You're taking the right angle with greed (1 Timothy 6:9-11). But I think it goes beyond that:
> Williams wasn’t a game designer, but a visionary who saw the company always moving forward, leading the market with other genres, other software, online worlds connecting every kind of person. That Sierra is instead remembered, basically entirely, for these 2D adventure games from the eighties and nineties is, he says, because the company was killed.
With respect to Ken, I think his ambition outstripped his ability. He prided his company on being something it wasn't, and himself being something he wasn't either. Sierra had to be something big, he had to be something big; his favored fraudster knew exactly how to exploit that self-illusion. In reality, Ken's own wife hints that Ken was struggling as CEO even before selling, e.g. failing to see through people, over-relying on lieutenants when making decisions, etc.
For all the talk of murdering Sierra, I find it interesting Ken doesn't name the culprit. Not the fraudster or his cronies. I think that's because Ken is the one who let them in his house.
Maybe you've also read his self-published autobiography, but his character flaws are front and centre. He's explicit about his vanity and overconfidence, painfully honest about personal snubs from Gates etc. He comes across as a permanent outsider, just one of those people who never acts on any feedback. So I think he knows.
If you loved the company, it's a very interesting book.
> He prided his company on being something it wasn't
To be fair to Sierra, some of their final acts were publishing Half Life, Homeworld, and an expansion for Diablo. They may well have become an enormous publisher if not for the CUC mess.
Re: homeworld, it was one of the greatest games of the 1990s and I remain delighted that it received sequels and a refresh. I have nothing but fond memories of the series and still play it regularly
> Williams wasn’t a game designer, but a visionary who saw the company always moving forward, leading the market with other genres, other software, online worlds connecting every kind of person. That Sierra is instead remembered, basically entirely, for these 2D adventure games from the eighties and nineties is, he says, because the company was killed.
With respect to Ken, I think his ambition outstripped his ability. He prided his company on being something it wasn't, and himself being something he wasn't either. Sierra had to be something big, he had to be something big; his favored fraudster knew exactly how to exploit that self-illusion. In reality, Ken's own wife hints that Ken was struggling as CEO even before selling, e.g. failing to see through people, over-relying on lieutenants when making decisions, etc.
For all the talk of murdering Sierra, I find it interesting Ken doesn't name the culprit. Not the fraudster or his cronies. I think that's because Ken is the one who let them in his house.