Rise of the Video Game

[DeadPoolX]

On the Discovery channel (at least in Canada) there's a mini-series entitled "Rise of the Video Game." As the title suggests, it covers the history of video games. The series was first aired in 2007, so some information may not be entirely accurate anymore, but most of it still works. There are five parts to each level (i.e. LEVEL 1 has five videos).

LEVEL 1 covers the initial creation of video games, starting with the 1950s up to the 1970s. LEVEL 2 talks about the 1980s through 2007. LEVEL 3 focuses on 3D games, such as First-Person Shooters. LEVEL 4 is on "God Games" like The Sims, Black & White and so on. Finally, LEVEL 5 discusses Internet gaming like MMORPGs.

Ken and Roberta Williams, plus Al Lowe appear in Part 3 of Level 2. They discuss Sierra Online and predominately talk about the KQ and LSL series (although Mystery House is mentioned first). Sierra is the ONLY company shown that didn't design games for both the PC and consoles.

[Tawmis]

Oh! Dern it. Wish I would have known. Will have to look for it on Youtube.

[Collector]

Sierra is the ONLY company shown that didn't design games for both the PC and consoles.

But they did produce games for consoles.

http://cgi.ebay.com/KINGS-QUEST-5-NES-I ... 439c2869b4

http://www.mobygames.com/game/colecovision/threshold

To name a couple. Then there were the "Sierra Family" companies

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rise-of-the-Dragon- ... 3ca888f8b9

[MusicallyInspired]

Willy Beamish was also on Sega CD.

[Rudy]

Nice! By the way, did anybody else notice that, in part 2 of level 3, at 1:47, the floppy, cover and sleeve of Mystery House are not authentic?
It looks like Discovery Channel used one of their own soft floppies and created a cover with a screenshot that should resemble the original Mystery House cover. FAIL!

[dotkel50]

That flew by so fast I didn't even notice. Sharp eyes Rudy.

[DeadPoolX]

Oh! Dern it. Wish I would have known. Will have to look for it on Youtube.

Um... the links I posted go to YouTube.

Sierra is the ONLY company shown that didn't design games for both the PC and consoles.

But they did produce games for consoles.

http://cgi.ebay.com/KINGS-QUEST-5-NES-I ... 439c2869b4

http://www.mobygames.com/game/colecovision/threshold

To name a couple. Then there were the "Sierra Family" companies

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rise-of-the-Dragon- ... 3ca888f8b9

Yes, yes... but considering the show is about the early-to-mid 1980s, that was what I was talking about. As far as I know, KQ1 and LSL1 (among other early titles) never made to consoles.

Threshold doesn't count since it's NOT an Adventure Game and that genre was the focus of Sierra Online's involvement.

KQ5 and the Dynamix line of Adventure Games took place in the 1990s. Again, that wasn't the time period the show referred to when discussing Sierra Online.

[DeadPoolX]

If I knew you guys would nitpick about every little detail, I wouldn't have bothered to post the damn videos. Considering how little attention Adventure Games get nowadays, I thought you'd actually enjoy the fact Sierra was mentioned in a relatively new show about games.

[Collector]

No reason to get upset. The links are very much appreciated. Most here should be interested in them. It was just a casual observation about console games. Ken, himself has mentioned before on his site about when Sierra produced games for consoles at that time, but the forays into that market didn't seem to be as lucrative as that for computers. Also, as the show was covering the earliest history of the games to the present as well as not spending a lot of time on the adventure genre I didn't take your comment as to mean it was limited one specific time and genre.

That aside, the show really glossed over the early history and missed some fairly significant things. Yes, there are time constraints, but it seems as if they spent more time on early consoles when they were only one part of the picture. They never once mention Adventure, Infocom or Csuri, the father of computer graphics and animation, whose pioneering work made possible those early Japanese consoles, Pixar and all CGI work. It is curious to note that he is more famous in Japan than in his own country. Maybe the first two missed items are more relevant to the adventure genre, but are still fairly significant electronic gaming in general.

I think that the most interesting thing was the last part, looking to where it is heading.

Edit: I just came across this YouTube link about Csuri. Take the presentation with a grain of salt, but it does show some of his work.