Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings

The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line

By: Ken Williams

Narrated by: Josh Horowitz

Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

Sierra On-Line was one of the very first computer game companies and at one time dominated the industry. The author, Ken Williams, founded Sierra On-Line with his wife Roberta who went on to create many of the company's best-selling games. 

Sierra grew from just Ken and Roberta to over 1,000 employees and a fan base that still exists today, despite the fact that the company was torn apart by criminal activities, scandal, and corruption that resulted in jail sentences and the collapse of Sierra. This is the behind-the-scenes story of the rise and fall, as it could only be told by the ultimate insider.

©2020 Ken Williams (P)2020 Ken Williams

a fitting ending to Sierra

Many people these days had their childhood revolve around Harry Potter, My childhood revolved around Sierra games. They taught me to type, read, spell.. they taught me it was okay to fail.. and to pick myself back up.. think through the problem and try again.. they taught me to explore and learn.. be curious.. all of these things made me who i am today.

This book goes into a lot of detail of Sierra as a company and Ken Williams. It answers a lot of questions and gives glimses into the 15-20 yr history of the company not the games themselves. Many of the reviews have mentioned that the interlude chapters are distracting.. i feel they were amazing. Expecially the one on Ken WIlliams opinions and approach to programming. He and his company were WAY WAY before their time in terms of story telling, technology, and vision.

Its a great read/listen

Sierra's rise and fall

First off, I want to call out the narration, its excellent throughout.

The book covers the early years of Ken and Roberta Williams (mostly Ken), and their journey through the dawn of video games, to being merged into a global conglomerate.

My childhood was filled with the early Sierra games on my IBM compatible computer in the early 80s. Its great to hear how that all came about, and what things had to be done to rise to be the stars that they were.

Criticism - The book has its faults though, the pacing is a little off, and the interludes are distracting. This is one part story of the rise and fall of Sierra, and one part Self Help book. The Self Help parts.. im not a big fan of. Ken has a lot of traits that worked for him, but i think a lot of it was being in the right place at the right time and taking some initiative. A lot of his management advice is actually.. pretty terrible. I'd never work for him.

Still overall, a great book that I would recommend to anyone who was playing Sierra games since the 80s.

Started it and destroyed it

The author was the cofounder of a great game company, but then takes no responsibility for the demise of it. It’s everybody fault but his.

He tries to ease the blow of the death of it by passing off some made up story of how many great games we made. Sure if you ended up with all the money he got you’d look back at it like it was great too, just don’t pay attention to all those people who lost their jobs.

At the very end he tells us a cute little story about his yacht, I’m sure everyone who worked there and got fired loved that.

A Good Trip Down Memory Lane

While it was nice to hear the history of the company that made so many of the games I loved as a child, I would’ve loved to have heard more about those games, and less about the business or conflicts in building the Sierra empire.

But, if you are into the business side of a gaming company, or want to hear thoughts from one of video games’ greatest founders, it’s a good book.

The narration, however, is that bland, uninspired style that we have come to expect in too many works of non-fiction. I know they all can’t be Wil Wheaton, but I am tired of the same old anemic sound.

Interesting and honest

A look inside one of the most influential tech companies of the 1980s and 1990s.

Ken Williams has a unique blend of honesty, confidence and humility all at the same time.
He's very frank about his own failures and judicious about those whom he quarreled with.

He definitely seems himself short on Sierras legacy.

By the end of the book you can see how Ken and Roberta had the unique qualities to change computing and also the same ability to walk away when after they got chewed up by Clinton-Era glad-handing conmen.

An unexpected jewel

I'm a developer working in the video game industry, and grew up playing Sierra games (along with many others). I bought this book, as I bought many other dealing with the life of influential people or companies of this industry, because I enjoy hearing the stories of my childhood heroes. Nonetheless, I was able to take a lot of great advice and some pretty important insights. I'd admit these might not be for you (not every game developer out there will resonate with Ken's words), but I'd also say no other book on the subject had this amount of interesting things to take away and apply in your career.
The narration is spot on. I enjoyed it as much as the story itself.

