Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings | |
 | |
| Title | Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings: The rise and fall of Sierra On-Line as told by the ultimate insider |
| Author | |
| Publisher | Ken Williams |
| Release Date | July 24 2020 |
| Genre | History |
| ISBN | 978-1716727368 |
| Format | Paperback |
| Country | United States of America |
| Language | English |
Description from the Back of the Book
Once Upon a Time...
In the time before Amazon, Ebay, or even Google, there was a consumer software company, started by a husband and wife team, that dominated the charts over a nearly twenty-year period.
Sierra On-Line should have lived forever.
This is the untold story of how Sierra was born and how it died. This fairy tale does indeed have a wizard and a princess. But it also has corruption, greed and frightening characters.
UNTIL EVIL INTERCEDED..
Not all evil is hiding in the dark.
Sometimes it lurks where you least expect it.
Ken Williams
Founder / CEO Sierra On-Line Inc
NOT ALL FAIRY TALES HAVE HAPPY ENDINGS
The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line
By Ken Williams
Copyright
Copyright © 2020 Ken Williams. All rights reserved.
Published by Ken Williams
ISBN 978-1-71672-736-8
VERSION 2020_09_24 v1
DISCLAIMER: This autobiographical book was written based on the author’s memories. Different people will remember events in different ways. Time has passed and memory has faded. If there are any events which have been recounted inaccurately, it was not intentional. All game related images are the property of the copyright owners and are included herein for historical purposes.
Prologue
I have three great loves in life: Roberta, computers and boats. That said, this is not a book about any of those things, although the first two of those are important to the story.
My hope in writing this book was that through giving others a front-row look at my journey through life, the mistakes I’ve made and the successes Roberta and I have had, that there might be some piece of it that helps others.
Many of you reading this book may be hoping that this is the ultimate behind-the-scenes tell-all look at Sierra On-Line, the company Roberta and I founded and ran for eighteen years. That’s both true and untrue. This is Sierra’s rise and fall as seen through my eyes. There are no interviews with the game designers. There are very few details about any of the games. There are no game hints. Instead, what you will find are the secrets behind what made Sierra so special. You’ll get a look at the strategies that infused Sierra with a specialness so profound that someone like you might pick up this book and invest time in reading it twenty-five years after Sierra’s untimely demise. You’ll also find that it has a lot of personal background on Roberta and me. As you will see, much of what Sierra was flowed directly from Roberta’s and my personality. You can’t really understand Sierra without a deep dive into how Roberta and I think.
I have thought for years about writing a book about the Sierra experience. My hope was that someone else would write a book and save me the trouble. There has, in fact, been a huge amount written, but I now realize that there are elements of the story that only I can tell. It’s too good a story to leave untold, and there is much to be learned from it. At a minimum, I can guarantee that it is an entertaining story. Whether or not I was able to get it down on paper: Well... you’ll need to be the judge of that.
Ken Williams, July 2020
