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Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings

The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line

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Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings

By: Ken Williams
Narrated by: Josh Horowitz
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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 Business Professionals & Academics Programming Programming & Software Development Software Development & Engineering Software Development Technology Game Software
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I was hanging onto every word in this book. I'm a kid who grew up playing their games, and now as an adult I develop games with my wife for our own little indie company (Rocket Boy Games). But I still would have found this book fascinating even if I wasn't part of the industry. I'm really grateful to the Williams for their contribution to computer gaming and grateful to Ken for taking the time to write this book. If you have any curiosity about Sierra or the rise of the computer gaming industry then this is a must read.

Thanks Ken

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I was happy to hear this was a book about Sierra Online, and not about the creation of Kings Quest. That said I would have enjoyed a little more attention on the process of creation of games, but that would have been viewed as a bonus. Ken’s role was to lead the company, that is what this book is about.

Narrator was horrible. If I was not so interested in the content of the book I would not have gotten far into it before giving up.

Enjoyed the story, did not like the narrator

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If you grew up with Sierra Online games, you’ll love this book by the founder himself, Ken Williams. It does jump sometimes into what I call “who cares?” sections but overall a great story.

As others have mentioned, the narration is terrible and really phoned in. You can tell the guy is just reading it. A great story ruined by rubbish narrator.

Great history book of Sierra

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