Talk:Sierra Entertainment

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SPYRO THE DRAGON Was created by insomniac games NOT Sierra

Contents

[edit] Formatting

This is pretty much the most poorly formatted wiki article I've ever read (well, tried to read). As a general rule "The fantastic history of Sierra Entertainment[...]" is not the best way to start off of an epic tale of wiki wonder. 210.237.151.1 06:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wha... ?

Successful games such as 50 cent: Bulletproof ? It was a total failure. Matt714 05:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arcanum?

Didn't Sierra also publish Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura? And I'm pretty sure other games were published.That list of published games is far from complete.Crimson Shadow 19:17, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Move from Oak Hurst

ken williams has his own web page about what went on at sierra. the move from oak hurst was a huge deal, because the town was tiny when sierra started and grew enormously mainly due to the several hundred people who worked there.

Sounds like a worthy addition. Please add it. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 17:59, Sep 27, 2004 (UTC)


I think that the Companies under the Sierra Umbrella section is badly done. Fos? Pub? This is an encyclopaedia, not a text-file database. I've decided to reorganise it neatly. --Scott Nash 13:45, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Depends on what the definition of the word was is

Sierra Entertainment was a computer game developer and publisher.

Although my preference would be not to confuse the current insidious incarnation of Sierra with that of its glorious past, shouldn’t this be is, since Sierra currently is developing and publishing games? --Plicease 03:53, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I added 'The name survives as a brand of Vivendi Universal.' to it: the info was already in the article, but should be in the intro. Jordi·✆ 08:26, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wasn't Willy Beamish a Dynamix game? I didn't notice any of the others mentioned. --Plicease 04:01, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This game was developed by Dynamix, released by Sierra. Dynamix was by this time a fully owned dependancy of Sierra. Jordi·✆ 08:26, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
My point was that I didn't notice any of the other Dynamix games released by Sierra, but looking more carefully I see Red Baron and Aces over the Pacific. I think a better organization would be to put games developed by Dynamix in a list on the Dynamix page, and have a link from this page saying something to that effect. --plicease 15:10, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, while Cendant Corporation is not, technically, Cendant Software, Cendant Software is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cendant Corporation, and in 1998 Sierra was linked from the Cendant Corporation website (along with Blizzard, also owned by the mammoth). If you think there's somewhere better for it to link to, change it, but for now this is a good connection.siafu 15:37, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sierra Bug

Does anyone have any information on a bug that was in Sierra products in the late 90s, where if you uninstall a game from that era, it ends up messing up windows? I don't have a lot of information on it, I know it exists for it happen to me twice, and I read an editorial (after the fact, of course) by T. Liam MacDonald in Maximum PC on it.--198.7.245.93 17:53, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

This page is aching for some mention of Sierra's early arcade games / conversions on the Apple II + its contemporaries. A cross-section: Threshold, Crossfire, Apple Cider Spider, Oil's Well .. Frogger, anyone? Pseudo Intellectual 00:30, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hardware division

Maybe it would be an idea to add something about the Screamin'3D video chipset marketed under the Sierra name. Found an old board, with a "Rendition V1000-E" chipset, and a copyright date of 1996. I even remember seeing some ads for it in an Interaction magazine back in the day. WillMcC 21:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow. Blast from the past. The Rendition Verité. I actually owned one of those things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmmcintyre (talk • contribs) 05:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sierra Breakthroughs

How exactly does Kings Quest 1 qualify as a 3D game? 130.225.54.2 09:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

You can go behind things. – Torsten Bronger 10:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I hardly think having multiple layers makes it a 3D game - by that reasoning I am a 3D graphics artist, since I use layers when I doodle in Photoshop. Also, what about Akalabeth? It was released in 1980 and actually had *real* 3D graphics, albeit in wireframe.130.225.54.2 17:54, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, then you could say that on a 2D screen no 3D game is possible. It's all a matter of definition. However, I agree that the section in the article should point out that it is about adventure games. It stongly suggests that but maybe not clearly enough. – Torsten Bronger 09:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

¿Day Night cycle? And ¿Ultima V?

Kings Quest 1 was orginally credited as being a 3D game. While by todays standards it is NOT 3D at the time it was because rather than the earlier games (look at Myster House where new images were drawn when new rooms were created) KQ allowed the player to move around the location, behind things, move into the distance, etc. While some may not consider it to be a truely 3D game - it was considered by everyone at the time to be one. Infact the box art (available here) clearly shows it being called a 3D game.