A Fascinating Memoir

I received a free copy of the audiobook to review. I will try to be as unbiased as possible, but full disclosure I grew up with Sierra. I played SQ, KQ, EQ, The Realm, QfG, Dr. Brain, TIM, PQ, BaK, BiA, PAiT, LSL, Hoyle, CoL, RB, TP, and a few others.

That should put me in square in the middle of a relatively small target audience. However, I feel that the real target audience is even closer to home. It feels like a book written for Ken Williams’ family, friends, and former employees. Those that experienced Sierra firsthand and may have lingering questions as to what exactly happened and what Ken Williams was thinking with his decisions.

The book feels almost like a conversation with him. Or more accurately, listening to him tell the story of his life. He reached out to friends for details or googled information more often than exhaustively researching facts. If there was something he couldn’t remember, he said so. He talked about several choices throughout his life that he would probably make differently now, but he stood by his choices. He acknowledges that he wasn’t always right, that he was cocky, that he wasn’t easy to work for, and this book is his side of the story.

It makes for a fascinating memoir. I mean, he was almost a household name. Sierra had so many firsts... graphical game, online game network, IBM compatible game, game on CD, game using a music card, online casino, personal finance software, BASIC compiler, etc. If he had made one or two choices differently, he would be a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos. Several books have been written about those that made it all the way to the top, but how many memoirs have been written by those that were this close?

Probably a lot, actually. But there are a lot of biographies on my TBR list, and they’ve been there a while. I read this as soon as I found out it existed, and I enjoyed it.

The Would-be King Ponders What He Wrought

The dawn of electronic gaming is a fascinating fracture, a big bang of separate pursuits and disparate interests that have since forged an eclectic industry. Those who grew up during the arcade’s golden age will no doubt find the triumphs and travails of Nolan Bushnell and his fledgling Atari a gripping piece of video game history, while conversely, early PC owners will find the parallel tales of an upstart Apple Computers equally engrossing. The pastime would continue to diverge and evolve throughout the ‘80s, with the arcade, game console, and home computer markets all bearing their own philosophical approaches and spreading in distinct directions. The latter was perhaps the most homespun and “eccentric” of the bunch, possessed by an off-the-cuff sensibility that the upstart Sierra On-line embodied perfectly as it came into being.

Long before its 2004 closure, Sierra On-line was a software superstar, as famed and legendary in its day as Valve and Activision Blizzard are now. Helmed by a young and fearless Ken Williams and his indomitable wife Roberta, the two authored the first graphical adventure game—1980’s Mystery House—which garnered instant success and helped ignite the Sierra empire. For the next sixteen years, the company (coined "On-Line Systems" initially) would grow in both prominence and prestige, authoring dozens of popular titles. It was always on the cutting edge, always experimenting, always diversifying. Sierra was beloved and seemed invincible.

So what happened? It's complicated.

Pundits, historians, wistful fans, and former employees have long shared their own insights and theories. Who was really to blame for the famed studio’s downfall? Naturally, Mr. Williams receives much of the criticism—accusations he’s never tried to aggressively refute or explain. But those seeking the truth, or at least some closure, might find it here; some twenty years after the company’s downfall, Williams finally shares his side of the story. And though it smacks of being too little, too late, it’s still an engaging read for who have always wondered why Sierra just seemed to suddenly disappear.

