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
Chapter 1: (1979) Happy Endings
“We believe that the boat is unsinkable”
- Philip Franklin, Vice-President of White Star Line, builders of the Titanic Cruise Ship
In 1979 my wife, Roberta, designed a computer game that I programmed. That game became the basis of Sierra On-Line, a company we raised from its infancy over a sixteen-year period. By 1996, Sierra was recognized worldwide as a leader in consumer software with one thousand employees producing hit products in education, productivity and entertainment software. From a start on our kitchen table, Roberta and I had built Sierra into a company that would be acquired for nearly one billion dollars.
Sadly, this fairy-tale story does not have a fairy-tale ending.
Instead, the story ends with corruption, lies, litigation, sadness, layoffs, bankruptcies, and prison.
They say that the best place to start a story is...
...at the beginning.
So, here we go (drum roll, please)!
Chapter 2: (1960-1970) Growing Up: TheYounger Years
“If you are born poor, it’s not your mistake. But if you die poor, it’s your mistake.”
- Bill Gates
I don’t know the whole story, and don’t care enough to research it, but apparently my heritage is nothing to brag about.
My only memories of my grandfather, on my dad’s side, was of him dying. He was a scrawny little guy with a dark complexion and dark curly hair which didn’t seem to gray. He dragged around an oxygen tank and would sit smoking, drinking whiskey, and spitting into a coffee can.
I’ve been told that he was a colorful character in his prime. He grew up in the hills of Kentucky, sold illegal moonshine and is alleged to have spent time in jail for murder. There is no part of me that wishes we could have spent more time together.
My dad’s older brother was a chip off the old block. He also died of alcoholism.
Somehow, my dad came through what must have been a tough childhood to be a good guy. He was nineteen when he married my mom, who was only sixteen at the time. My mom was young, but this was the back country of Kentucky almost seventy years ago.
My mom’s family was certainly better than my dad’s, but she also came from a broken home.
In the years following marriage my parents had four children, of which I was the oldest. My dad had trouble finding work and loaded the family into a car for a move to California, which at the time was rumored to have plenty of employment and a growing economy.
Dad found work as a TV and appliance repairman for the retailer Sears Roebuck and Co. It wasn’t a great income, but they were able to purchase a small home in a lower-middle-class neighborhood in Pomona CA.
At a very early age I developed an interest in reading. One of my earliest memories was reading the book Moby Dick. Maybe that book started me on the path of being interested in the sea? I don’t know. I was devouring full books at five years of age. It seems impossible, but that is my memory. I read every Superman comic. I read the complete series of books called Hardy Boys; 190 volumes of kids solving crimes. When those ran out I read a similar series called Nancy Drew. I was frequently busted by my mom for reading books, using a flashlight, under the covers late at night. It didn’t slow me down.
We couldn’t afford for me to own the books I was reading. As soon as I was old enough to ride a bike I started hanging out at the Pomona Public Library. I loved that library. Some of my fascination was the access to books, but it was also a place to hide from my home.
My mom and I didn’t get along. I have no recollection of what we fought about, but I know that we did and that I was always happier when away from home. I remember my dad as working all the time, returning only late at night. Looking back on it, I suspect his relationship with my mom wasn’t much better than my own and, like me, he sought refuge elsewhere.
Incredibly, I have very few memories of my childhood. A psychologist might be able to say if I’ve blocked them out somehow. I have no idea, but I don’t really want them back. I have only brief snippets of memory before turning eighteen.
Most of my childhood memories are not of playing. They are of time spent at the library, or at the nearby courthouse. In my early teens I started attending criminal trials. I loved entering courtrooms and sitting quietly in the back watching someone be tried for some offense against society. Murder trials were my favorite. I dreamed of being a lawyer someday. No one ever challenged me but I’m sure everyone wondered what a ten-year-old kid was doing wandering the halls of a courthouse, or why his parents weren’t watching him. I was what you might call a “strange kid.”
I do recall that I was a smart kid. However, this did not translate to good grades. I would quickly read through any textbook and decide I knew everything and then spend class time bored.
It wasn’t just my inattention in class that made me feel out of sync with other kids. I was born in late October and for some reason that allowed me to start Kindergarten at age four. This made me a year younger than most of my peers.
Perhaps it was another manifestation of not wanting to be home, but I was a “joiner” in school. I joined everything; the track team, the chess club, the marching band, the studio band, summer school, etc. It didn’t matter what it was; I wanted to do it.
