Poor Sierra. They put out such good stuff back in the day.

/reminisce

Nothing warms the heart like monolithic corporations kicking their employees around.

I hope Brutal Legend will be all right with its new lord and master.It looks like a great game to pick up whenever it's released.When is it being released anyway?

But Sierra was the grandfather of so many damn good games! Police Quest (and sequels)! King's Quest (and sequels)! Shit...ALOT of stuff! How are you just gonna can a company like that? It'd be like what EA did to Westwood Studios.

Time for you to get on your knees Leisure Suit Larry!!

Let's all hate on the EA! They're so evil.
Wait. Once again, this is Activision being the assholes, while we continue to hear nothing but good publicity from EA outside of the Take 2 thing.
...Why do we hate EA more than Activision, again?

And thus, the homogenization begins...

Diversity, how I will miss thee.

I swear to god if COD5 is in WII I'm going back in time and shooting Hitler before he even utters a word.

@TalKeaton: Game Design Major: I agree; poor Sierra. They did have great ganmes and I can't wait for Brutal Legend and Prototype to come out. Looks great.

/reminisce

That merger ensures one thing, no original IPs and nothing but the same old. I can't wait for Warcraft 19, Starcraft 15 and Guitar Hero 504 expansion pack 5.

@Thassodar: Don't get me started on King's Quest. Last October, I played through ALL of them again. In order. All seven.

KQ VII is a great game. Yeah, I said it. Go find it.

@zer0zen: So true

@VGJ: LOL~!!!

@VGJ: You may encounter a slight problem with your plan...

[www.abyssandapex.com]

As bad as this is for the diversity of games, I haven't seen anything that pinches my interest in the list of projects Sierra has been working on.

This sucks for Sierra and gamers.

Now we can hate on both Activision and EA! Equal opportunity hating! :D

@VGJ: Don't do that, cause then the soviets will conquer Europe, Red Alert style.

This is actually something I don't mind hearing. I get more excited for Guitar Hero and (hopefully) Diablo III than pretty much anything Sierra has done for a decade. Seeing as how I can't even name anything Sierra has done in the past decade...well, there ya go.

Aww, Sierra had good stuff. Shoot man, I remember all those old PC games. Srsly, making games has gotten so expensive nowadays, if companies are only going to go with sure bets, that means a lack of new IPs and stuff, right?

People keep making indie films, but ya think that smaller gaming studios will crop up, or will tool kits like Microsoft's XNA be the extent of new, low budget deals?

@Cogito: Which would lead to more Red Alert games?????!?!?!!?!OMFG!

*Starts up time machine*

Seeing as I own a handful of Sierra titles, I hope they stick around.

Kill them all off and remake all the classic point and click adventures and other classics for XBLA, PSN, and Wii. They'd make a (niche) killing I say!!! Hell, I'd mail them a debit card they could bill every time they release a game and just automatically push the game into my 360 HD. Gawd I miss them and Westwood *depression sets in*

Starcraft II.
Hahaha.

@Cogito: B-but... Prototype... And Brutal Legend... You're losing your grip on being a gamer, man! Snap out of it! We'd be LOSING quality games (for the most part) out of this, and they'd rehash CoD and GH like EA does all their sports titles!

@TalKeaton: Game Design Major:
You forgot about King's Quest VIII!

(though I can understand forgetting that one)

@Lstormy10: At this point, I think Activision is far worse than EA.

@VGJ: Good point. Go for it, man!

@Paladin58: I can see where you're coming from...maybe I'm just not a Sierra fan? I honestly couldn't tell you...but the news of their (apparent) demise just fills me with...meh. Never got into the whole King's Quest thing, myself. That being said, losing games of any sort is never good for the industry (competition ftw) so there's that.

Hrm. I seem to be confusing myself now.

