard, then check the names of other Dynamix franchises to see if anyone, anywhere has ever made a sequel to any of them, and see if they got anything else along with that deal.
- mschuster91 12y ago
  Most times I never even got a reply... looks like I have to continue with reverse engineering :( By the way if you want you can still play it on Win7 x64 (!), although without joystick support so you will need a numpad for controlling your herc. I haven't found out yet why exactly it is broken but I guess that "something" deep deep in the engine can't parse what Windows API returns to it... And if you've lost your disc, I put up some ISOs onto a google docs site that you'll easily find with google ;)
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    That might be the only way to do it, then. Blatantly violate the copyright, publish your service-of-process address, and wait to see who sends the takedown notice. I wonder if that could be considered a form of adverse possession for intellectual property. But I still have my install discs. Dusty, but still there.

nathanb 12y ago

> "We were storytellers. We were kinda thrown by the wayside. The innovations that adventure games made over the course of their lifespan were absorbed into the other genre of games. You have inventory. You have object manipulation. You have puzzles. You have all these things that adventure games that are now a standard part of most games. So the adventure-game part was kinda absorbed. But what they didn't do is grab the stories. We told stories." I could not have put it as well as this. But this.

tinco 12y ago

This is sort of off-topic, but I got interested in the criminal, Walter Forbes, and was wondering whether he is in prison at the moment or not, and what kind of prison. Google searches for him directly did not yield any information. He's been convicted without leniency for 12 years, which in theory should mean he still is in prison right now. But all news is from around the day of the trial. Is there a way to know if someone is in prison at this moment or at least recently? And perhaps in what prison? edit: Ok that was actually easier than I thought. I read that he's in a Federal Prison. On http://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ http://www.bop.gov/inmateloc/ you can look them up. This is what I got: Located at: Otisville FCI Release Date: 07/21/2018

osi 12y ago

If you're looking for recent games with good stories, check out the stuff from Spiderweb software: http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/products.html http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com/products.html The Banner Saga also has an excellent story as well, http://stoicstudio.com/ http://stoicstudio.com/

mkramlich 12y ago

related to this, I was the engine architect and programmer of a Leisure Suit Larry game homage named The Adventures of Khaki Pants Pete. it was an iOS app done to indirectly promote the Klondike Bar. bonus: I also worked for Cendant! later era, back when they bought Cheaptickets and Orbitz

pugio 12y ago

Sierra made my favorite game of all time. I'm sad such a creative team was destroyed by maliciousness and greed. Quest for Glory V - Dragon Fire I've been a gamer all my life, and I'd still recommend this game as equal to anything out there today. (http://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory http://www.gog.com/game/quest_for_glory) It was action-packed, subtle, had deep quests, an engaging storyline, and a wacky sense of humor. Each puzzle could be solved differently by the different character types. For example, in one quest you had to assault a mercenary fortress under cover of darkness. As a thief you could sneak behind every guard and blackjack them one by one, then use your grappling hook to climb up the garbage shoot into the fortress proper. A skilled set of sneakery, and you could take the entire base out without the alarm being raised. The wizard would go in fireballs blazing, but had a lot of cool spells to use when dueling the fortress's wizard. All combat was real time - you're ability to deflect enemy spells, block attacks (as a fighter), or chuck a stream of daggers was all reliant on your fast-twitch skills. And the humor – in one quest arc you had to repair a cable car to get to science island, pass a ridiculous multiple choice quiz: 2. What is the goal of the True Scientist? a) To get tenure at a major university and be set for life. b) To impress babes with your towering intellect. c) To plot to take over the world! d) All of the above. And then, to gain the scientist's acceptance, you had to construct the perfect pizza out of ingredients scavenged in the field (how's that for crafting?). You needed access to their lab so you could get their pterodactyl skeleton, coat it with wax and pegasus feathers, and launch yourself out overseas to fly to Hydra Island. And that was one quest. It was also one of the few cross platform games of its time. I'm fully aware of the rosy colored glow of nostalgia but in this case... man, they don't make 'em like they used to. RIP, Pre-Takeover Sierra

elliptic 12y ago
I remember I was incredibly excited about the release; it was some years after QFG IV, right? But I didn't feel it was quite as good as I or (especially) II. Still, even the weaker III and IV had such intellectual variety and even wonderful emotional range...Humor to pathos, and everywhere in between.
- bentcorner 12y ago

mcguire 12y ago

"...that people weren't looking for deeper games with deeper puzzles and thought-provoking concepts and all these things we were hoping for." Some of us were. Frankly, I don't remember really enjoying any games since the demise of Sierra. Certainty, I haven't finished anything since long before that.

michaelbuddy 12y ago

I really don't like how someone in the article is saying that new games have no stories, but sierra, their team were these great storytellers had all kinds of funny in them. When I was a kid in the 80s, yeah kings quest and space quest had lighter moments, but they weren't all that funny. As an adult I definitely don't think they are this hilarious rose-colored gem that has never again met competition in the modern age. They were quite the pain in the ass too. I think these games desperately need a remake to make the more fun. They worked for the time because they had no competition, I mean you could argue that having to repeat a large portion of the game was annoying but you didn't have reference to other games that made it easier. When the puzzle is how to word a sentence to match the game word syntax, it's not really a game to me. Sierra did a lot of great things first, but it's silly to think they were these geniuses of fun and story.