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S2 Ep4: Ken Williams - Co-Founder of Sierra On-Line

Retro Tea Breaks

Episode   ·  3 Plays

Episode  ·  3 Plays  ·  1:02:48  ·  Jul 8, 2021

About

Ken and Roberta Williams created Sierra On-Line in 1979 with their first graphical adventure game for the Apple II compute "Mystery House". From these humble beginnings the world opened up for them and with games such as Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Kings Quest, Sierra rocketed to the top of the charts and became one of the biggest game publishers in the world. Today we meet Ken and discuss those early days, and find out a little more about his history and his exciting new game. Support RMC  Time is the most valuable thing we have.  Patrons create a reliable monthly income that allows to give my all to this channel.  If you'd like to support this, and help me make it the very best I can then please visit: https://www.patreon.com/RMCretro ● Support the Sponsors of The Cave  MonsterJoysticks: https://monsterjoysticks.com/RMC  1ClickPrint: https://www.1clickprint.com#RMC ●Chapters 00:00 Intro to Ken Williams 00:45 How Ken Williams got into computers 02:37 Ken Williams ambitions as a young man 05:13 Was Ken Williams a geek like us 07:16 Did Ken Williams play games? 08:08 On Ken and Roberta's Apple II 09:14 The inspiration for Mystery House 13:14 Did Ken want to sell more serious software? 14:02 Does Ken have an Apple I? 18:13 The Videogame crash 20:35 Offering royalities to designers 22:50 "Ken Sent Me" & Leisure Suit Larry 4 25:30 Sierra's deal with IBM for Kings Quest 30:52 What is Ken Williams favourite Kings Quest 33:52 Ken Williams on the quality of his big box games 37:10 What is the perfect Sierra game? 38:36 What is it like working with Disney? 40:42 How do you stay ahead in the games industry? 45:33 What Quest games did Sierra never release? 47:45 The demise of Sierra 53:45 Ken Williams on his new game ● Subscribe Please take a moment to subscribe to the channel http://www.youtube.com/rmcretro?sub_confirmation=1 ● Episode Links Kens new game: https://kensgame.com Kens book: https://kensbook.com Robertas Book: https://robertasbook.com ● Join me on social media Twitter:  https://twitter.com/RMCretro ● Come and chat on the RMC chat server Discord: https://discord.gg/7qYtGcz ●RMC Merch Shop for RMC books, posters, mugs, and a whole lot more https://rmcretro.store ● RMC Podcasts Enjoy my Podcasts with your favourite app using the links here: Retro Tea Break - https://audioboom.com/channels/5001251 This Week in Retro - https://anchor.fm/thisweekinretro #GameDev #Interview #RetroGaming

1h 2m 48s  ·  Jul 8, 2021

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