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The Birth of an Industry by Ken Williams (Page 3)
  

It is tough to believe now, but at one point in 1983, eight of the personal computer industry�s hottest selling games were all-text adventures by Infocom. Adventure games had gone in two directions. Infocom had done so well with the all-text game that Scott Adams had not been able to compete and left business. Gamers liked our graphics, but even had to admit that Infocom had us beat in several areas. Our graphics used so much of the computer�s memory that we simply could not do games with the kind of depth of Infocom�s. Then, IBM invented the PCjr. Infocom�s success in 1983 and some dumb mistakes at our end (making video game cartridges) almost sent us the way of Scott and Alexis� company. Infocom and Sierra were in such deep financial trouble that both our companies were for sale to just about everyone who could cover our debts. Infocom was sold to Activision, but never turned around their lost momentum and ultimately went bankrupt. We, on the other hand, received some very important visitors from Florida: IBM. "We�re coming out with a new computer," the group from IBM said." It is being designed for the home and will have graphic and sound capabilities unheard of a game which will show the world how great this computer is and which will show off its new features at their best. We are willing to fund the development, feature the product in our television advertising, and pay royalties." You can imagine how excited Roberta and I were. We were borrowing on our credit cards to make house payments, and here was a chance to create the next major evolution of gaming with IBM`s money. The catch was that i really had to break new ground. IBM wanted something truly revolutionary. Roberta and I disagree over who came up with the name King�s Quest. However, there is no disagreement that everyone who saw her design was blown away. No one believed we could actually program her game .She was asking for a fully animated world with characters that could walk anywhere, even around trees;music ( with multiple instruments) that would play at all times; and sound effects. IBM�s new machine had a powerful 16-bit processor and an unheard of 256K of memory. We would be able to perform miracles! Over a year later, King�s Quest started selling and was immediately the industry�s hottest game. No other game series has been as steadily successful as King's Quest- even now, almost ten years later. From 1984 tthrough1989, there were only minor changes in the technology underlying adventure ggames. Graphicsgot better and stories underlying the games improved ddramatically. Themusical scores also became a lot more professional. For King�s Quest IV, sSierraeven went to Hollywood to hire composer William Goldstein to perform the score. Many players reported being brought to tears by Bill�s sound track during King Graham�s collapse at the opening of the game. In 1989, ten years after playing Adventure ,Roberta decided it was time to switch how one communicated with an adventure game. Too frequently players were wasting time trying to figure out what we called something rather than just enjoying the game. If there was a trunk in a room, we would try to recognize a player typing in LOOK IN THE TRUNK, OPEN CHEST, OPEN CASE, etc.

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