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But the shutdown that definitely received the most attention was that of Yosemite Entertainment. With the exception of the warehouse and distribution department, the entire studio was shut down. This decision was unexpected and highly controversial, as this was the original Sierra headquarters and the birthplace of all the classic games that had made it such a successful company. Many of the people behind these games still worked there and were now informed that they had lost their jobs. In total, about 135 people were fired in Oakhurst. Yosemite Entertainment was in the middle of developing the highly awaited space combat simulator Babylon 5, the Lord of the Rings-based online multiplayer roleplaying game Middle Earth, the tactical simulation game Navy SEALs and a multiplayer add-on to Quest for Glory V.
A disturbing aspect of this shutdown was the way the employees were notified of the shutdown. Going to work thinking it would just be a normal Monday, they were soon called to a meeting where they were informed that they had been sacked, and this was only about 15 minutes before the news were officially announced to the press, a cause of action totally against common practice and that upset many people. 40 people, critical to the development of Babylon 5 and Middle Earth (the other projects were dropped) were offered to relocate to the company headquarters in Bellevue and continue with the development, but with the feelings towards the company at the time, few of them accepted right away. Eventually though, about 30 people moved from Oakhurst to Seattle. Needless to say, the shutdown of Yosemite Entertainment was a major blow to the small mountain community, and emergency actions were taken to help all the people finding new jobs. Former Sierra employee William Shockley created a discussion forum for former Sierra employees at www.roboto.com and Ken Williams sent them all a letter, telling them how sad he and Roberta felt for them and what had come of the company they founded.
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Layoffs continued in March 1, when Sierra fired 30 persons at the previously unaffected Dynamix, This was 15% of their entire workforce.
On March 6, Ken Williams, together with his wife Roberta and game designers Al Lowe and Scott Murphy appeared on Ken's online radio station TalkSpot in a nearly two hour live show called The Sierra Reunion, a real treat for all Sierra fans. During the show they shared their thoughts about the past, present and future of Sierra. A lot of people called in to the show, including a significant number of famous old-time Sierra employees.
In June 1999, Ken Williams shut down TalkSpot and laid off its employees. He did this because venture capitalist Rich Shapero of Crosspoint Venture Partners had convinced him that shutting down TalkSpot and instead focusing on providing the technology behind it to other companies would be a more profitable affair. Early in December the same year, WorldStream unveiled its new technology, designed to broadcast things such as teleconferences, concerts, product presentations and sales events. They offered a program called eComm1, a national network of servers and a mobile Plug-and-Play broadcast setup called Studio In A Box to the customers.
Sierra continued to publish games for smaller development houses with great success. In September 1999, they released Homeworld, a real-time space combat strategy game in full 3D, developed by Relic Entertainment. The game design was revolutionary for the genre and the game received great critical acclaim and many awards.
Meanwhile, Sierra announced another reorganization, this time into three business units: Core Games, led by Mark Hood and Jim Veevaert, Casual Entertainment, led by Steve Van Horn and Barbara Schwabe, and Home Productivity, led by Dianna Amorde and Anne Boswell. Basically, Core Games replaced Sierra Studios and Sierra Sports, Casual Entertainment took over the Sierra Attractions unit and Home Productivity replaced the old Sierra Home. This reorganization resulted in even more layoffs, eliminating 105 additional jobs and a number of games in production, including Desert Fighter and Pro Pilot Paradise from Dynamix, Babylon 5, the much awaited game started at Yosemite Entertainment and Orcs: Revenge, a Berkeley Systems title. This was announced on September 21.
Ironically, this reorganization caused all of the former Oakhurst employees who had opted to relocate to Seattle and continued working for Sierra to be laid off, when both the Babylon 5 and Middle Earth projects were shut down. Fortunately for these people, they had negotiated for good severance packages in case this would happen.
On June 2, 2000, Sierra released Ground Control, an action-packed 3D RTS combat game developed by Swedish-based Massive Entertainment. The game was another hit for Sierra as a publisher and received great reviews and many rewards.
At
the end of June 2000, a strategic business alliance between Vivendi,
Seagram and Canal+ was announced and Vivendi Universal,
a leading global media and communications company, was formed. Havas S.A.
was renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing and became the publishing
division of the new group, divided into five groups: games, education,
literature, health and information. The games division
included Sierra On-Line, as well as Blizzard Entertainment and Universal
Interactive Studios.
Meanwhile, Impressions Games released a series of successful games in their City Building Series, published by Sierra. With games like Caesar III, Pharaoh and Zeus: Master of Olympus, players could recreate the magnificent towns of great ancient civilizations.
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In early August the same year, WorldStream Communications was one of the many victims of the dotcom crash, and the company was forced to shut down and laid off its 87 employees.
On Aug 14, Sierra On-Line let the ax fall on Dynamix for the final time and closed the development studio for good. Dynamix was viewed by many Sierra fans as the very last remaining piece of the company with a meaningful connection to its legendary past, and with the end of their 17-year history in the business, Sierra On-Line was considered to have taken the final step away from its roots. Dynamix developed a lot of memorable titles for Sierra, but was frequently in financing troubles. In the more aggressive business climate Sierra had entered after the CUC fraud, there was simply no place for unprofitable development studios anymore.
In mid-November, Sierra On-Line changed the design of their logo for the fifth time. To the delight of many old fans it featured the old Half Dome picture, even though the company really had no connection to Yosemite anymore. Still, fans of the old Sierra organization saw this as a sign that there might still be a chance, however small, that they would eventually return to their roots.
And with that, the history of Sierra has reached the present!
Sierra Entertainment continues to develop and publish successful interactive entertainment products and is one of the biggest players in the industry. What the future holds for the company is unsure, but expansion in the console area is likely, and their big titles will probably continue to be those produced by smaller independent development houses. Hopefully, Sierra will also embrace its glorious past by bringing the adventure genre back in new appealing forms and maybe even return with more King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Gabriel Knight games. A few recent news seems to point in that direction...
The End - For now...