@Paladin58: Which of course relies on the assumption that they would not be quality games, irregardless of whether or not they're "rehashes"

CoD4 is a rehash of pretty much every CoD game so far, the only real difference being that it's set in modern times instead of WW2. It might aswell be a complete reskin of CoD2, as the gameplay hasn't really changed at all. But it's heralded as a marvel of modern ingenuity. Strange.

@Marion517: I've said it for as long as I can remember, but it won't be until development time is cut in halve, and cost comes down. It's an uphill battle, but I fight still.

i figured it out the world will end 2012 when EA and Activison Merge

uh....Ghostbusters in jeopardy?

@NowJacker: no it isn't in jeopardy you n00bert. It's coming out this year!! You douche-cone.

Well I guess this means we can kiss a next-gen version of NBA Jam good bye.

what about more half life games or f.e.a.r. games?

It's a crap day to be a Sierra employee.

Must not feel good to be undermined like this.

The gaming world lost a lot of potential the day Cendent came in and mucked up everything, firing the home team of Sierra.

That was my home town *sniff* - used to dream of writing for that company.

I miss their adventure games, buggy as hell but with more heart and humor than anything I've seen in ages...

I swear if Activision does anything to Sierra and even sniffs at double fine productions the wrong way I'll make it my personal agenda to get everyone I know to stop buying anything published by them. You can kill crap studios but the moment you touch the creative people in the industry you are tap dancing on a land mine.

THis is what came to mind when I first read this:

[video.google.ca]

@NowJacker:

Did you just flame respond to your own post? :/

IRT Activision being douchebags to Sierra

I will seek revenge for the little guys. Sonny Bonds, Larry Laffer, and Roger Wilco to name a few...

This is the folly of publically traded companies in the games industry. There is little we as gamers can really do about it, but what we can do we SHOULD.

Vocally oppose mergers, takeovers especially when a PLC absorbs an Ltd company.

Selectively boycott the worst offenders & 'acquire their games via non-retail channels' (nudge nudge wink wink) if you must play them.

CORPORATE MONSTROSITIES ARE BAD MMKAY!

Developers: STAY INDEPENDENT!

From now on, before buying a game, ask yourself 'Who's publishing it?". If it's the likes of Activision Blizzard or EA, think long and hard before parting with your cash, regardless of what the game may be.

@Cogito: Thing is, I've never played King's Quest either. I'm all about waiting for Prototype and (to a lesser extent, but not enough for it to be considered bad) Brutal Legend.
@Dioxen: Touché.

Gotta say, I can't remember the last Sierra game I played... Maybe one of the "The Incredible Machine" ones?

Sorry folks, I'm calling this fair play and natural selection. Sierra were great, but that was a long time ago.

wow, thats EA branded brutality right there.

@TalKeaton: Game Design Major:
Actually, not to long ago, they did a release of a compilation of all the KQ games, and SQ games (not sure about police quest though). And basically, they have been set up to run fairly well on modern systems.

Of course, without Roberta Williams, its not like Sierra is able to make gold like this anymore.

So, am I sad that this has occured? Not really, I felt sad back when I realized Sierra was owned by Vivendi. They have been dead to me ever since. (Not that I dislike their games, but more that I actually have to check to see if its any good, where as before, the name Sierra meant something).

@Stormrider: Agreed.

There is some amazing unannounced stuff in the Sierra lineup, very little is likely to survive.

Craptivision, bringing down the industry.

Not really, its funny how people forget that Sierra been dead for quite a while.

F.E.A.R. is from Monolith Productions (Time Warner owns it).

Last thing Sierra did was "World in Conflict" ... its funny hearing about the "good old ways" but that was what? the adventure games? the ones that pretty much "died" about 8 years ago?

@Drakron: That is absolutely false, since then they have release Commanders, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Geometry Wars: Galaxies, Alien Vs. Predator, TimeShift, F.E.A.R. Files, Switchball, Empire Earth III, amongst others.

/shudder

@TalKeaton: Game Design Major:
I'm guessing you don't consider KQ8 to be part of the King's Quest series on the basis that it's FPS instead of Adventure?

