Sierra May be in Trouble from Actiblizzion Merger

[webshark]

Originally Posted by Icemage

Sierra's gone through a long history. From about 1998 to 2005, they were basically on a downward trend; they had almost no internal studios that were producing anything commercially successful.

After 2005, after divesting themselves of basically ALL of their internal development staff, Sierra (actually Vivendi, who then shuffled these newly acquired studios under the Sierra umbrella) went back on the development warpath and acquired four previously independent studios, and now have some successful things to show for it:

High Moon Studios (Prototype)
Massive Entertainment (World in Conflict)
Radical Entertainment (Crash of the Titans)
Swordfish Studios (no idea what these guys are working on)

sierra made the Pharaoh games (well, Impressions Games made, it but they were owned by Sierra) and i loved that game to death tho im not entirely sure how "commercially successful" it was.

damn i wish some modern strategy games were still sprite based iso's. i would buy it just to support that style of play. all my all time favorite games are sprite isos....RA2, Pharaoh, AoE2, RCT, Stronghold (tho Firefly IS making a new one of these, and im FUCKING PUMPED about it!!! linky)

[downphoenix]

Originally Posted by webshark

sierra made the Pharaoh games (well, Impressions Games made, it but they were owned by Sierra) and i loved that game to death tho im not entirely sure how "commercially successful" it was.

Me neither, but that and Zeus are just based on the engine for Caesar III, which was a mighty fine game and did pretty well.

damn i wish some modern strategy games were still sprite based iso's. i would buy it just to support that style of play. all my all time favorite games are sprite isos....RA2, Pharaoh, AoE2, RCT, Stronghold (tho Firefly IS making a new one of these, and im FUCKING PUMPED about it!!! linky)

This is true. RTS games just haven't been as great since they went 3D, but that's because of camera management and stuff liek that, those some of the early 3D RTSs like Homeworld and Battlezone were great, how come the 3D RTS games haven't improved since?

Sierra also made the FEAR games and Timeshift in recent memory, pretty solid FPS games.

[rounds1]

I still play Caesar III...

[webshark]

i still play Pharaoh, infact, this thread has made me wish i had the game with me instead of back home.

never had Caesar tho...

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by downphoenix

Sierra also made the FEAR games and Timeshift in recent memory, pretty solid FPS games.

F.E.A.R. isn't a Sierra developed game. It was developed by Monolith Productions, which is owned by Time Warner. Sierra only published the game.

Ditto for TimeShift. It was developed by Razor, who are (at least as far as anyone knows) an independent development house. Sierra only published the game.

[downphoenix]

Originally Posted by Icemage

F.E.A.R. isn't a Sierra developed game. It was developed by Monolith Productions, which is owned by Time Warner. Sierra only published the game.

Ditto for TimeShift. It was developed by Razor, who are (at least as far as anyone knows) an independent development house. Sierra only published the game.

They still gave us the game. Monolith and Razor didn't give it to us, they needed a publisher, Sierra published. When I say "made the game" sometimes Im referring to that.

[goldmember]

Yeah, but even EA publishes a decent game every once in a while.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by goldmember

Yeah, but even EA publishes a decent game every once in a while.

What he said.

[ltzasz]

My favourite Sierra game was the Quest for Glory series. Does anyone else remember those games?

I agree with Valius. Sierra has such a long history, although the last decade has been pretty much a throw away. Hopefully they can make it through these tough times and deliver like they did in the early 90's.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by ltzasz

My favourite Sierra game was the Quest for Glory series. Does anyone else remember those games?

I do. "So you want to be a hero?"

I spent waaaay too many hours of my life playing Quest for Glory II.

I agree with Valius. Sierra has such a long history, although the last decade has been pretty much a throw away. Hopefully they can make it through these tough times and deliver like they did in the early 90's.

Maybe, maybe not. We'll see how it pans out later this year, but the Sierra you and I know of yesteryear is long, long gone.