S2 Ep4: Ken Williams - Co-Founder of Sierra On-Line

Retro Tea Breaks

Ken and Roberta Williams created Sierra On-Line in 1979 with their first graphical adventure game for the Apple II compute "Mystery House". From these humble beginnings the world opened up for them and with games such as Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Kings Quest, Sierra rocketed to the top of the charts and became one of the biggest game publishers in the world.
Today we meet Ken and discuss those early days, and find out a little more about his history and his exciting new game.
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●Chapters
00:00 Intro to Ken Williams
00:45 How Ken Williams got into computers
02:37 Ken Williams ambitions as a young man
05:13 Was Ken Williams a geek like us
07:16 Did Ken Williams play games?
08:08 On Ken and Roberta's Apple II
09:14 The inspiration for Mystery House
13:14 Did Ken want to sell more serious software?
14:02 Does Ken have an Apple I?
18:13 The Videogame crash
20:35 Offering royalities to designers
22:50 "Ken Sent Me" & Leisure Suit Larry 4
25:30 Sierra's deal with IBM for Kings Quest
30:52 What is Ken Williams favourite Kings Quest
33:52 Ken Williams on the quality of his big box games
37:10 What is the perfect Sierra game?
38:36 What is it like working with Disney?
40:42 How do you stay ahead in the games industry?
45:33 What Quest games did Sierra never release?
47:45 The demise of Sierra
53:45 Ken Williams on his new game
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● Episode Links
Kens new game: https://kensgame.com
Kens book: https://kensbook.com
Robertas Book: https://robertasbook.com
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