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It was actually much worse than anybody ever let on to. As the family member of a former Sierra employee, I witnessed it first hand.

None of Sierra's competitors had the capabilities to take on Sierra financially, which was the only option. AOL, EA and Activision all got together, banded against Sierra, and lost (this was all outlined briefly in the fraud charges against the CUC members). So, their plan b was to bring in a conglomerate that had virtually limitless amounts of money - this was found in CUC, on paper anyway.

CUC approached Sierra with the deal of a lifetime, from the eyes of the share holders. Even though Ken didn't want to give it up, he wasn't left much choice as the share holders would have ultimately dumped their shares of Sierra had the deal gone south unless he could have proven that it was all a fraud (he had nothing showing that data at the time, obviously). Which would have damaged and possibly destroyed Sierra anyway although they had plenty of cash on hand.

The goal of those involved was to dismantle Sierra, ruin its reputation and software pieces, and then make it go away --and they did just that. They ruined the franchises - post acquisition, it was quite obvious that different developers had their hands in it, and that their hearts nor imaginations were in it as was the case with prior versions of the software pieces.

Now look at who holds what little remains of Sierra (the name and IP)... Their number 1 competitor at the time. They've held on to all things Sierra very firmly, threatening anybody and everybody who attempts to do anything with the ancient software pieces. Making certain that none of Sierra's franchises are resurrected aside from those that did not transfer into their hands upon their final acquisition of what little remains, in which they have no control.

It's disheartening to say the least. The plan that was executed and carried out thoroughly. And unfortunately, it wrecked the lives of over a thousand people, as well as the economy of the small town of Oakhurst, CA, which has not fully recovered to date.

At one point, Ken even admitted he regretted going public with Sierra, as remaining private would have stopped these events from taking place - no share holders to please.

Rudy wrote:At first glance I'm not buying it. The post is riddled with contradictions to the facts and leaving out many crucial factors - too many to write an arm-long post at the moment.

Collector wrote:I am thinking that this is a perception of an outsider with connections to an employee (low level?) based on rumors and innuendo that were floating around the water cooler back then. A whole scenario based upon one or two small assumed facts. This is how conspiracy theories are born.