@KommissarK:
They did at least two. Right around the time Mask of Eternity shipped they released a KQ everything-else-pack for 98SE to help promote it, and recently I spotted KQ (MoE excluded) and SQ compilations for XP at Meijer. I snagged the SQ box, as I don't think I've ever played a single one of those games (I _might_ have played _one_ in college), but now I'm wishing I hadn't procrastinated on the KQ box set as I don't currently have anything running 98SE.

I'd be worried, but to tell you the truth I don't entirely blame them. There's not much in jeopardy that I'm interested in at all.

Activision is becoming the new EA in every way, while EA seems to be becoming more like the old EA.

@L_K_M: Right, wait till EA has finally gotten it's meathooks into Take 2 and then we'll see how much like the 'old EA' they are...

Frankly, the worst thing that could ever happen to gaming was to become popular and start generating money. Suddenly we have the usual packs of money-grubbing whores in suits descending on it to leech every dollar and every shred of creativity out of it.

Fuck this, I'm starting to hate being in this industry more and more every day...

@Polywhirl: I don't. I've rescinded my personal EA boycott and am currently considering instituting an Activision one.

Although, I mean, I wonder if it still makes sense to buy the games that Sierra would've published (aside from them trying to fuck over Valve that one time, they've been behind a lot of good games)

Sierra WAS a great game developer. They USED TO BE a leading force on the cutting edge of game development.

You know, in the same way that Atari WAS a pioneering force and Lucasarts USED TO produce the best adventure games we'd ever seen.

I'd hardly shed a tear for the current iterations or Atari or Lucasarts, so I'm not sure why Sierra is being treated any differently here. The founders sold up a long time ago, and the great names from back in the adventure game days were all pushed out/left.

Perhaps it's because there's been so little news about Sierra that many people haven't quite noticed that they've slid into irrelevancy.

Unless one of the titles in jeopardy is a Quest For Glory compilation for the Wii, I'm not that concerned about it.

That said, I miss the glory days of Sierra Online. I'm actually going back through and playing all the old QFG games again (for the 50th time...) via DOS Box right now. I just started QFG1 VGA 2 nights ago. Personally, I always liked Sierra's adventure titles even more than LucasArts. In fact, QFG was the first PC game I ever purchased. To me, that was the golden age of gaming. I still have all my old Sierra game boxes proudly displayed on their own shelf.

Ahh, to be young again. *sniffle*

Welcome EA 2!

So basically in good ol Activision style, if you cant prove it can be milked to death during the next 5-10 years with countless sequels and spin offs then its getting shit canned.

The Sierra On-Line we're all pining for died long ago, sadly, and though Lucasarts carried the torch, Sierra's passing really signaled the coming of the end for adventure games.

I think the problem is that adventure games now need a very different talent base than before. Ken and Roberta Williams, Al Lowe, the Two Guys from Andromeda, Corey and Lori Cole... these were all brilliantly creative (and often very funny) people perfect for a garage-company way of making games. Lowe could write the text, program things within the scripting engine, and even write the theme song for Leisure Suit Larry. The games often included inside jokes poking fun at other employees at the company. At the same time, they pioneered the idea that a PC game should have decent sound, and popularized early Ad Lib, Sound Blaster and the venerable Roland MT-32, and were a big force in pushing gaming pcs up from CGA through EGA and to VGA graphics.

But times changed, and among other things, they couldn't adapt their formula to let the personalities of the visionaries behind their product line shine through in games. Too many other people had to be involved as all aspects of the game became more complicated, and while a strong designer does make their personality come through (Tim Schaeffer, for example), the type of person who does that well isn't necessarily the type that thrived in the earlier era.

Sadly, the Sierra brand now implies nothing from those days. There's nothing for Activision to kill. They just want to find whatever franchise they can annualize.

@twesterms 2nd: I never played KQ VIII, but from all my resources I have gathered that KQ VIII is a sin against God and needs to be burned.