How ET ᵃˡᵐᵒˢᵗ ruined a Gaming Icon

[@cabokenw]

Just saw this! I'm scrambling out the door to head to the airport, but looks fun. It's like a semi-animated version of my book. Looking forward to seeing it. Thanks to whoever did it! A lot of work here.. very creative.

[@LowSpecGamer]

Mr. Williams! This is indeed based on the first half of your excellent book (we try to show it on screen when relevant). We loved your story and wanted to make it justice! We are already into production of a second part inspired by the second half of the book.

[@cabokenw]

@@LowSpecGamer I wrote to you offline -- you can remove your email address now.. Thanks! - Ken W

[@flmalegre]

You dropped this, Mr. Williams. 👑

[@HirokaAkita]

I hope Roberta saw this, because i almost choked out of laughs when i saw the almost merging part of the video, *i hope it was like that when it happened* xD

[@anon_y_mousse]

@@cabokenw Looks like that'll be my next dead tree purchase.

[@rushnerd]

I had no idea Roberta Williams was that much of a business woman. She really knew what they had and stuck with it. It's really kind of amazing how far they took their talents considering what they were offered and the pitfalls if they did so.

[@TheLastLineLive]

The Williams couple are definitely some of the most prolific game developers ever. I'm really interested in seeing them return to game development with their remake of Colossal Cave Adventure, things are coming full circle.

[@brunausstestburn3499]

If developers could successfully translate Zork to full 3D graphics, then all other translations are definitely possible... and have yet to be executed for some annoying reason. The potential market certainly exists for this to happen.

[@DavidChipman]

@@brunausstestburn3499 Did you ever play Return to Zork?

[@cabokenw]

@@brunausstestburn3499 I remember playing Zork, but that was 35 years ago. How similar is it to Colossal Cave? I don't remember. I think it is derived from the game we are remaking, but .. I don't know how different they are.

[@brunausstestburn3499]

@@DavidChipman Yes and thus the point I was making. Developers successfully did it with Zork. It is therefore possible with any of the old strictly text based adventure games.

[@brunausstestburn3499]

@@cabokenw Developers of Zork were Colossal Cave fans and then thought they could improve on the concept, by creating a thriving alternative underground civilization. Additionally elements of prophecy and conspiracy were added to make the adventure more engaging.

[@Trygon]

My best friend growing up was a hardcore Sierra fanboy (and in possession of a CD burner), so I played nearly their entire lineup in just a few years. Just in time to get excited for the new FULL 3D kings quest! The story has a happy ending, though. When Ken and Roberta presented at PAX last year, they hired some tech staff to support their booth, and my buddy got to spend a weekend working with his heroes. Couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy.

[@jimtekkit]

Now that's the kind of partnership that money can't buy. Two people supporting each other in their quests.

[@zejugames5045]

I'm a huge student of tech history and I simply love your work. This has quickly become one of my favorite channels on KZbin!! Can't wait to watch another masterpiece. :)

[@PS1212]

Most supportive wife award: Roberta

[@nickwallette6201]

I think it's almost more like Most Supportive Husband. Roberta wasn't the supporting cast in this story. ;-) She was the star. No disrespect intended to Mr. Williams, he definitely made it all possible. But Roberta is a beast of creativity and vision, and maybe just a bit of a personal hero. :-)

[@PropaneWP]

PC gaming owes a lot to the Williams couple. Sierra Online was crucial for the early stages of PC gaming. Especially the way they combined great graphics with the more traditional text adventure games. The same can be said for LucasArts, but Sierra Online did it first.

[@Tibyon]

Roberta would be a great protagonist for a big short style film

[@marioxdc123]

I would love to see a continuation of the Sierra story.

