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

Important context that's come to light since then

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_hair_mustache_puzzle

God that is great

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.

> That's why Doom/Quake resonated. People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible.

Doom/Quake is about as realistic as Escape From Tarkov is easy-going, light hearted, non-at-all-sweaty fun.

> People don't strictly want to play games as much as they want [an] experience

this would ^ probably be more accurate version of your statement. it's not always about realism.

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.

> People want these simulations to be as realistic as possible

Have you ever played D&D? There is no graphics, it's all in your head. I've played amazing adventures many years ago that I can still visualize in my head.

People don't strictly want to play games as much as they want to experience alternate realities

That’s a very sweeping statement to make about a very large number of unrelated people. I happen to be a gamer and your statement doesn’t describe my wishes or experiences very well at all!

I’d much rather play a game of NetHack than some new ultra-realistic PS5 game. I’m not the only one who feels this way. There a ton of other people like me. People who enjoy retro games, puzzle games, point and click adventure games, RPGs, strategy games, and countless other games that aren’t focused on immersive graphics or realistic simulations.

> 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.

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 prosecution. What judge is going to find you guilty?

See also ratings agencies in 2008.

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

Edit: common homophone issue

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

Completely agree on both counts! I loved those two games and felt Conquests of the Longbow didn't get the recognition it deserves.

On the second point, when I read his book (https://kensbook.com/) I was disappointed to not hear about the magic of the games themselves and the creative process behind them. It became clear that his primary goal was to grow a business, he thought being a game distributor was more exciting, but then was disrupted by Steam, shareware, and online distribution.

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.

I hope Larian gets into making sequels or remakes of all those 90’s games that people loved. Baldur’s Gate is a game my brain tries to place in the late 90’s along with the later Warcraft games but in fact it’s 00’s. Seeing them walk gaming history backward would be a treat.

Before BG3 came out I started to try to finish BG which I played but got stuck a third of the way through. I made it at least halfway, but then the betas were coming out so I just watched other people play through on YouTube. Which I suspect many people did if they even bothered exerting themselves that much.

What other games have good playthroughs?

How tragic to be widely successful, cruise the world and still have the drive to work on passion projects.

They just released Colossal Cave a few years ago.

Nothing good lasts forever, that's just how it is.

I wonder how the early employees did in the deal. Did they cash-out as well?

It was Space Quest for me.

Oh, I played many of the others, but SQ -- specifically II -- was what made me fall in love with adventure games, warts and all. I learned English (well, besides taking actual English classes anyway) by typing words in its text interface.

This is interesting was there already enough money in videogames to make people multi miljonairs in those days?