[edit] Latest changes by Guywelch2000 and early dates

Though nicely written, the latest changes by Guywelch2000 (possibly this Guy Welch, Sierra/VU Games employee) are somewhat dubious. They removed some interesting information (the date of the first name change of the company, for instance). Worse, suddenly The Wizard and the Princess is presented as the first game, what happened to Mystery House? There is also an unsourced quote from Roberta Williams. Where does that come from?

Also I think some of the dates are wrong. First, the company was founded in 1980, not 1979 (even though that date pops up everywhere, including Sierra's official site). Read Ken Williams' The Birth of an Industry where he says that he and Roberta got the Apple II on which they developed Mystery House for Christmas 1979. Going from playing around on the Apple to founding a company in less than 7 days? I don't think so. On-Line's first newsletter, published in mid-1981, mentions On-Line's first anniversary, which would put that in 1980.

Next, the name change: according to Vintage Sierra, the last title with the On-Line Systems name was Time Zone, released in 1982, so the name change can't have happened earlier (the date is seen on this screenshot).

The move to Oakhurst is the next interesting question. I suppose the move prompted the name change, Oakhurst being near the Sierra Nevada and all. This is speculation, but if true, the move probably didn't happen until 1982 as well. The best way to confirm this would probably be to check old boxes and manuals for the addresses.

So, anyone (including Guy himself) want to help clean this up? TerokNor 15:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sierra didn't just make games (apparently)

I remember reading somewhere that when Sierra first began it was writing software rather than games but I never had heard of anything...until now.

I just found this site which includes images of "Screenwriter ][" a word prosessing program.

Images are here you have to scroll down a little though.

Anyone know any more info, and care to add it?

[edit] Softporn NOT a Leisure Suit Larry Game.

I noticed that Softporn was included under the LSL section, however I feel that it should not be. While LSL 1 was based off of softporn (infact it is basically Softporn with pictures and a few new jokes) it was created by a completely different person and originally had no link to LSL. Al Lowe was not involved in it's creation at all.

The reason it should be seperate is because it was a unique game for sierra as it is the only "all text" game the ever released.

Anyone else agree it should be broken from the LSL section? :: ehmjay 23:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep, it should be removed. Next time, sign your comments (~~~ or ~~~~). — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that - done, and done (edited and signed) :: ehmjay 02:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I think the article exploded...

yeah...it exploded....

[edit] What does this mean?

I'm not sure what this sentence is trying to say - "However in 2006, Sierra was rebuilt with a new management team headed by Mark Tremblay and four development studios, and is, along with Blizzard Entertainment, Vivendi's top studio." I deleted the last part, but can someone clarify what it was supposed to mean and add it back in?

[edit] SierrAbandonware

I restored the link to the Abandonware site. As of today, per the recent changes to the DMCA, USA Abandonware is legal:

Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace. [1]

Since the old Sierra games cannot be played on modern PCs without the use of emulation, and the original media is no longer manufactured or available, they are now no longer protected by copyright laws and therefore free of DMCA or other US copyright act restrictions. -- Jordi·✆ 09:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

No. The recent changes to the DMCA have nothing to do with copyrights, but everything to to with copy protection, DRM and such. They state that you may break and reverse-engineer protections on older software, but that doesn't mean that the old software is freely distributable, it is still protected by copyright. TerokNor 10:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I also noticed that Jor's quotation omits the phrase "when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive", without so much as indicating that these critical words have been omitted. - furrykef (Talk at me) 11:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for implying a sinister agenda! For my next trick, I will take over the world.
If you will look, you'll find I have linked the US government page I quoted from. IANAL (thank god), and may have interpreted it wrong. -- Jordi·✆ 11:39, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
I didn't mean to imply that you do have such an agenda, merely that you might. That omission was suspicious, so I felt I should point that out. But it's still merely suspicious, and my suspicions aren't meant to be taken personally. Sorry for not being clear. - furrykef (Talk at me) 12:21, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration

Sierra announced last September that they will be working with Double Fine (creator of the critically acclaimed Psychonauts in 2005) to make a new game.