Williams begins his tome speaking of his youth, his college days, his courting of Roberta, his introduction to the computer revolution, and finally, Sierra On-Line’s rise, heyday, and demise. The book strikes a wobbly balance between in-depth insight and more cursory recounting; no doubt, some will wish Williams spent more time discussing the formation of certain games, the company’s party-centric sensibilities in its earliest days, the individual designers and personalities who gave Sierra its distinctive flavor, the author’s opinions on competitors such as LucasArts and Infocom, and how he coped emotionally with both the stress and embarrassment of Sierra’s downfall. What readers get instead is a collection of the author's thoughts on a hopscotch range of topics. Acquisitions. Anecdotes. Successes and failures. Management philosophies and scattered advice. Few will find the book uninteresting or completely without merit. But similarly, few will find every subject of worthwhile importance.

To Williams’ credit, he could have used the pages to disparage his former competitors and current naysayers, to complain about his unjust fate and loss of relevancy. But rather, he’s generally diplomatic, sticking to the facts (or at least his version of them) and letting the actions of certain personalities speak for themselves with only modest comment. If anything, he’s probably too diplomatic, too milquetoast—with himself more than anyone else. Former Sierra employees hoping for an outright apology for, say, Williams’ (initially secretive) selling of Sierra to CUC Software (which ultimately led to the company’s end) won’t quite find that here. Even so, the latter chapters do carry a taint of regret, even shame, that can’t be denied. This is not a man seeking forgiveness, exactly. Just understanding. His greatest sin, probably, was his two decades of silence.

Indeed, the entire chronicle reads like a paradox; for every victory Williams celebrates, there’s almost always an equal and opposite failure waiting a few pages later. It’s uncanny, really, how such a successful company could make so many constant mistakes, from not acquiring ID Software to The Sierra Network’s demise to the botched production of Outpost, a game released essentially unfinished. But that was Sierra—a brand so strong, it could withstand the incessant hiccups and iffy decisions. For that, Mr. Williams is to be commended. He built a name—a reputation—truly impervious to any iceberg. Well, except himself.

In retrospect, vintage Sierra can best be likened to Nintendo. The latter, a Japanese company of monolithic proportions, carries a special connection with its fans—owns a Mario-shaped stamp on each of their hearts. That was Sierra once upon a time, a company that was more culture than corporation, an artistic movement and creativity engine that helped raise an ‘80s generation. But once the outsiders, the opportunists, the money-mongers and charlatans were given access to the throne, Sierra lost control of the narrative. Lost the folks. Lost its soul.

Fans can choose to either celebrate or lament Sierra's glory days. Blame or praise Mr. Williams; dismiss or forgive him. Just remember, it’s always the King who suffers most. Ken Williams is still rich. Successful. Has friends, a life, a devoted wife. Still holds his head high with pride.

But he’s lost the crown of true immortality.

And that’s a curse worse than death.

Fascinating story drenched in "has-been" flavor

This book could have used an editor. Ken's style is very conversational and the entire thing feels like a collection of long blog posts. There's a lack of structure, repeats, rambling, grammatical errors, lots of filler, random opinions, and such. The writing is 2-3 stars at best. Having just read Sid Meier's Memoir, which is well written, humble, enlightening, and concise, this book about Sierra felt very disjointed.

Like many reviewers here, I was attracted to this book because I love gaming industry/history books, and I grew up with Sierra adventure games. I had not realized that Sierra had gotten so big, or that they had gone through so many pains and issues. I had assumed they had been acquired and absorbed by a larger publisher like so many others. This whole story is fascinating and I devoured the book quickly to find out what happened next, despite the amateurish writing. That's my main motivation for my 4-star rating.

Then there's the material itself. This is a story about Sierra the company, not a deep dive into the design of the games. There's decent coverage of the early adventure games like Mystery House and such, since Ken himself did the engine and tools programming to support Robert's designs, but it's obvious that Ken grew quite disconnected from the programming teams as the company grew, so most of the book is focused on Ken's role as owner/CEO of Sierra.

