Sierra Entertainment, Inc was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams.
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34 Facts About Sierra Entertainment
1.
2.
Sierra Entertainment is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genre, including the first such game, Mystery House.
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3.
Sierra Entertainment remained as part of CUC Software as it was sold and renamed several times over the next few years; Sierra Entertainment was formally disestablished as a company and reformed as a division of this group in August 2004.
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4.
The Sierra Entertainment 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.
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5.
The Sierra Entertainment brand was revived by Activision in 2014 to re-release former Sierra Entertainment games and some independently developed games.
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6.
Sierra Entertainment was founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems in Simi Valley, California, by the husband-and-wife duo Ken and Roberta Williams.
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7.
Sierra Entertainment 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.
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8.
The "Sierra Entertainment" name was taken from the Sierra Entertainment Nevada mountain range that Oakhurst was near, and its new logo incorporated the imagery of a mountain reflecting that.
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10.
In 1987, Sierra Entertainment On-Line started to publish its own gaming magazine, about its upcoming games and interviews with the developers.
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11.
Sierra Entertainment became a public company in 1989, trading on the NASDAQ under the stock ticker "SIER".
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12.
In 1990, Sierra Entertainment released King's Quest V, the first Sierra Entertainment On-Line game ever to have more than 500,000 copies sold and the highest selling game for five years.
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13.
Sierra Entertainment Network was launched on May 6,1991, as the first game-only online environment.
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14.
In 1991, Sierra Entertainment released the first game in the Dr Brain series, Castle of Dr Brain, a hybrid puzzle adventure education game, which has several sequels.
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15.
Sierra Entertainment needed a new building due to growth, and moved its headquarters and much of its key staff to Bellevue, Washington.
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16.
Company was now made up of five separate and largely autonomous development divisions: Sierra Entertainment Publishing, Sierra Entertainment Northwest, Dynamix, Bright Star Technology, and Coktel Vision, with each group working separately on product development but sharing manufacturing, distribution, and sales resources.
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17.
Sierra Entertainment was the market-share leader in PC games for the year.
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18.
At this point, Sierra Entertainment had seen modest revenues of about in their current fiscal year, so the sum was surprising to Ken.
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19.
In December 1996, Sierra Entertainment released The Realm Online, an online fantasy role-playing game.
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20.
Sierra Entertainment began to have disputes with Davidson over Davidson's conservative management style and his disdain for Sierra's more risque product lines such as Phantasmagoria and Leisure Suit Larry.
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21.
Brochu, who had been hired in 1995 by Ken Williams, to handle the day-to-day business affairs of Sierra Entertainment, replaced Ken Williams and remained as President of Sierra Entertainment until October 1997, when he too departed the company.
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22.
In December 1997, in order to secure the rights to Return to Krondor, Sierra Entertainment purchased PyroTechnix, who were developing the game.
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23.
On November 5,1997, after the departure of Brochu in October, Sierra Entertainment was split into three business units, all of which reported directly to MacLeod.
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24.
On November 24,1997, Sierra Entertainment published Diablo: Hellfire, the official expansion pack for the widely popular game Diablo developed by Synergistic Software, a division of Sierra Entertainment.
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25.
On November 19,1998, Sierra Entertainment published Half-Life for the PC, developed by Valve, which became a huge success.
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26.
On February 22,1999, Sierra Entertainment announced a major reorganization of the company, resulting in the shutdown of several of their development studios, cutbacks on others and the relocation of key projects, and employees from those studios, to Bellevue.
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27.
Sierra Entertainment sold the rights of Headgate Studios back to the original owner.
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28.
Sierra Entertainment reported they obtained the rights to continue using the name Yosemite Entertainment for the development house.
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29.
Meanwhile, Sierra announced another reorganization, this time into three business units: Core Games, Casual Entertainment, and Home Productivity.
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30.
Newly renamed Sierra Entertainment continued to develop mostly unsuccessful interactive entertainment products.
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31.
In 2003, Sierra Entertainment released the second video game adaptation of The Hobbit, as well as NASCAR Racing 2003 Season.
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32.
In late 2007, Sierra Entertainment released titles like the first-person shooter game TimeShift and the real-time tactical video game World in Conflict.
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33.
Sierra Entertainment will focus on publishing downloadable games through PlayStation Network, Steam for PC and Xbox Live.
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34.
Sierra Entertainment both developed its own games and published several games from its divisions and from third-party developers.
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