[@ShishakliAus]

Second

[@tiagosa4072]

@@ShishakliAus Same

[@jasonblalock4429]

Unrelated to the content, but your anime-esque versions of Ken & Roberta are adorable. Love them. Also, I did not know that Ken Williams was one of the inventors of game graphics dithering. Neat! And yes, I would definitely like to see a 2nd part! :-)

[@NeroVingian40]

The part where you said “it was the opposite of an exclusivity contract” made me laugh so hard lmao. Imagine a contract clause that said “do not put your software exclusively on our device”, that’s how funny it was. Keep writing your scripts this way, man. This is what makes your history videos so entertaining, bizarre shit that wouldn’t have happened under normal circumstances lol

[@tatsuya2112]

"Los Angeles was a pretty shitty place to live in the 70's". So nothing has changed then.

[@LowSpecGamer]

I am not a fan of modern LA

[@xlr8466]

I love these two. One of my favorite game devs of all time.

[@Samlem14]

Wow just wow. The editing and writing here is some of the best on KZbin no lie. You not only are filling each story with your own personality but being extremely informative. It’s really impressive and can’t wait for each upload.

[@Lurker-dk8jk]

The art in this video is amazing. Cracked up when Roberta dabs at 13:27. Wasn't a thing back then, but I can totally imagine her doing it. LOL I definitely need to get Ken's book!

[@Kr-nv5fo]

I had never bothered to learn the story of Sierra. This is great! What's next? How EA was _almost_ saved from becoming The Evil incarnate?

[@my2iu]

The early history of EA is in its name, “Electronic Arts.” They believed that games were an art form and that game makers were great artists.

[@ThePandafriend]

EA put the developers into the spotlight and the "Arts" was not just a name. It considered the developers to be software artists. Also the early covers looked like artpieces.

[@BobofWOGGLE]

Activision's decline from "we just wanted Atari to credit us for the games we make" to where they're at now would also be good.

[@player1_fanatic]

5:43 I think I played that game, in mid-90ties, in my teenage years when Apple II was already outdated computer, at my summer home where I did not had access to my modern 386 PC, so I used even older Apple IIc to play games. In fact I discovered this game pretty late, considering that this Apple IIc was in our family since mid 80ties. I guess I did not care for texture adventures, until I got a bit older (and played other more modern text and point click adventures). Took me a while to realize that this simple murder mystery adventure game had so much significance for gaming history.

[@gnustep]

I love how you always work in someone kicking a door in... it's GREAT!

[@sirflimflam]

Sierra was one of my most beloved brands back in the day. I was devastated when they got acquired and vanished.

[@thecastiel69]

Doc and Beans Characters from TV series Mythic Quest (Season 1 Episode 5) are inspired by Ken and Roberta Williams. A very cool episode.

[@LowSpecGamer]

I had no idea!

[@DeanThomson]

I've been meaning to get Ken William's book, I grew up playing Sierra games in the 80s and 90s and were definetly my favourite studio second to Access Software. Their golden era for me was 1987-1993 (4ish). After that the cracks really started to show in their catalog. The Police Quest series was one of my favourites which in turn got me into true crime and game dev in general.

[@EightPieceBox]

It's pretty good. I was only really interested in the history of Sierra and skipped the career advice he would interject between chapters. Sierra was more groundbreaking than I ever knew. Late 70s and early 80s were really pioneer days for computer games.

[@Bob-nc5hz]

"I grew up playing Sierra games in the 80s and 90s and were definetly my favourite studio second to Access Software." Surely LucasArts deserves a spot? It used to be an incredibly versatile studio with hit after hit, at least hits to my heart. Though more of a 90s studio than 80s.

[@3isr3g3n]

Your videos could easily be aired on public tv or similarly sized platforms. This is just outstanding, every video just oozes quality and dedication to the topic. Thanks mate, keep on truckin' !

[@Bloxed]

I'd love to see the whole Sierra lore explained. They have an interesting history, and how they went from a humble company to a large-scale publisher is an interesting story.

[@SixtyEmeralds]

The idea of procedural drawing of graphics to save space is really old, I've learned! But it's so cool to see so many people independently come up with the idea in an attempt to save space on limited hardware. I've seen it in an old QBasic game, some TI Calculator games, and now I've learned it's an approach as old as computers from the 80's! Wow. :3 That just took me way back.