The Double Fine website confirms that "Double Fine is currently hard at work on a new game, which is awesome, and will be announced just as soon as the law will allow." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marshmello (talk • contribs) 00:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Suggestions

Considering the poor quality of the article in its current state, I think it would be useful to draw up a list of things that can be done with it before we try to improve it from Start-Class (and this is one company whose history implies that it deserves much more than a drawn-out, shabby article with little encyclopedic content). I'm not sure if I'll start going through with the changes anytime soon, but I suppose they could be useful, especially if another editor plans to work on the article.

I've already moved the contents of the former "Titles" section to List of Sierra Entertainment video games; really, this article is long enough without a colossal listing of published games. I went ahead and made several changes to that list as well; some dates may still be inaccurate (the info in various sources varies), but I think it's a bit closer to the truth, in any case.

So, here we go:

  1. Change the introductory paragraph. Minor modifications needed; above all, I believe a well-constructed encyclopedic entry should begin with "Sierra Entertainment is" (minus the italics). The four studios are likely to be better off mentioned in the main article, but I suppose they can stay here as well.
  2. Change the tone of the article, eliminate peacock terms. Really, this is the article's biggest and most obvious problem. It's riddled with sentences and expressions that read more like advertisements or an informal account of the company's history. Examples include (problematic sections bolded by me):
  • "Ken (as so many other people who saw the game) was fascinated with it."
  • Referring to individuals mentioned throughout by name (Ken, Roberta etc.)
  • "She realized that this medium had the possibilities to do even more than presenting text descriptions on the screen. Since modern computers could display graphics, instead of telling the player “You are standing in front of a house” a picture of the house could be displayed on the screen. The games could use better plots too, making them even more interesting to play."
  • "Roberta sat down in front of the kitchen table and started to write down her ideas." – one of the many sentences that do not befit an article in an encyclopedia
  • "Three weeks later she presented to Ken the script of a computer game called Mystery House, an idea she had developed during the previous days, in between watching the kids (D.J. was seven at the time and Chris was only one year old) and doing other everyday household stuff."
  • "But who?"
  • "(...) Roberta's mother Nova, who was a good oil painter."
  • "They thought that if they could just write games popular enough to earn them about $40,000 a year, they could move out of Los Angeles in a few years and live in a “log cabin in the woods”, working together at home, making computer games and raising their children in a peaceful and beautiful environment close to nature instead of the big and busy city of L.A. They had no idea that this humble dream would be a heavy understatement to what was actually going to happen to them in the following years."
  • "The graphics, although consisting only of crude line drawings, monochrome and motionless, was something previously unseen in an computer game, and people loved it." – Wikipedia:Words to avoid, Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words
  • "Mystery House was the first computer game to have graphics, and as such is considered a classic game and a landmark achievement in computer gaming history." – the first, if I'm not mistaken, is incorrect, though it was the first adventure game with graphics. The second is self-explanatory, see above

I could go on, but there are just too many other examples; after all, I only covered the first couple of paragraphs here.

  1. Add captions to images.
  2. Format. There are way too many sections that need to be merged and content that needs to be removed (non-notable games; overly extensive references to events involving parent companies; quite hilarious reference to TalkSpot without any mention of why this should be considered important to the history of Sierra)

All in all, this article should be thoroughly edited, if not completely rewritten. If anyone has any other suggestions, I and many other Wikipedians would be very happy to hear them. As I mentioned, the Sierra of old deserves better than a rather mediocre article (not to disrespect the original editor or editors, who must have put in a lot of hard work to write all this). Cromag 22:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Damn! Has anyone actually tried to read that article? Anyway, I completely agree with everything written here by Cromag. I would suggest we prune all the "years" categories back and send a lot of the information over to the List of Sierra Entertainment video games topic. A lot of these games (frogger for example) just aren't important enough to be given such a big run of information in an article about a company.Klytos 06:40, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too long article

