History Of Sierra Entertainment

Ken and Roberta Williams started Sierra Entertainment, Inc. in 1979. The company was an American video game developer and publisher.

The business is recognized for being the first to create the visual adventure game genre, which includes the first game of its kind, Mystery House. It is recognized for its series of graphical adventure games, including King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory, as well as for being the original publisher of Valve's Half-Life series.

Sierra was bought by CUC International in February 1996 after seventeen years of operating as an independent firm. Following the acquisition, Sierra became part of CUC Software. However, in 1998, CUC International was involved in an accounting crisis, and many of the original founders of Sierra, including the Williams family, departed the firm. Sierra continued to be a part of CUC Software when it was sold and renamed many times in the years that followed.

In August 2004, Sierra was officially dissolved as a corporation and reestablished as a part of this group. Vivendi purchased the previous CUC Software firm in 2006 and changed its name to Vivendi Games.

The Sierra division continued to function when Vivendi Games merged with Activision to become Activision Blizzard on July 10, 2008, however it was closed down later that same year. Activision brought back the Sierra brand in 2014 to re-release old Sierra titles as well as other games that were produced independently.

At now, the Sierra brand is owned by Microsoft via its gaming business, which acquired Activision Blizzard.

Ken and Roberta Williams, a husband-and-wife team, established Sierra Entertainment in 1979 in Simi Valley, California. At the time, the company was known as On-Line Systems. Ken, a programmer at IBM, intended to utilize the firm to develop commercial software for the TRS-80 and Apple II. In 1979, Ken took a teletype terminal home one day. While he was searching through the program catalog of the host system, he found a text adventure game called Colossal Cave Adventure.

He persuaded Roberta to play it with him, and she was captivated by the game. Once Ken had bought an Apple II to their house, she went through additional text adventures, such as those made by Scott Adams and Softape, in order to understand them. She was unhappy with the text-only format and came to the conclusion that the Apple II's capacity to show visuals may improve the experience of playing adventure games.

Roberta built Mystery House with Ken's assistance on part of the programming. The game was inspired by the book And Then There Were None and the board game Clue. It uses text instructions and printouts coupled with basic visuals that show the current scene.

In May 1980, Mystery House was made available for purchase via mail-order. It was an immediate success, selling about 15,000 copies and generating $167,000 in revenue (which is equal to $618,000 in 2023). It is the first computer adventure game to use visuals, even if they are rudimentary, static, monochrome, line drawings.

The two began to concentrate on creating more graphical adventure games. Mystery House became the first in the Hi-Res Adventure series.

The Hi-Res Adventure series continues with Mission Asteroid, which was labeled as Hi-Res Adventure #0, even though it was the second game to be released in the series.

The following release, Wizard and the Princess (also known as Adventure in Serenia), is seen to be a precursor to the later King's Quest series in terms of both plot and premise.

More games were published in the series between 1981 and 1982, including Cranston Manor, Ulysses and the Golden Fleece, Time Zone, and The Dark Crystal. Al Lowe wrote a simplified version of The Dark Crystal that was aimed for a younger audience. It was published under the title Gelfling Adventure.

The Sierra website, which had previously referred to Activision's website, was changed on August 7, 2014. The new website had a new logo and included the message, "More to be revealed at Gamescom 2014."

Activision has announced that the Sierra label would be re-releasing some of its older games, reimagining its older properties, and working with independent developers to develop new projects that are "innovative, edgy, and graphically unique." Sierra's goal is to concentrate on releasing digital games via PlayStation Network, Steam, and Xbox Live.Ken Williams said, "We are extremely proud of what we created with Sierra On-Line all those years ago, and the news today about carrying Sierra forward as an indie-specific brand is very encouraging." We are excited to watch Sierra's independent attitude continue to thrive.

On that day, it was revealed that King's Quest and Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions would be the first two games to be released under the newly restored Sierra brand. The firm received the "Industry Icon" award at the 2014 The Game Awards on December 5, 2014. At the same event, the first video of the King's Quest revival was shown.