While Sid's book enhanced my admiration for this great game designer, this book made it clear to me that Ken certainly isn't a great leader or manager. He was successful to a certain extent, but his conservative management style and approach to business stink of abusive practices that have long been abandoned by modern, forward-looking CEOs. Williams is a relic of the past. Cracking the whip, mandatory unpaid overtime, celebrating crunch, micro-management, Kingmaker attitude, inability to delegate, lack of trust, egocentric need to approve everything, etc. This book is full of it, and at least I commend Williams for admitting to many of his flaws, even though he feels most of them were just fine and justified. The whole "this is how winners think and act" attitude just plain stinks of antiquated, alpha male self-agrandizing.

The so-called interludes were hit & miss. This is where an editor could have tightened things. As a software engineer and product manager, reading the chapter on software development practices was cringy, especially when coming from someone who has been retired from software in over 20 years, and who hasn't coded in over 30. These interludes were definitely more appendix material, but the rambling was on overdrive. It's also obvious that Williams wanted to show off how he rubbed elbows with industry greats like Gates, Bezos, Wozniak, and others, and didn't have a cohesive way to always inject these interactions into the story. I truly wish Roberta had been more involved with the book. I bet she would have improved the quality and discourse a lot more.

Lastly, this book often reeks of a "has-been" stench. Williams is obviously filled with many regrets and it shows in this book. He often talks about early Sierra products and then laments on how awesome they could have evolved had Sierra survived. There's easily a dozen occasions where Williams tries to use a minor success of the past with a Sierra game to show how great things could have been by using a megahit that came later. Like comparing the little Pro Flight simulator to the latest innovation in Microsoft Flight Simulator in 2020. Or how The Sierra Network was so ahead of its time, and yet Williams completely omits to compare it to Compuserve and other pre-Internet private networks who did it better.

Sierra was all over the place, even pre-acquisition, and the core areas that got them to a decent degree of success pre-acquisition, especially adventure games, were already in decline. It's doubtful the company would have survived anyways. They were not equipped to properly leverage the Internet wave. The designers-first model was good for early games, but it's obvious they lacked the strong engineering acumen to adapt to modern trends and online gaming. That's why ID software succeeded, and Sierra did not. Read 'Masters of Doom' by David Kushner if you're interested in that story, it's a great book.

Anyways, I still recommend this book if you're really interested in Sierra nostalgia, but don't expect to learn much that you can apply to a career in business or gaming. This is a trip down memory lane, not a professional development book.

There's interesting photography and illustrations in the book that audiobook listeners will sadly miss on.

Very interesting, but disjointed

A great insight into the founding and growth of the legendary company along with the story of the corporate nightmare that led to its demise. Ken gives a unique look in to his company's history and challenges they had to make as pioneers in the games industry. Unfortunately it also comes in a very disjointed form, jumping wildly between times and stories and often quoting Wikipedia and or even himself. I think this is a great book for fans of Sierra or video game history, but I feel like some editing would have made it a must read.

Needs an editor and co-writer

On paper this sounds like an easy sell right? Sierra On-Line who were responsible for many loved classic games and were groundbreaking in many ways. Who wouldn’t want to read a history of the company and why it ended?
The problem is that you are getting too much of Ken’s life prior to and after Sierra and not enough about the creative part of the company and the games. When the writing is about Sierra On-Line, it concentrates more on the business aspect rather than the creative aspect.
The narration is fine, but can’t redeem the basic problems with the text and the content. If Ken Williams had written this book with a professional writer and strict editor, it could have been a better read, but as it stands, it comes across as very amateur writing that grates at times.
Full disclosure, I received this audio book for free in return for an honest review.

Brilliant narration and interesting story

I love finding new directions, narrators and authors for my listening.

This reminds me a lot of masters of doom. The narration is excellent and I hope to listen to more from him. If you are reading this....do some sci-fi or cyberpunk!!!

The book itself is a fascinating insight and I love the honesty of it all. The author shares so much of his life and I feel as though I learned a lot about a lot of things, not just the games industry but about people.

Not outrageous like masters of doom but just as awesome.

I hope this book gets some attention and people enjoy it as much as me.