Ken and Roberta Williams accepted and started on the project. IBM offered to fund the entire development and marketing of the game, paying royalties. In 1983, Sierra On-Line was contacted by IBM to create a game for the new PCjr.
#Mascot entertainment the dark legions series
Many of Sierra's most well known series began in the 1980s.
I'm not moving until I understand the market better." Ken Williams was reportedly described as "bewildered by the pace at which computers come into and fall out of favor", and Williams said, "I've learned my lesson. The company had spent much of 1983 developing for a Commodore machine and the TI-99/4A which were both obsolete by the end of the year.
#Mascot entertainment the dark legions software
The company weathered the video game crash of 1983 by seeing only a 20% increase in sales, after analysts in 1982 had predicted a doubling in 1983 of the entire software market. By early 1984 InfoWorld estimated that Sierra was the world's 12th-largest microcomputer-software company, with $12.5 million in 1983 sales. The "Sierra" name was taken from the Sierra Nevada mountain range that Oakhurst was near, and its new logo incorporated the imagery of a mountain reflecting that. On-Line Systems was renamed Sierra On-Line in 1982, and they moved to Oakhurst, California. Rebranding to Sierra On-Line (1982–1988) A simplified version of The Dark Crystal, intended for a younger audience, was written by Al Lowe and released as Gelfling Adventure. Through 19, more games were released in the series including Cranston Manor, Ulysses and the Golden Fleece, Time Zone, and The Dark Crystal. The next release, Wizard and the Princess, also known as Adventure in Serenia, is considered a prelude to the later King's Quest series in both story and concept. The Hi-Res Adventure series continued with Mission Asteroid, which was released as Hi-Res Adventure #0 though being the second release. Mystery House became the first of their Hi-Res Adventure series. The two decided to shift the company's focus to developing more graphical adventure games. It is the first computer adventure game to have graphics, although made with crude, static, monochrome line drawings. It was an instant hit with about 15,000 copies sold, earning US$167,000 (equivalent to $524,539 in 2020). Mystery House was released through mail-order in May 1980. On-Line Systems leased their first office space from Ponderosa Printing, a modest space in the back of a small town print shop. With Ken's help in some of the programming, Roberta designed Mystery House, inspired by the novel And Then There Were None and the board game Clue, using text commands and printout combined with rudimentary graphics depicting the current setting. Dissatisfied with the text-only format, she realized that the graphics display capability of the Apple II could enhance the adventure gaming experience. He encouraged Roberta to join him in playing it, and she was enthralled by the game after Ken had brought an Apple II to their home, she played through other text adventures such as those by Scott Adams and Softape to study them. Ken had brought a teletype terminal home one day in 1979, and while looking through the host system's catalog of programs, discovered the text adventure Colossal Cave Adventure. Ken, a programmer for IBM, had planned to use the company to create business software for the TRS-80 and Apple II. Sierra Entertainment was founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems in Simi Valley, California, by husband-and-wife Ken and Roberta Williams. The Sierra brand was revived by Activision in 2014 to re-release former Sierra games and some independently developed games. The Sierra division continued to operate through Vivendi Games' merger with Activision to form Activision Blizzard on July 10, 2008, but was shut down later that year. The former CUC Software group was acquired by Vivendi and branded as Vivendi Games in 2006. Sierra remained as part of CUC Software as it was sold and renamed several times over the next few years Sierra was formally disestablished as a company and reformed as a division of this group in August 2004. However, CUC International was caught in an accounting scandal in 1998, and many of the original founders of Sierra including the Williamses left the company.
The company is known for its graphical adventure game series King's Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Leisure Suit Larry, and Quest for Glory.Īfter seventeen years as an independent company, Sierra was acquired by CUC International in February 1996 to become part of CUC Software.
The company was founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams, and known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre including the first such game, Mystery House. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher.
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