Roberta Williams: A Woman in Transition

By
Randy Sluganski
November 22,
1998

Interviews are often staid, informal affairs. The interviewer asks
predetermined questions, and the interviewee provides cookie-cutter answers to
questions that he or she has previously responded to at least a hundred times.
Such is not the case with Roberta Williams. She has such a genuine enthusiasm
and joy, not just for the gaming industry, but for life itself, that it is infectious.
Fifteen minutes into a 90-minute conversation with this gregarious woman, and
I felt as though I were spending an evening with one of my gaming buddies.

I
first saw Roberta last May. There, amidst the madness that is E3, she sat alone,
calmly playing Mask of Eternity, oblivious to the mayhem that surrounded
her. I never approached; instead I stood off to the side and watched and listened.
To state that it is difficult to imagine this demure, soft-spoken woman as being
responsible for laying the groundwork for the graphic adventure game is a monumental
understatement. It would indeed be easier to picture Al Lowe’s Leisure Suit
Larry appreciating women for their minds. But responsible she is, and now
she will lead adventure gamers by their gauntlets, some kicking and screaming,
into an epoch of action and adventure called King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity.

Fast-forward
to November. The respect this woman elicits and her integrity are evident in the
following story. I am in my computer room awaiting a phone call from Roberta Williams.
The call is already 15 minutes late. I figure she is just too busy and begin clearing
out the area. The phone rings. “Hello, Randy. I’m sorry that my call is so
late, but I tried to call on two different phones and neither one would let me
through. So finally I found this phone I’m calling on now and it worked.”
I then spent the next two minutes apologizing for and explaining how the call
blocking on my phone worked!

As we chatted, Roberta was again playing Mask
of Eternity. It had been supposed to go gold that day, but, always the protective
mother, she was doing a final bug check. Almost 60 people overall had beta-tested
the game, but it would not be released until she thought it perfect. The first
question out of my mouth was one that she had surely answered at least a hundred
times before, “The Masks of Eternity–what do they represent? Is there a
literary of mythological source that provided material for their creation?”
What followed was not a one-sentence, or even a one-paragraph, response. Instead
I was treated to a six-minute discourse that would put a college professor to
shame. The lecture ran the gamut from Joseph Campbell’s Masks of Eternity/The
Power of Myth video series to a literary dialogue on the inspirational works
of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. So what exactly are the Masks of Eternity? According
to Roberta, “they are life, they are death, they are whatever you want them
to be.” Evasive, but upon further reflection, it is probably a good idea
to not put any predetermined notions into the gamers’ minds.

Mask of
Eternity is the first game to not put a numeral after the King’s Quest logo.
In fact, Ms. Williams herself never once referred to it as King’s Quest VIII.
She realizes that “new gamers would be reluctant to purchase a game that
has a number eight in its title. There is that feeling that you have walked into
the middle of a story and may have missed something important that occurred previously.”
Sensing that today’s gamer wants more action and less adventure, she has also
repeatedly referred to MOE as an action/adventure 3D epic. This has caused
more than a few of the “core” adventure gamers to raise an eyebrow and
was also the basis for the main theme of our discussion.

In previous interviews,
Roberta had made it obvious that she was disappointed with the tolerance level
of today’s gamers. Gone are the days when point-and-click inventory based adventure
games ruled the gaming world. Does she foresee the day when the pendulum swings
back the other way and adventure games regain the lofty status they once enjoyed?
“Yes, it is slowly occurring now. The market for the pure action game is
beginning to dwindle as gamers demand more. These are people who have never played
a pure adventure game, so when they have to solve a puzzle they are intrigued.
The new action/adventure genre is bringing players into the fold who previously
would never have given a second thought to even looking at an adventure game.”
She admits, in private, that she is worried that she will lose some of her original
fan base, but computer gaming has exploded so dramatically the past two years
that for every one fan she loses, she may gain 10 more.

At one time, the
only people who had computers were those who were able to afford the stratospheric
prices. Early gamers were either the more high-brow of society or the true gamer
who would go without food in order to purchase the newest King’s Quest release
(I easily fall into this second category). Now that computer gaming has gone mainstream,
we are seeing games that appeal more to the visceral than the intellectual senses.
Games like Deer Hunter and Unreal now top the best-seller lists.
Yet, according to Ms. Williams, “The adventure audience has not shrunk, as
is widely believed, but in fact it has grown. The overall total percentage of
people playing adventure games is smaller, though, due to the influx of new action
gamers. The problem is that the bar for measuring success has been raised, and
sales figures that were once considered impressive are now viewed as minuscule.”
The inherent danger is that action fans will view MOE as a puzzle-loaded
adventure game and that adventure fans will see it as a hack-and-slash action
game, and neither will buy it.

Two questions that received unexpected answers
were about merchandising and add-ons. Roberta actually thought the suggestion
of merchandising the King’s Quest franchise a wonderful idea and referred
me to her marketing director. As for add-ons, her answer was a shock, “I
don’t think add-ons are viable for adventure gamers. You are talking about a single-person
gaming experience as opposed to the multi-player experience of games like Quake.
There is not the same level of interaction. An adventure game is self-contained
within that original experience, and it would be difficult to just open up another
area to continue play.” Personally, though, I still believe that add-ons
are part of the future of adventure gaming.

It was time to turn the conversation
to other matters, and Roberta was more than glad to talk about her husband Ken
and his new project Talkspot.
The pride she has for her husband was evident in her voice as she told me about
his new web site. It features live interviews utilizing real audio. Roberta will
be a guest on the site four times during the month of December (JA will provide
the dates and a link for our readers). We spoke about the future of Sierra and
she was genuinely happy to inform me that “Sierra has recommitted itself
to the adventure genre. The interest generated by MOE and by the fans themselves
has shown them that a market still exists for adventure games.” Her one-word
response when I asked her what she thought of Laura Croft was simply “Yuck!”

Phantasmagoria,
considered a failure by many in the industry, still generates heated discussions
some three years after its release. Some failure. How many other three-year-old
games can you think of that still induce such interest? I recently attended a
press junket in California, and during an evening discussion over Mexican food,
four very esteemed gaming professionals brought up the subject of the rape scene
in Phantasmagoria. The consensus till this day is still split down the
middle for this opus to B horror films. Roberta herself did not even seem interested
in discussing her full-motion-video creation. While she admits to a “love
for the old horror films,” the topic of Phantasmagoria 3 is dead.

Has
Roberta Williams gone from being a leader to a follower? I think not. She is an
opportunistic, savvy businesswoman who realizes that sometimes it is better to
stand back and observe others and then strike when the time is right. You can
almost feel the apprehension in her voice when she discusses the future of the
King’s Quest franchise. Will King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity prove
to be her Waterloo? Not if Sierra correctly markets the product. Those insiders
who have played the beta version of the game are raving about it. Sierra needs
to attract the computer player who does not read the mainstream magazines. MOE
actually has the potential, due to the enormous increase of computer owners,
to be the biggest-selling King’s Quest game ever and add legions of new
fans to the fold. Sure, she will lose some of the core audience, but it will be
their loss for refusing to change and adapt to the new world of adventure gaming.
As for Roberta, what does she have planned after the success of Mask of Eternity?
“Honestly, nothing. I do not have a single idea at the moment for a new
game. I am going to take the next six months off and travel, do some catching
up and playing games.” As we all shall be soon, now that King’s Quest:
Mask of Eternity is released.