I supplemented all my at-school activities with a paper route and by selling newspapers door to door in the evenings. I frequently sold more papers than anyone else and won innumerable trips to Disneyland. Somehow, despite my mediocre grades I racked up enough school time that at the end of my junior year, at just sixteen years of age, I was “graduated” from high school.
This was perfectly fine with me. Somewhere along the way I had developed an aggressive personality. All I could think about was getting into college, getting a job, and becoming rich. Note that I said “rich” not “employed” or “successful.” Amongst the few memories I have from that time is the constant thought of wanting to live a different life than the one I grew up in. I read books about business executives who owned yachts and jets, and who hung out with beautiful models in fancy mansions.
I knew that was my future and I couldn’t wait to claim it.
Chapter 3: (1971) Growing Up: Ken Goes to College
“Fat, Drunk, And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son.”
- Dean Wormer to John Belushi in the film Animal House
No child should enter college at sixteen years of age, but that didn’t stop me. I turned seventeen a month after starting college and that didn’t work much better. Neither my chronological age nor maturity were doing me any favors when I started college.
I was cocky, and it never occurred to me that I might not know everything. Physics was my major, with a minor in over confidence. My goal was to graduate quickly, so I immediately signed up for the advanced level classes.
My aggressive attempt at college was paired with an equally aggressive attempt at earning money. My work as a paperboy had taught me to sell newspaper subscriptions. Each evening I would set out with a group of ten other young men. A van would drop us off on a corner and we’d each go door to door peddling subscriptions. Most doors we would knock on already had a subscription to the paper. But, at least a couple times per block the door would be answered by someone who didn’t really want to have a newspaper delivered to their door. This would start me on my sales pitch.
If you want to win in life, find something to sell, and sell it. Learn to accept and even cherish rejection. Selling is a polite way of describing the humiliation of trying to talk someone into something that they probably don’t need or want and then trying to alter your pitch on the fly as your target plots how to slam the door in your face. Each time the door was slammed I’d learn a little about what I said wrong and what the turnoffs were in my sales pitch. I learned, one slammed door at a time, how to avoid falling into traps that would allow my potential customer to close the door. I had lines to use when they said they were rarely home, for when they said they didn’t like reading the paper, for when they said they were in the middle of cooking dinner. Most doors were closed almost immediately, either because they already took the newspaper or because they had no interest. I had only seconds to size up a person, engage them, charm them, and monetize them.
The newspaper had never seen anyone like me. I was a selling machine. I loved selling, and I especially loved making money. I claimed every sales award and couldn’t stop selling.
I was studying physics at college, but that isn’t how I learned to make a living. It was those nights hustling papers door to door that prepared me for life in the fast lane. In real life I’m incredibly boring and happiest when talking to no one. Most people are surprised when they meet me. Where’s the guy who writes all these books, or makes the games, or is the life of the party? The salesman we’ve heard about? All they see is frumpy old me, and that’s because they are meeting the me I am most of the time. But, give me a product to sell and the switch turns on. And, I do what salespeople do. I sell and I make money.
I mention what I’m like off the playing field because it is relevant. I wasn’t born with sales skills and I’m not naturally charming or persuasive. My ability to sell came through hard work and long hours. I earned my ability one door at a time, and it was an unwillingness to fail that caused me to go to that next door and not give up.
Anyway...
My first year in college was a disaster. It was a wake-up call. I was hustling papers by night and had been promoted to running and training a group of hungry kids who were knocking on doors to sell papers. I had joined a fraternity. I had signed up for courses that I’d thought would be easy but weren’t.
I was seventeen when I joined the college fraternity. I’m sure there are fraternities which are an essential part of obtaining a college education. However, the education I received at the frat house had more to do with alcohol and girls than it did books and studies.\
And, there were even more distractions…
Mike, my boss at the newspaper drove junk cars in a figure 8 race at a local racetrack. During the week he’d patch together a crappy car, and then on Saturday nights he would race the car on a track configured to ensure there would be collisions.
I became Mike’s pit crew, which gave me an interest in repairing cars. Between selling, partying, pit crewing and on rare occasions studying, I was constantly working on whatever car I owned at the time. It’s inconceivable to me now, but I would think nothing of rebuilding a carburetor, swapping a transmission or bleeding brake lines. These days I’m more a software guy than a hardware guy. But not back then. Engine repair came easy to me and I had no fear of taking things apart. I also had a limited supply of common sense and money. My car was constantly under repair and I was constantly broke. Such was the life of my seventeen-year-old self.
Which brings me to Roberta…
Chapter 4: (1971) Growing up: Ken Meets a Girl
“You know that look that women get when they want to have sex? Me neither.”
