R.I.P. Sierra

For those of you who aren’t aware, Sierra On-Line, the pioneers
of the graphic adventure, closed down their central division on Monday,
putting 125 people out of jobs and laying to rest a twenty-year legacy.
Josh Mandel, an employee there for many years who worked on some of
Sierra’s best-loved games, offered to write a few loving words about
this once-great company. We hope you enjoy. Our prayers are with the
families of ex-Sierra employees.

By Josh Mandel
February 25, 1999

On Monday, the last vestige of the original Sierra On-Line was laid to
rest in Oakhurst, California. That branch, recently renamed “Yosemite
Entertainment,” was shuttered on Monday, February 22nd, putting most
of its 125+ employees out of work.

You may not care for what Sierra has become since the days when dozens
of unpretentious parser-driven graphic adventures flowed, seemingly effortlessly,
out of Oakhurst. But there’s no denying that, back then, Sierra On-Line
was the life’s blood of the adventure game industry.

Maybe the games were a little more rough-hewn than those of its competitors–not
that there were many competitors at that point. But Sierra kept adventure
gamers happy and fed, gamers who would’ve otherwise starved to death on
the arguably more polished, but frustratingly infrequent, releases of
Lucasfilm Games (as they were once called).

Sierra alone grew the industry in other ways, too. It was Ken Williams
who, almost single-handedly, created the market for PC sound hardware
by vigorously educating the public to the AdLib card and, shortly thereafter,
the breathtaking Roland MT-32. He supported those cards in style while
other publishers wanted nothing to do with them. It was Corey and Lori
Cole who invented the first true hybrid, replayable adventure/RPG. It
was Christy Marx’s lump-in-the-throat ending to Conquest of Camelot
that reminded us that not every computer game had to have a group
hug at the end. It was Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy who made us want
to kill off our onscreen alter ego, to see what inventive, gooey death
had been anticipated for us. It was Roberta, before anyone else, who invented
strong female heroines. It was Al Lowe, bringing up the rear (literally
and figuratively) by creating Leisure Suit Larry, the most popular,
pirated game of its decade. We knew this because we sold far more Larry
hint books than we sold of the actual software.

It was the Sierra News Magazine (later InterAction) that
let us feel like we knew the people making these games, that they were
a family-run business, staffed by people who lived an isolated life, surrounding
by idyllic, ageless beauty and creating games that were a labor of love.
That was, at least for awhile, an accurate picture. This was a family
we wanted to feel a part of, for good reason, and people came from thousands
of miles away to take a tour and see how real it all was.

But what makes the closure of Sierra On-Line’s Oakhurst facility (recently
renamed “Yosemite Entertainment”) a bigger, sadder event than
most game company closures–including the far larger decimation of 500
Broderbund employees–is that this was not just a game company, this was
a community.

Oakhurst is barely a dust mite on the mattress of America. It existed,
for a long time, as a miniscule stopover for tourists on their way to
and from Yosemite National Park. As recently as 1991, the mountain-bound
town had not a single stoplight, just one grocery store, a single-screen
movie theater, and one video rental store. There is no broadcast television
(the mountains block it all). The nearest larger town is Fresno, 45 miles
distant over the mountains. In severe snowstorms, the town is virtually
cut off from the world. And the cable company there is still so provincial,
so disdainful of outside influence, that there is no MTV offered, no Nickelodeon
(or any MTV-owned stations), nothing to disturb the elderly farmer-types
have been the chief population since the Gold Rush days.

Sierra was the second-largest employer in town (the phone company being
the largest). Thus, the people of Sierra did not simply work together
as they do in most of the country. These people are families, roommates,
and neighbors. The person who works in the cubicle next to you may be
your girl or boyfriend, your spouse, your landlord. He/she may well have
been in your wedding party, and may have driven you 45 miles to the hospital
when you were sick (how else could you have gotten there?). Secrets never
stayed secret for long; divorces, trysts, and personal traumas all were
public knowledge. People at Sierra weren’t just working together, they
were living together. Now their lease has expired and the family will
all at once be scattered.

The town has grown somewhat. The theater is now a multiplex, but Rusty
still gives you his unabashed opinion of each film on the recording when
you call for the movie times. There are several stoplights in town now.
There are several supermarkets, more hotels, and the infamous “Talking
Bear” has undergone a recent facelift. But the town still revolves
around Sierra and tourism. And tourism may not be enough to support the
town, at least in the winters when much of Yosemite (“the park”
in local vernacular) is closed.

With Yosemite Entertainment gone, not only are more than a hundred people
out of work (some of whom are fabulously talented), but an entire community
has been wiped out with the stroke of a pen. It will be morbidly interesting
to see whether or not Oakhurst’s economy can bear up under the mass exodus
that will result.

Some may argue that Sierra lives on in Bellevue, Washington, where Al
Lowe, Jane Jensen, Roberta Williams, Mark Seibert, and a handful of Oakhurst
refugees still labor diligently on games side-by-side with scores of newer
talent. But games like KQ:MoE and LSL7 have a distinctly
different flavor than the seat-of-the-pants, funny, touching adventures
that Oakhurst once produced. They are commercial.

Invariably, in a company that grows the way Sierra grew, innovation gives
way to emulation. Whereas Sierra’s management once strove to make it solid,
profitable, and yet fun, they now strive to dominate other companies,
force annual growth in the double digits, and (like so many other companies)
cut jobs mercilessly to improve the bottom line and thrill the stockholders.
Yet the Ghost of Sierra Past still walked the halls in Oakhurst. The rooms
were adorned with the art of glories past, the artists and programmers
who helped to create those glories were, in fair measure, still living
and working there. Now that spirit has been exorcised by scrubbed, glad-handing
executives who don’t know, or don’t care, what those artists and programmers
could do when they were motivated and well-managed.

People, living and working closely together in the pursuit of shared
joy, were what made Sierra games great. Thank you, Ken, for creating something
utterly unique, something warm, fun and beautiful. Damn you, Ken, for
allowing others to tear it down.

Whether you were a Sierra fan or not, we are all diminished by the loss
of history, talent, and continuity within the gaming industry. Rest in
peace, Sierra On-Line.