[@Bob-nc5hz]

Here it looks like vector graphics (so the game would only need polygon / polyline info, and a small rasterizer) more than procedural. Procedural usually means algorithmic generation via some sort of seed, often (though not always) with some sort of randomization (of the seed or some subseeds). Vector graphics are even older, some of the earlier displays were literal vector displays, and so were many of the foundational software of the field e.g. Sketchpad.

[@SixtyEmeralds]

Ahh, definitions, something that was never my strong suit! Yeah, vector graphics definitely align more with what I meant, though I suppose I could say that is procedural, since one line is drawn after the other, and in these old cases, you can see the order because the vector graphics take so long in order to finish. Just without the whole, um, random seed thing. One thing is for sure; both methods save a ton of space since we don't need to save every pixel in memory. :3

[@thelucasstorm]

The Tandy 1000 was my first computer and King's Quest my first game for it. Played just about everything thereafter from Space Quest, Police Quest and the Larry series which was hilarious as a kid. Lots of late nights and drowsy days at school. Oh and the tip line, my parents weren't too found of those phone charges, hah! Good times.

[@EightPieceBox]

If I could go back in time, I would have convinced my mom to get me a Tandy 1000 instead of the Epson Apex 80 we got. There were so many games I had that supported Tandy graphics and sound when I had CGA and no sound card.

[@billoute10]

just discovered your channel, and i'm in awe of the quality of your production. fascinating, well documented and good narrative.i'm watching your videos as someone tasting a good wine...and probably a litte bit of nostalgia since most of your stories happened in my teen gamer years. live long and prosper

[@Hecatom]

Great video as always. BTW, I have been wondering if is you who make the art for all your videos. Either way, it adds to the charm of them 👍

[@martinmartinez250]

Thanks for the well done backs!tory. I only got the short version while sharing a ride to the Airport with Ken Williams in the late 90s. Surviving tech cycles is an art form. Not long after the Dot Net bubble wipped me out of a Educational Game company like the Game Box crash wiped my father out of Mattel Electronics in early 80s.

[@LowSpecGamer]

You found him at a very, very interesting time of his life

[@Skyspace187]

Sierra/Sierra Online was such an exciting time. I played their games growing up, and it was an interesting time for the company. Lots of changes and interesting story about the company. I'm all about keeping our history for generations! Hope you pick it up; already a Curiosity Subscriber, so keep it coming!

[@AndyAndyAndy11111]

I think this might be one my favorite videos you’ve ever done. I always knew about the Williams but never looked too into it as they were way before my time. This video gave me a new found respect for them and has me itching to play their back catalog now ❤

[@71bw]

As per usual: a LSL video saves my evening from being boring, providing grounds for further research. Also, good job with showing the book about Wroclaw yet again :) warms my heart.

[@kuroderuta]

Where is that? I must've missed it.

[@DMahalko]

1. Cannonball Blitz, by On-Line Systems for the Apple II, was a strange monochrome military assault platformer game based on Donkey Kong. Awesome animated title screen graphics for the time. 2. King's Quest I probably helped the floppy disk market grow when it came out. I believe it was spread across a stack of fifteen 5.25 inch floppies for the Apple II. 3. King's Quest V hates modern dual-card SLI 3D. Turn off SLI and SpeedStep to get it to run smoothly. 4. The KQ-V game script screwed up on me somehow and borked my game. Rather than start over, I tried to analyze the game script to figure out how to inject a variable to get past the glitch. "WEIRDLING = TRUE" ... Wow the KQV scripting language is insane, with IF THEN stacks some 20+ layers deep. ELSE IF, ELSE IF, ELSE IF, ELSE IF, ELSE IF.... gack.

[@josephkelly4893]

Memories, oh I loved the King's Quest games back in the day. Thanks for the trip back in time

[@hasko5653]

I was really strived for such retro content! I cannot express how I love watching you!