This article is way too long. For people who look for key information about sierra games (what it is/has been), it's a job to find it here. What about moving the history to a "history about sierra games" page and simply keep a small summary of it in this page? Pharaohmø 11:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd opt for simply rewriting large sections of this article, as I stated above. History of Sierra Entertainment might be an interesting page to create, but I don't think any other video game company has a separate article on its history. Besides, even if one were to move all the content there, it still wouldn't change the fact that the article is, simply put, bad. Still, I wholly agree with the suggestion to keep it relatively short and sweet in this article (no year-by-year analyses!) and eliminate the unnecessary or superfluous sentences. I plan to work on this in June, after my exams. Cromag 02:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
One problem with this article is that I believe the editor(s) in question wanted to describe every single aspect of Sierra's history, including every game released by the company, no matter how notable or innovative (or not). There's too much information for the average reader/Wikipedian; heck, there's too much even for someone interested in what things looked like at Sierra in its almost three-decade history. Cromag 03:00, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that many Sierra fans, like myself, REALLY appreciate the detail this article goes into. I really feel you should preserve the detailed history available here in some form. I am a serious Sierra fan, and prior to this was unaware of ALL this rich detail. There should be a way to make it available (after all, the value of wikipedia is that you have a range of depth- from the basics to the more in-depth), without wiping it clear, and also allow those users who want more brevity to have it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.68.236.94 (talk)
Our beef with the article is not about the detail that went into the article, although that is excessive (splitting the page into separate articles should prevent loss of content). It's mainly about the way the article was written, that is to say in a very informal style that does not befit an encyclopedia. There are many things wrong with the page; some of these have been mentioned here by a number of Wikipedians, including myself, and some have been named in the template I added to the main page. I also consider myself to be a serious Sierra fan, their games having introduced me to the realm of PC gaming. But Wikipedia is not a compendium of all available info on a given subject; it's useful to distinguish what's important from that which is not. If someone would want an all-encompassing, definitve version of the history of Sierra and all information associated with it, he would have to create a separate Sierra Wiki, which might be useful, but which I myself just don't have the time and patience for. As it is, you can check some software company articles which happen to be featured articles and manage to be informative without divulging the entirety of the companies' history (Microsoft, for example). Cromag talk to me 18:24, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The history section is way too long. Too much detail. For example, why include "with their two young sons D.J. and Chris." in the beginning of the 1979–1983 section when its simpler to say "with their family."? Most of the personal details could be moved out to the page of Ken Williams (gaming) or Roberta Williams. Some parts are written as biographies and while others like news releases. Ǣ0ƞS 07:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Cleanup

I've started cleaning up and rewriting this this article.

The major thing I'm focusing on is the removal of peacock terms and trimming down the article into a readable form. I've been using the Delrina article as a template, as this is of featured article status.

The intro is rewritten, my next task is to define some catagories and split the rest of the text into those groups. I think having it split by individual year and game title is way too long-winded.

My proposed sub-groups are :

  • Beginnings
  • Adventure games (inc breakthroughs and notable titles)
  • Acquisition by CUC International and aftermath
  • Acquisition by Vivendi Universal
  • Development Studios
  • Complete list of titles

Klytos 15:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think a separate section for Sierra's breakthroughs and important releases isn't necessary; such information should be integrated into the narrative (lists in general should not be used in articles like this). I'd put the Development studios category after the one in which the story of Vivendi's purchase is told. And the section containing the wikilink to the list of releases should be moved to the end of the article. Aside from that, I wholeheartedly agree with your suggestions (just remember to write game titles in italics ;)). Cromag 17:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Good point, I'll move the breakthroughs and notable titles to within the Adventure games section. The list above should now be in the order of appearance in the article. Italics, huh. Always forget that. I think I fucked up the Apple II bit as well lol.Klytos 01:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] King's Quest section and AGI

The way it's written right now, it spreads the popular misconception that AGI was developed before King's Quest and then used to create that game. That's not true; Sierra first wrote King's Quest as a stand-alone game. Not until King's Quest II and The Black Cauldron did Sierra take the 3-D routine from King's Quest and wrote AGI around it. If you look at the original 1984 KQ1 releases, apart from the 3-D engine, nothing is AGI --- not the script code, not the file formats. NewRisingSun 21:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Kings Quest Tandy.png

Image:Kings Quest Tandy.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 18:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Completely Discouraging

Whoa! I think the purpose of wikipedia is to LEARN something, but anyone trying to read this article will be discouraged because of the amount of scrolling to get past the TABLE OF CONTENTS. I am just a casual gamer who wanted to find some info and was rather daunted by the amount of Informal language. It sounded more like a "history page" you would find on the company website than an encyclopedia article. 69.62.242.163 (talk) 02:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


I find this article to be very informative and its exploded structure to be better than the most of the standard wikipedia. 217.168.89.152 (talk) 09:45, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:KQV.jpg

Image:KQV.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 23:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:KQV.jpg

Image:KQV.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 06:59, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lode Runner

Didn't Sierra also produce (two?) Lode Runner game/s. Shouldn't that also be listed in the article? misterdan (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:51, 20 March 2008 (UTC)