sierra ❤️
also bill pogue
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
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Westwood studios. Command and conquer tiberian sun was my very first computer game, which I loved dearly (and still have on my computer since it’s freeware now and has been fan patched for modern systems)
Well and then came EA.
Electronic Arts :(
Yeah... Gotta wonder what the original founders would say if you could tell them what they'd become.
(early 8-bit era)
Lucas Arts
Are they still around? /j
Yep, some classic point and click games, like Full Throttle. It's from games like that that I learned Mark Hamill is an amazing voice actor.
Sierra On-Line
King's Quest is still one of my favorite series ever and the one they put out a few years ago was a great retelling. I cried at the end.
That's how I feel about Cyan and their Myst series!
Valve.
Not new management, but they definitely changed direction. From Portal 2 to Half-Life Alyx was a dark age of live service titles and hardware. Fortunately, it seems like they're finally getting back to their old selves?
Alyx was supposedly their re-entry into releasing games (hopeful that HLX is good), the Steam Deck caused them to go back and fix several of their titles (plus do the huge Half-Life update we just got), and while they're not exactly making their games as open as they used to, they're letting the community handle things like TF2 events and L4D2 patches.
So, I dunno, cautiously optimistic for their future. At least as long as Gabe is running the company.
Yep, buying a Steam Deck this Christmas. Not played one, myself, but I have been a Steam Controller user for years, and they seem to have nailed their latest offerings.
There was definitely a period in there when they felt very anticompetitive (apathy-competitive?), though.
Sierra entertainment! I was a big fan of the kings quest games, and Sierra online was my first experience with online gaming.
I was super into Sierra as a publisher. They seemed to back some of the highest quality games no one knew about. Ground Control, Gunman Chronicles, Homeworld, Aliens vs Predators 2, Empire Earth, Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, and of course Half-Life. They published some quality games.
Maxis was the one that came to mind for me, too! I played everything of theirs that I could get my hands on. Still playing The Sims after all these years!
Westwood I had fun with Red Alert 1 & 2 for a long time. Super casual player though.
Interplay, Microprobe, Sierra On-Line, Bullfrog, Dynamix, Origin, all long gone.
Activision is still around, but it's something completely different. Same with Atari (although theres a nostalgia brand now, so maybe back).
Of them all, I think is have to say I'm most nostalgic for Sierra On-Line, although Origin gives them a run for most nostalgic.
Westwood fits into that list.
Dynamix' Earthsiege was such a magical thing back then. So were Bullfrog's Syndicate, Theme Hospital and Dungeon Keeper. Many, many years ago when Peter Molyneux was not a dumbass but gave us gems like Populous and Black&White.
The list of games that EA has destroyed is long.
I worked for Interplay back in the 90s. It was pretty great for me, launching my IT career. Working in QA did temporarily ruin my ability to play games for fun though.
Origin "We create worlds". They definitely did with the Wing Commander series. Played a lot of WC 3, 4 as well as Privateer.
I don't think anyone mentioned Lionhead Studios. Black and White was fun. Sadly it's in copyright limbo if I'm not mistaken.
Also played a lot of Civilization 1 from Microprose back in the day.
Infocom.
Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide, Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>
Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS.
>
Apogee Software for Rise of the Triad, Blue Sky Productions for Última Underworld and Bullfrog Productions for Syndicate.
Psygnosis, later known as Studio Liverpool.
Sony shut them down a few years ago. Man seeing that old owl logo hits me hard in the nostalgia bone.
Westwood Studios, Sierra Online
I never played the classic "Quest" games that Sierra made, but they published a bunch of really good ones from other developers, too.
I remember their logo coming up before each of the Half-Life, SWAT, Tribes, and F.E.A.R. games. I was always like, "dang, someone there knows how to pick 'em."
Rainbow Arts (Turrican on Amiga), Maxis (SimCity) and Digital Illusions (because of their pinball games)
All of them gone except Digital Illusions which became DICE.
Squaresoft, Bioware, and Bethesda are three companies whose logos I once considered a seal of quality. None of the three really exist anymore, although there are new much larger companies using their names.
How has no on said this yet.
B U N G I E
Booting Halo was my go-to for like 10 years as the first three games came out. Literally 10s of thousands of hours.
Depends on people's age! I was beyond childhood when that came out, but it was a game changer for me getting to play a FPS that was couch co-op. All FPS games to that point were mostly (all?) multiplayer competitive. PvE was always a solo experience until then!
Bullfrog for Populous and Dungeon Keeper (ruined by EA).
Troika for Arcanum and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (ruined by Activision).
The 3 Bs, baby. Blizzard, Bioware, and Bethesda.
Blizzards dead to me, Bioware fell off after dragon age 1, and Bethesda refuses to take its limiters off anymore (no drugs)
Blizzard. Without Activision.
Interplay's Black Isle Studios, now Obsidian.
Infocom hands down. Pure escapism
Novalogic - Loved the earlier Delta Force games, and Tachyon: The Fringe
Aspyr! I was a Mac user in an era that was 95% Windows, and Aspyr brought quality games over to our side of the pond. I remember they ported Alpha Centauri in particular, but there were lots of other ones too.
Also Bungie back in that era—they were Mac-exclusive and putting out the amazing Marathon series. I was heartbroken when I saw the trailer for the new “Marathon” game that looks nothing like the originals.
Neversoft. THPS2 had a banger soundtrack.
Dice with the OG Battlefield 2 on PC. That's what I mostly played. Now I haven't touched a BF game in years. None have lived up to that game yet.
Squaresoft, tri-Ace, Natsume
Valve is the only one of mine that's still around as more than just a brand name used by EA.
Bioware, Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood, and more... All gobbled up and turned into shit by Electronic Farts.
Others that just died on their own include Black Isle and Interplay, Sierra and LucasArts. Some of these might be around in some capacity, though afaik they're just used for the names.
Mastertronic on the C64.