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Catching Up With Ken Williams
by Chris Remo, Oct 18, 2005 9:30am PDTGamasutra's latest edition of Playing Catch-Up features an interview with Ken Williams, founder of Sierra On-Line and husband of designer Roberta Williams. The studio essentially created the graphic adventure genre with Mystery House and helped to refine it with franchises such as King's Quest, Space Quest, Gabriel Knight, Quest for Glory, and Leisure Suit Larry. Under the direction of Ken Williams, Sierra was known for being a great place to work and develop games. In 1996, it was sold to non-gaming company CUC, then eventually was acquired by Vivendi. Since then, its facilities have been closed and its employees dismissed, and Sierra now exists in name only. Williams speaks on the buyout, his motivations for selling, and what he and Roberta have been doing since their retirement. Though he seems glad to be relieved of daily business decisions, he still misses the industry:
"Of course I miss Sierra," he said, when directly asked. "Both Roberta and I miss it. If we had today's technology to build games with, imagine what could be done! It is so frustrating to sit on the sidelines watching others have all the fun. It is also painful to see an industry that hasn't really moved forward."There were some Sierra games I loved--King's Quest VI, Gabriel Knight, a couple Space Quests--but I have to admit, I tended to prefer the LucasArts style of adventures. However, I always held great respect for Sierra as a company, how it was managed and its philosophies. Seeing that legacy become slowly crushed over the course of about five years was a sad experience for me, and one can only imagine what it was like for the studio's founders themselves.
Comments
http://sierra-fanfare.com/news/item_001.php
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Ken and Roberta have countless millions. What's stopping them from starting a new company, or better yet, simply funding amazingly talented young game developers, and protecting them with a little "when it's done" action?
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http://www.agdinteractive.com/
And here is a group remaking KQ3:
http://www.infamous-adventures.com/index.php?page=kq3vga
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I'm still waiting for Gabriel Knight 4!
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Needless to say I never made it out of the police station...
Since we're talking about old adventure games, heres a few i think deserve more love than they get!
Beneath a steal sky : originally had this game on my amiga and it always crashed in the same place very near the end and i never got the chance to complete until recently. Fantastic game, with a great visual style and involving story.
Flight of the amazon queen : Not really a patch on lucasarts Indian jones and the fate of atlantis, but a real nice colourful fun experiance.
Toonstruck : pretty ground breaking for its time, featured christoper lloyd in a cartoon vs life action visual style that actually worked. Obscure and at times frustrating but nonetheless an amazingly inventive game.
Broken sword 1&2 : Havent played the more recent 3d sequel but apparently it lived up in the most part to the beautiful care and attention lavished on these 2 classics.
There's loads more, infact i've talked myself in to installing something old. Sod all this Q4 nonsense i'm going to scab isalnd
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(sick music too)
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Antwerp!
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(Deep breath)
King's Quest (I - IV), Space Quest (all), Leisure Suit Larry (1 - 3), Manhunter NY/SF, the two Lara Bow games, Hero's Quest Quest for Glory (1 - 3), The Black Cauldron, Police Quest (1 - 2)...these are some of my favorite games of all-time.
Especially Manhunter NY. That game was awesome.
I absolutely loved Sierra back in the day. They were second only to Infocom (and followed by LucasArts and Origin) in my mind, and they were titans.
I can't wait for the new compilations to come out...especially if they are fully XP-compatible (as they're rumored to be).
KQ: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000AYFPKG/
SQ: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000AYH89M/
Larry: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000AYIP8A/
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Don't get me wrong, the games were fantastic and I'll remember forever. But they practice of forcing additional software on my computer was annoying and in my opinion unethical.
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I was a fan of EarthSeige..... my first ever 3D Mech Game...
Very cool....
I also managed to convince my parents to get a subscription to The Sierra Network (later INN) and spent tons of time playing Yserbius and Red Baron and trying to sneak into the Leisure Suit Larry area. I've got so much nostalgia for those days..
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http://www.markseibert.com/music.htm
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Retired since 96? He didn't look to old in that photo. How much did they get for selling the company?
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Not only did the games kill you without any warning, but if you had the misfortune of forgetting an item in the very beginning of the game you'd end up stuck at the end of the game without any way of getting that item other than loading or starting all over.
Most of the time you didn't even know what that item was.
That being said, Gabriel Knight was probably the best adventure game series that Sierra ever created.
Sins of the father is still on my top 10 list.
It's a shame that Sierra bought it before we could get a conclusion to the series. Although, I believe there were other factors that prevented GK4 from ever happening.
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Actually, Phantasmagoria has a place in my heart too, speaking of Roberta. Kings Quest VII and VIII though, those were stinkers.
There was a day when Sierra didn't suck. Actually, one of Ken's last actions as head of Sierra was to publish Half-life, and at the time, they gave them more creative freedom then any other studio had, despite being a no name. I read a story once that Ken felt he had missed a huge opportunity when he said no to id and Doom, and that he was trying to make it up with the publishing of Half-Life.
But yeah. Old adventure games rule.
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"Honey would you pass me another money hat? This one no longer suits me... and make this one only out of $50's!"
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Quite frankly, my family way WAY too poor to be into PC gaming. The only PC gaming I did was at my aunt's house and it was duke 1 and duke 2.
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Right on...my thoughts exactly. I tended to prefer LA's humor/play/and art style but Sierra games hold a special place on my gaming shelf too. King's Quest V was the first 256 color game that I played, I think.
There was a guy that used to work at Bethesda who worked for Sierra for a long time - he didn't have very nice things to say about Vivendi...not at all.
Another thing that Sierra did really well (much like LucasArts) was to have excellent scores to their games.
http://www.queststudios.com/
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