- Steve Martin
I am an impatient person. If I want something, I want it now. When ordering anything on the internet, I automatically seek those things that can be shipped the fastest. This attribute of mine tends to make those around me crazy. This impatience exhibits itself in both good and bad ways. Sometimes very good, and sometimes very bad.
When I met Roberta, she had just graduated from high school. Like me, she was going through the same “having fun phase” that seems to afflict young college students. I was attending Cal Poly Pomona, a four-year university, and she was attending nearby Citrus junior college.
My relationship with Roberta was love at first sight, or to state it more accurately it was lust at first sight. I was seventeen and starting college. She was eighteen and dating a friend of mine while also starting college. We double-dated and I was stuck admiring her from the backseat while my friend drove us to a drive-in theater for a make-out session. I don’t remember much about that double-date other than guzzling an entire beer in one massive gulp, proving I could pee farther than my friend, and that Roberta wore pink underwear. College kids are not always paragons of maturity.
These days, I joke that I am Roberta’s boy toy, because she is a year older than I am, but at the time it wasn’t funny. When we first met, Roberta assumed that I was older than her. I was in college and had a car; all the trappings of someone who had achieved the ripe old age of nineteen or even twenty. However, I was only seventeen. Later, when Roberta found my true age it devastated her and almost broke us up.
When my friend who had been dating Roberta moved on to his next pursuit I asked for Roberta’s phone number. When I called her she had no recollection of our ever having met. It took my best sales skills just to keep her on the phone. Once she remembered who I was, she was unimpressed. She was a hot young Rapunzel, and I was no Prince Charming. I was a tall skinny kid from the south side of town, whereas not only was Roberta beautiful, she lived in the fancy part of town, on a hillside, in a house with a pool!
During our conversation I slowly moved Roberta from saying, “Ken who?” to “I kind of remember you,” to “No. I do not want to meet you,” to “OK. We can meet.” It was one of my tougher sales calls and my foot was bruised from the number of times she tried to slam the door, but ultimately, she agreed to a date.
Roberta at the time was dating guys who were rough around the edges. I was also doing dumb things, but some of my immaturity was layered onto a person who deep down was the perfect definition of a nerd. To try to give the appearance of being cool, I would roll up a pack of cigarettes in my short sleeve shirts. I only tried to smoke a cigarette a couple times, but had convinced myself that this was something that would impress women. Roberta is very good at seeing past outer façades. You can dress a loser up in a suit, or a winner in rags, and two sentences into a conversation she’ll know who is who. This magic ability of hers to size people up within minutes was to become very important later in life and is what really stopped her hanging up the phone when I made that first call.
Roberta’s dad, John, had high aspirations for her. From birth he wanted her to succeed in life. He had decided she should be an optometrist! Neither of us know how John arrived at the conclusion that optometry was the best possible career or her destiny.
Roberta was (and is) petite, and at the time her dresses were even shorter. Her dad was worried about her. She had taken up smoking and was dating guys of dubious character. When I arrived to pick up her for our first date her dad was waiting at the door and, while waiting for her to get ready, he gave me a grilling. I talked about being in college, that I was majoring in Physics and my quest for future success. I shared with him that I was planning to retire by the time I was thirty and expected to become rich and famous.
Did I mention that I know how to sell?
Being a starving seventeen-year-old, our first date was not particularly amazing. We went to a local Mexican restaurant and talked for hours. A couple weeks and a handful of dates later, I informed Roberta that we were to be married. She thought I was insane or joking, but that’s only because she didn’t know me. That was about to change.
Her dad became my strongest ally, and saw in me a chance to rescue his errant daughter. He pushed Roberta from his end, and threw roadblocks in the way of other suitors.
It took a few dates to sell Roberta on the idea of marriage but closing a sale is what I do best.
We had to wait until I turned eighteen to get married. Roberta was working as a ‘typist clerk’ for the County of Los Angeles Welfare Department, in Pomona CA. Her dad, who worked for the County of Los Angeles Agriculture Department helped her get the job. She was making a starvation salary but was living at home, with no bills, and able to save her paycheck each month.
During this time I convinced Roberta to buy a van. I wanted it so that I could transport the kids that I was taking around each evening to sell papers. Understandably, her parents were not excited when they discovered the van had a mattress in the back.
How could life get better? I had a hot fiancée. She had a van. I had a career transporting kids who sold newspapers. On weekends I was fixing and racing cars. I was going to college. I still wasn’t rich, but things were looking up!
Roberta and I were married five days after I turned eighteen. Roberta had achieved the advanced age of nineteen (but, I didn’t hold it against her).
