Sierra Entertainment
| Sierra Entertainment | |
 |
|
| Founded | 1979 |
| Closed | 2008 |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Other Names | On-Line Systems, Sierra On-Line |
Sierra Entertainment is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was founded in 1980 by Ken Williams. He had coded his wife Roberta's idea for a game, which eventually became Hi-Res Adventure #1: Mystery House. The game ended up being so successful that Ken and Roberta moved out of state, and eventually settled in Sierra, Nevada, which is how the company name was created. The company has developed and even published many highly successful franchises such as King's Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and the Half-Life series. The company also acquired many other studios in its travels as a game production studio.
In 1996, Sierra Entertainment was acquired by Comp-U-Card (CUC) International for $1.06 billion. At the beginning of 1999, Sierra Entertainment was sold to Havas Interactive. The company ended up being owned by Vivendi Universal Games, but shut down all subsidiaries in 2004, and Sierra itself in June the same year. In 2005, Sierra was relaunched in Los Angeles, California, which published indie games, and the company reacquired their old licenses once owned by Vivendi. However, Vivendi later merged with Activision which eventually became Activision Blizzard, and so they disbanded Sierra in 2008 due to redundancy purposes.
Sierra was once again relaunched in August 2014.
Games
Music Development
DOS
To create music for MS-DOS games, the composers used Sequencer Plus Gold by Voyetra Technologies. Their MIDI files were then converted to a sound driver by Stuart Goldstein.
File Formats
Audio Personnel
- Al Lowe - Composer, programmer, game designer, creator of Leisure Suit Larry series.
- Amenda Lombardo - Composer for Mixed-Up Mother Goose.
- Anita Scott - Composer for Gold Rush!
- Aubrey Hodges - Composer, sound designer.
- Bob Siebenberg - Freelance musician; composer for Space Quest III.
- Boyd Post - Sound designer.
- Brian Min - Composer, sound designer.
- Chance Thomas - Composer of Yosemite Entertainment subsidiary.
- Chris Braymen - Composer.
- Christopher Stevens - Composer and sound designer from Dynamix.
- Craig Safan - Composer of original music for Leisure Suit Larry 5.
- Dan Kehler - Composer, sound designer.
- David Henry - Composer, sound designer.
- Gabriel Mann - Composer, singer at Spiralmouth.
- Gary Spinrad - Composer.
- Guy Whitmore - Composer for Shivers dilogy and Mixed-Up Mother Goose Deluxe.
- James William Elliot - Composer for Mixed-Up Mother Goose.
- Jan Hammer - Composer for Police Quest 3: The Kindred.
- Jason Hayes - Composer for Police Quest: SWAT 2.
- Jay Usher - Composer.
- Ken Allen - Composer, sound designer.
- Margaret Lowe - Composer, Al Lowe's wife.
- Mark Seibert - Composer, music director.
- Michel Legrand - Contractor, composer of themes for Torin's Passage.
- Mike Dana - Freelance musician; composer for Leisure Suit Larry 3.
- Neal Grandstaff - Composer, sound designer.
- Orpheus Hanley - Composer, sound designer.
- Rebecca Kneubuhl - Composer, singer at Spiralmouth.
- Richard Spurgeon - Composer, sound designer.
- Rob Atesalp - Composer, sound designer.
- Robert Holmes - Composer and producer of Gabriel Knight series.
- Rudy Helm - Composer, sound designer.
- Stuart Goldstein - DOS sound driver programmer.
- Tim Clarke - Composer and sound designer from Dynamix.
- Victor Crews - Composer, sound designer.
- William Goldstein - Composer for King's Quest IV.
Logos
1980-1981.
1980-1983.
August 1981-1983.
1984-1987.
1984-1997.
1998-2001.
1998-2001.
2001-October 2008.
2001-October 2008.
