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What happened to Roberta Williams?

C

CO_Andy

Member
Roberta Williams is a pioneer of adventure games, and in general early PC-gaming.

I find it odd that this veteran of the industry has gone unnoticed. According to the wikipedia, Mrs. Williams is in retirement in Mexico w/ her children, but she plans one day to return to the game industry... to develop an MMO.
 
CO_Andy said:
Mrs. Williams is in retirement in Mexico w/ her children, but she plans one day to return to the game industry... to develop an MMO.
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stay in retirement....this industry is so different now that it might just kill her
 
You answered your own question...

But basically, Phantasmagoria was insanely expensive at the time and underperformed and then KQVIII was seen as a betrayal by the series' fans (who were already annoyed after KQVII) and that series died too.

So, Sierra sold out to Vivendi, and became a cold husk of itself.

In the 90s though, few companies could compete with them in my eyes. They were more important to me than Nintendo or Sega probably.
 
In the 90s though, few companies could compete with them in my eyes. They were more important to me than Nintendo or Sega probably.
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I have fond memories of the 16 bits gen, but it was all about Sierra and Lucas for me. Those were the days.
 
sierra_softporn.jpg


Thar she blows on the right there!
 
She should make a DS game.

Either her, or the guy who made my favorite adventure game-- Loom.

If there ever was a console made for adventure games, the DS is it... I still believe all it takes is one killer app to kickstart the genre again (like Baldurs Gate did with RPGs)
 
argon said:
She should make a DS game.

Either her, or the guy who made my favorite adventure game-- Loom.

If there ever was a console made for adventure games, the DS is it... I still believe all it takes is one killer app to kickstart the genre again (like Baldurs Gate did with RPGs)
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Trace Memory / Phoenix Wright / Sprung ... DS isnt exactly lacking in adventure games...
 
Sierra's games monopolized so much of my youth that it isn't even funny. I worship the ground every Sierra designer walks on, and would likely be reduced to a blubbering, misty-eyed fanboy should I ever meet just one of them.
 
xsarien said:
Sierra's games monopolized so much of my youth that it isn't even funny. I worship the ground every Sierra designer walks on, and would likely be reduced to a blubbering, misty-eyed fanboy should I ever meet just one of them.
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Seriously, each of them had great personality, and I would follow the games they played religiously. Sierra sure as hell knew how to market their talent.
 
Funku Papa said:
I have fond memories of the 16 bits gen, but it was all about Sierra and Lucas for me. Those were the days.
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Lucas never really dropped the bar as low as Sierra.. There was a point in time when Sierra repeatedly and stubbornly kept releasing utter crap..
 
sierra missed the evolution (like every other adventure company) of adventures toally out! they thougt the future lies in action-adventures and were proven fatally wrong. the action-adventurs were only one step in a new direction.
 
i always thought king's quest was the most mediocre big series sierra had. not bad at all, but compared to the stuff lucasarts was doing, come on...
 
OMM was written by two people. You're talking about Erik Wolpaw, who's an excellent writer as far as game industry types go.

The other guy was Chet something or other. Not sure what happened with him.
 
Softporn was a text adventure...sort of the precursor to the Leisure Suit Larry games (it was included on the LSL compilation discs a couple years back). Roberta Williams just happened to be one of the women who posed in the hot tub for the cover. I think everyone on that cover was someone at Sierra.
 
She is with her husband and two sons living on privet Island. I tried to make an interview with her, but she decline at the last moment. BTW they donate $200.000 for the last Bush elections campage.
 
mediabiz said:
She is with her husband and two sons living on privet Island. I tried to make an interview with her, but she decline at the last moment. BTW they donate $200.000 for the last Bush elections campage.
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How dare she contribute to politicians!

:lol
 
stewy said:
Softporn was a text adventure...sort of the precursor to the Leisure Suit Larry games (it was included on the LSL compilation discs a couple years back). Roberta Williams just happened to be one of the women who posed in the hot tub for the cover. I think everyone on that cover was someone at Sierra.
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She had a real Marilynn Chambers thing going on.
 
mediabiz said:
She is with her husband and two sons living on private island. I tried to conduct an interview with her, but she declined at the last moment. BTW, they donated $200.00 to Bush in the last election campaign.
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Fixed. Can't see why she'd cancel an interview with such an excellent writer as yourself. :)
 
Anyone else here read the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"

Goes into nice detail of Sierra, its start, and its business and personalities. There is a good writeup on Softporn as well as the craziness involved with trying to get some of the coders there laid.

Also has a good section on EA where Trip Hawkins was promising prospective employees cocaine in snowdrift quantities.

Really fun book and a great read.
 
Warm Machine said:
Anyone else here read the book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution"

Goes into nice detail of Sierra, its start, and its business and personalities. There is a good writeup on Softporn as well as the craziness involved with trying to get some of the coders there laid.

Also has a good section on EA where Trip Hawkins was promising prospective employees cocaine in snowdrift quantities.

Really fun book and a great read.
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They were trying to get the coders laid for real?
 
They took a few of them to Club Med at one point. I think they actually hired a hooker or stripper or something for their one star programmer but I can't remember.
 
Warm Machine said:
They took a few of them to Club Med at one point. I think they actually hired a hooker or stripper or something for their one star programmer but I can't remember.
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I've got the wrong coding job then. I need to ask management if they can get me a stripper or hooker. :lol
 
Welcome to software development in the early 80s :) There was one guy who once flipped out while working there and held one of the female coders hostage with a knife at her throat.
 
I use to be the biggest Sierra fan back in the day (who wasn't) but when shit hit the fan the company went down hill FAST.

Al lowe btw (the creator of leisure suit larry) has his own website I think al low website , its a humor website, its pretty funny, I still think LSL7 is one of the best adventure games solely because it had great characters, great puzzles and a great interface.
 
Pakkidis said:
I use to be the biggest Sierra fan back in the day (who wasn't) but when shit hit the fan the company went down hill FAST.

Al lowe btw (the creator of leisure suit larry) has his own website I think al low website , its a humor website, its pretty funny, I still think LSL7 is one of the best adventure games solely because it had great characters, great puzzles and a great interface.
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Aye Pakkidis, LSL7 was one of the best. Ken drops in from time to time, you can learn what they have been up too here: http://www.sierragamers.com/
 
Dr_Cogent said:
I've heard some interesting stories about Atari in the good ol 80s. Lots of drug use and philandering apparently.
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Yeah. They had hired a few heroine addicts to work in their arcade manufacturing warehouse and their staff washroom had dirty needles lying around. I think that was in The Ultimate History of Videogames.
 
nubbe said:
Haha, the 80's – mid 90's was so great... what went wrong? :|
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Corporations moved in, bought up the major studios, made games more expensive to make, and forced their policies on developers. The craziness and creativity still goes on but in smaller development houses.
 
Chet runs Valve's website, now. I think Erik works for Valve as well; pretty sure he left Doublefine some time ago. Rumor has it they were both eaten by Gabe Newell, although someone posting as "chet" keeps harrassing the Bible-thumpers, Bush-apologists, and the hippies that populate the forums of a certain Tom Chick fansite.
 
I hear you, Black Monday could not have been more dark. World is not same with out Quest for Glory, Larry and the dozen other properties.
 
madara said:
I hear you, Black Monday could not have been more dark. World is not same with out Quest for Glory, Larry and the dozen other properties.
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Not just the loss of Sierra but also the loss of the great Lucasarts adventure game tradtion as well.
 
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