If you believe everything you read in Variety, it looks as if Sierra has the proverbial gun to its head today, as Activision Blizzard are demanding that Sierra place every single one of their current projects on the offering table. The AB Gods will arbitrarily decide who lives and who dies.
Apparently, they found a few pages of EA’s playbook on the floor of a bathroom in Las Vegas and have finally deciphered the code. More nauseating details and exaggeration after the jump.
With Vivendi’s Blizzard label safely filed under: “So f*cking profitable why screw with it?” the cloud of corporate gloom seems about to be dumped squarely on Sierra-ville. The forecast calls for personnel cuts, scrapped projects and a cold front of indifference to sweep in with sustained winds, high enough to essentially destroy a legendary brand in gaming.
Personally, I’m kinda saddened by the news. I am sure that Activision Blizzard aren’t stupid enough to scrap projects already close to release, like Ghostbusters and Prototype, but with regard to Sierra’s creative and sometimes risky game making ideology, I’m going to miss that. I’m also going to miss meeting HAPPY Sierra employees at conferences and events. I don’t want these people paranoid. I want them making great games.
Sierra was one of the first game labels I supported, back on my Atari computer. Their rather outdated logo always brought “peace and happy” to my heart. A Sierra game means quality to me. Some people buy anything with a Valve logo on it. I prefer to fawn over those gorgeous golden mountains.
Until now, we’ve only heard the happy stuff out of Activision Blizzard. We’ve seen what they want us to see. Now, it’s kind of like that time at Six Flags when, as a kid, I got lost and ended up in the wrong area of the park where employees take their breaks. Behind all of that bigger-than-life happiness, it’s just Tweety Bird smoking a Marlboro Red.
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Qf3ck3r // Mar 20, 2008 at 10:45 am
Well, that just bummed me out, thanks Captain Buzzkill.
2 Lono // Mar 20, 2008 at 11:05 am
Agreed. King’s Quest and other “Quest” games were some of my all time favorites on the PC when I was a kid.
this is a bunch of crap.
3 Matt 'Volkov' Schmidt, Brought to you by Bacon Salt // Mar 20, 2008 at 11:11 am
So you’re saying…no more Incredible Machines?
4 lwelyk // Mar 20, 2008 at 11:37 am
“Agreed. King’s Quest and other “Quest” games were some of my all time favorites on the PC when I was a kid.”
Yes they were good games. But Sierra is having a taste of their own medicine after “Chainsaw Monday”
On chainsaw monday, after the employees arrived to work for the day, many were told they had a meeting to attend. The meeting basically said that they were fired. 15 minutes later, they had released a press release about it. They continued to fire people over the next few months and cancel projects such as Space Quest 7 and a new Leisure Suit Larry game. They also fired Al Lowe(Leisure Suit Larry) and Scott Murphy(Space Quest) two of the biggest in the adventure game business.
After all that they released one more adventure game and since then I haven’t been happy with them since. Yeah, this is a cruel thing to do, but it just makes me think of chainsaw monday, and while this isn’t fair to the individual employees. I’m kinda glad to see the management’s getting a taste of their own medicine.
5 Dathcha // Mar 20, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Worrying… I was so looking forward to some of their old classics being remade as they announced the plans of Incredible Machine and Red Baron on XBLA…
I sure hope those will not get the axe… But I suspect they will
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