[@michael1234252]

Man this brings back memories of my young childhood of the late 90's playing Kings Quest 5 and 6. I liked the game so much to the point where I ended up dressing up as a knight for Halloween one year. around that time I also played some of Sierra's games like 3D Ultra Pinball.

[@1.N.Decent]

Just who drew the illustrations, they're Awesome! Anyway great documentary bit. Never knew Sierra got caught in the middle of Atari crash

[@WilliamsTalks]

You are the most underrated KZbinr ever, also I love Atari

[@JetScreamer_YT]

My Mom completed Colossal Caves Adventure with full points. I was too young to go too far, but loved Rogue. I'm so lucky I got to grow up around computers. My dad used to take me to his computer lab at WPI. Playing Lunar Lander with a light pen is an early memory of mine. Everybody was playing to get as close to McDonald's (on the moon) as they could. A switch flipped in my head, just as you said. When it came to technology, my life synced with the rise of electronics. I was just conscious when PONG was coming out. Atari is still very much in my life today. I love the retro games, and the new ones too. This is an amazing story. I can't wait to see moar of your content. Vax Cat

[@TonyFonzerelli]

that Roberta dabbing had me rolling. great video LSG!!!

[@micheledeconti7535]

I can't get enought of these videos, the way are presented is so fun and interesting. Really love the 180° change of the channel.

[@vullematti4447]

I really love the direction your channel took !! And as usual animations and voiceover are amazing !

[@D1EHARDTOO]

I grew up in the late 90s so Sierra wasn't as big a publisher then (if they were even around in the 2000s) but I vaguely remember some titles that had the logo and name attached when you where loading through the publishers/devs. Also, keep up the good work! I can't wait for your next video, the art and production quality is just so great

[@JordanManfrey]

Dude they published Half Life lol

[@Ironclad17]

King's Quest 7 was the first PC game I played when we got one for our home.

[@mukiex4413]

Maaan, Nebula needs a comments section. I kinda wanted to see the discussion on this sidequest episode =D

[@SuperNicktendo]

You have inspired me to make my own story videos. They won't be as awesome as yours, but I will make it my own

[@arnaudsm]

Los Angeles didn't change much since, we only have more influencers now 😂

[@claudiocucinotta2097]

My first PC was an IBM compatible x386, makeshift by my mother's cousin. I never liked it since it was clumsy, complicated and difficult to upgrade plus I never understood what IBM compatible meant... until now! Thank you so much!

[@DrumRoody]

KQ5 was my first real game experience and it was life changing

[@hemangchauhan2864]

It is criminal, these guys aren't more well known. They laid the foundation for games to come.

[@tejaswithme3713]

I knew not even a single person here knew that ET was first going to be an Indian movie by Legendary director Satyajit Ray, who was given a life time achievement award for his contribution to Indian cinema. The original script was then stolen & got into the hands of ET director we know today!

[@muttBunch]

I’ve been obsessed with Sierra since I was a kid. I even played LSL when no one was home lol

[@Cyril29a]

Hey just letting you know I signed up for Nebula and curiosity stream for the sole purpose of sidequest. Your youtube videos are so good that I had to give this a try. I paid for a year so no slacking on making content! ;-)

[@LowSpecGamer]

The content machine is running full steam ahead. Thank you!

[@A_A78]

this is like good ending of that Mythic Quest episode! lol

[@redmage777]

I always imagined Roberta entering that Spinnaker meeting with a glass of Franzia in her hand...

[@jace888au]

Thanks for helping explain the backstory to my childhood games. I look forward to the next one! Ps please feature some of their other titles/series eg eco quest and dr brain too.

[@anon_y_mousse]

So much unexplored history for me. I never knew that they started with a different name, but it explains why they were Sierra On-Line later on. I'd love to see more games like they made back then. A real story and graphics that were drawn programmatically and could fit on a floppy.

