Rest in Peace, Sierra
Well, it looks like Sierra has gone the way of the dodo. It now lives on in brand-form only.
That's a shame. Sierra was easily the best company I've worked for to date. (Not that I dislike my current place, but Sierra had more resources and was working more in the area that I'd consider my core interest). I made some of my closest friends at that company. And I had a lot of fun.
Sure, it's not exactly unexpected that this happened. For example, during the last two rounds of layoffs they got rid of a lot of people who were prime-movers and producers - the engines behind the machine, if you will. Losing your top performers is certainly not a smart move if you want to stay in business. But they did - and now look where we are.
I'll miss you, Sierra. May you rest in peace.
(I'm just hoping that this isn't the death knell of the rest of the Seattle area games industry... what with Zombie games laying off people, Microsoft ditching their sports games... there certainly doesn't look like much you can do other than set up your own company any more around here. Which would be good if games weren't so expensive to produce if you want them to sell).
Simon Cooke is an occasional video game developer, ex-freelance journalist, screenwriter, film-maker, musician, and software engineer in Seattle, WA.
The views posted on this blog are his and his alone, and have no relation to anything he's working on, his employer, or anything else and are not an official statement of any kind by them (and barely even one by him most of the time).