Sierra May be in Trouble from Actiblizzion Merger

[webshark]

Variety: Sierra devs need to justify games after Activision merger - Joystiq

apparently Sierra, which was also acquired by Activision during the merger, will have to get on their knees and ask permission to continue working on projects already being developed.

this is not cool. Sierra was one of my most respected companies and im worried now that they are going to end up going the way of westwood (RIP)





also, i was GOING to post this in an old thread about the original merger, but the one with the decent title had been locked, and the one using the news feature had a misleading title and the news article was gone. when i clicked on the giant link in the OP, it redirected me to the search news page which didnt have any story. this shitty ass news function continues to show MORE shortcomings every time i look at it.

[CaptainMarbles]

Ya that sucks.

At least the new company is leaving Blizzard alone.

[Sheff159]

Not good news, Sierra is an amazing game studio. Hopefully they will weather this change.

[valius]

Originally Posted by CaptainMarbles

Ya that sucks.

At least the new company is leaving Blizzard alone.

There's no way that would have tampered with Blizzard, the cash-cow.

Sierra's been having some hard times, and I really hope that this long-standing company will make it through these troubled times.

[codenamelenny]

They have to re pitch the games that aren't coming out this year. It doesn't sound like like any games are in trouble.

[downphoenix]

Activision becoming worse than EA confirmed.

EA's shut down a lot of good studios, but none had as storied of a history as Sierra. Everything from King's Quest to Half Life, and lots in between. Sure, they haven't been spectacular lately like they were in the 80s and 90s, but a LOT of the old game companies have had problems adjusting to the new climate, EA and Activision are more the exception than the rule of thumb for those companies (And technically, Activision itself was in trouble before games like Quake 2 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater, their 1st part of the 90s was pretty pathetic, they didn't transition all that well when they stopped making atari games, unless later part of PS1.)

[06nbarnhill]

Originally Posted by downphoenix

Activision becoming worse than EA confirmed.

EA's shut down a lot of good studios, but none had as storied of a history as Sierra. Everything from King's Quest to Half Life, and lots in between. Sure, they haven't been spectacular lately like they were in the 80s and 90s, but a LOT of the old game companies have had problems adjusting to the new climate, EA and Activision are more the exception than the rule of thumb for those companies (And technically, Activision itself was in trouble before games like Quake 2 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater, their 1st part of the 90s was pretty pathetic, they didn't transition all that well when they stopped making atari games, unless later part of PS1.)

I wouldn't say that yet. Activision has a long way to go before it reaches the sad generic brand that is EA.

[Fyrus]

What has Sierra done recently? And What are they working on?

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Fyrus

What has Sierra done recently? And What are they working on?

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)

[rbbdrooger]

First of all, they should re-release King's Quest, Space Quest and Gold Rush for XBLA. Remind everybody of the great games they used to make.