[@JohnnyProctor9]

DUDE!!! Tell us more about the fate of Sierra, I'm a HUGE fan of the work of Roberta Williams but I wasn't aware of even HALF of the stuff in this video...I want to hear about Phantasmagoria, their MASSIVE 7 DISC CD-ROM MASTERPIECE, how point-and-click adventures fell out of favor in the computer gaming market, and how Sierra was absorbed into Vivendi which later became part of Activision Blizzard, and what happened with that 2015 reboot of King's Quest and since then.

[@LowSpecGamer]

You are going to love part 2 then!

[@XanderVJ]

0:20 OK, I don't know what tech geniuses have against doors, but this habit of kicking them down like it's "Resident Evil 4" has to stop! ... Nah! I actually love the running gag. lol

[@SSFighter1701]

YEAY! I'm so glad you made more of this style documentary!

[@Holammer]

Man, I'm old enough to remember when PCs were 'IBM compatibles'. "What sort of moron would want one of those when you can have an Amiga?"

[@trevhoffmann]

I’m loving these long form documentaries.

[@AbhinavKulshreshtha]

My only memory of Sierra is game calles Pharoh, an amazing city building game that I still haven't finished. Good memories... 😌

[@alexgonzalez9053]

The story of Sierra and in particular their owners is incredible. Bring as many vids about them as you want!

[@FNCMontragor]

I liked the first title and thumbnail better :D But no matter what this was an amazing Video again! I really love all your Videos and I'm watching the Nintendo Videos once a month for entertainment haha

[@yy-hj4br]

The artwork is great. I didn't even know there was a book about Sierra. I'll be checking it out.

[@OppaYA]

Please continue. Great work with storytelling, 2D and 3D graphics and everything completes it.

[@RockOrso2]

Thank God PCs didn't lose to Atari so we'd have such wonderful innovations from chungus towers to PCs the size of Switch Lite.

[@Psy500]

Atari did make on home computers before the crash. Work on the Atari 800 started before the 2600 even launched. The follow up to the Atari 800 would become the prototype to the Amiga as Atari hardware engineers left to make their own company that would get bought up by Commodore.

[@iAPX432]

Mystery House! This game was a breakthrough at that time, I was there, and it blowed my mind... And "online" was visionary. I did online games since 1984. Really online.

[@dankoga2]

The game mentioned in the outro is "Softp*rn Adventure", by the way! It's an antecessor of Leisure Suit Larry series.

[@LowSpecGamer]

No spoilers!

[@thief454916]

Your lore videos are incredible. I hope you continue making these for a long time!

[@MurderMostFowl]

My uncle had an IBM PC Jr… he only had 3 games… MS flight Simulator, Kings Quest, and Black Cauldron ( also made by Sierra )

[@LowSpecGamer]

Good games

[@newroo]

LowSpecGamer sure know how to tell a great story! From start to end, for each video i'm paralyzed and intrigued in the content. Keep up the extremely well done content team!

[@ovalteen4404]

Don't leave me hanging! Did he ever finish the Fortran compiler?

[@LowSpecGamer]

I will ask him! But probably not.

[@cabokenw]

Nope! Whenever Roberta points out that it was HER that got us into games, I remind her that if I had finished my compiler we probably would have turned into Microsoft. She ruined us! But no, I have never returned to doing Fortran. We did release a compiler, called Lisa, for the 6502, but it never really sold too well despite being a great product.

[@MonochromeWench]

At the end *that game* which has the special place in gaming history of being the most remade games ever. Most games would maybe see 1 remake *that game* has had at least 3. Other game developers would shy away from the embarassing nature it has but not them they know what the series did for the company. Appealing to serious computer users with a game for adults could be quite lucrative. I wonder how many business computers in the 80s and early 90s had a secret lsl directory

[@eldbudd]

Early Sierra quests pretty much taught me English reading and writing, and typing. I actually owe them a lot.

[@NobleHays]

I played a lot of Serra games, so yes please continue!

[@MrPowerGamerBR]

ooo you changed the video title and thumbnail, sneaky ;3 I had watched the video before when the title was talking about Atari, and IMO the new thumbnail is better because Sierra is a very widely known company, so when you look at the new thumbnail and title, you think "wait what? ET almost killed Sierra? *click*" Anyhow, the video is super good and I love the drawings used in the video! I "found" your channel after you switched your content, and I fell in love with the "Steve Jobs’ most Impulsive Decision" video, I got hooked into your video formats. The drawings makes the story feel more "alive" somehow, way better than just random stock footage that kinda correlates to what you are talking about. Keep it up!

[@leonardogarcez8932]

Só vou poder ver mais tarde o vídeo, mas já vou dar like e deixar rodando ao fundo pra dar aquela ajudinha com o algoritmo

[@Sinistar1983]

I'd definitely love to see a second part, this is so good.

[@MistaMaddog247]

Excellent video! I've read about Sierra on The Digital Antiquarian web site and now it's made into an anime! :) One point I like to make is that it wasn't 'just' Atari and other consoles that Crashed hard but also other home computers that used ROM carts which were affected. Plus Commodore's constant price dropping made things worse for other companies except for Apple, IBM and PC clone makers didn't help much either.

[@DM01710]

Loved tis episode and i really enjoy your editing style thank you for your uploads 🙂

[@dolphin2.0.]

Do want to see another video about sierra, but I accidentally spoiled the ending to myself At least they helped give us half life

[@IHateCS]

0:42 yo its the dude in that one minecraft painting

[@rubensintes1]

Some of the characters and plote in the serie Halt and Catch Fire is based in this story

[@daleblomgren7527]

I love everyone one of your videos and your artwork really adds a lot to the whole production! Thank you so much for what you do.

[@hypernovic5301]

This is criminal, I mean I am a criminal for watching this content for free....

[@awii.neocities]

50 minutes ago, welp time to stay up for 20 more minutes seriously, you have caused me to lose sleep, but it all doesnt matter because you make amazing content, low spec pcs or not uhhh also i just realized the title is "how ET almost almost ruined a gaming icon"

[@douro20]

Apple eventually did release a FORTRAN compiler for the Apple II. It was actually written in Pascal.

[@ReedHansen84]

I absolutely would love to see the other part. AWESOME!

[@ELSTERLING]

This channel never disappoints.

[@Reepicheep-1]

Oakhurst is a NICE little hole in the wall for CA. It's the last 'large' city outside southern Yosemite (6000 people). It's now mostly known as the location for all the outside-the-park hotels & shopping.

[@thcriticalthinker4025]

@lowspec where did all the older videos go my dude? I was on a binge a few weeks ago and wanted to continue.

[@LowSpecGamer]

They were unlisted over half a year ago. They are still all on a playlist

[@MrReddragongamingHD]

Fantastic video as always!

[@luislperu]

Imposible perderme tus videos. Game on!

[@mrmimeisfunny]

I know you're probably in over your head on video ideas. But I feel like a video on the 2nd world Famiclone revolution of the early 90s would fit this channel like a glove. "Using cheap, low powered, well understood hardware, skilled software devs (have you seen the backports?) and Sergei Suponev creating a lasting gaming industry in Russia and China."

[@STORMFIRE07]

Old title: How ET ᵃˡᵐᵒˢᵗ almost ruined a Gaming Icon

[@CattoRayTube]

It's 2022 and, finally, vector graphics are kinda commonplace on the web for logos and symbols. Would've made more sense in the early web, for the exact same reason it was useful in those early games.

[@Curt_Sampson]

Actually, vector graphics were quite commonplace on the early web. Perhaps you've heard of "Macromedia Flash"?

[@tomysshadow]

They were used in the early web though. That's what Flash was for.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

I love the presentation style. Fantastic work!

[@AceNX]

The thumbnail has changed back n forth like 3 times?

[@LowSpecGamer]

Yep. Welcome to 2023 KZbin. This is common practice when gathering data until we get proper A/B testing tools