You know what this means, guys? We might be getting the old DOS port of Thexder on GOG through the new Sierra label.

If we're lucky, the DOS ports for WiBARM, Fire Hawk, Silpheed, and Zeliard should follow. And that would be awesome for introducing folks to old Japanese PC games. I honestly expected this to be Activision's new client a la Origin, but anything's possible now that this isn't the case.

I hope you're right, but I'm rather pessimistic about that to be honest.
I think the 'new' KQ is an experiment and if it fails to deliver, they will stop the 'remake' side of things and the Sierra label will only be used as a publishing label for Indie titles in the future. So here's to hoping it will be a huge success!

Be nice if Activision threw ANYTHING 'new' GOG's way - they've been gone from the new releases schedules for years now!

I'd buy that. Was one of the first games I owned on the Amiga.

Right now the advance news seems to be hinting at a brand resurrection for new releases, though.

this is one of the other things i'm worried about with this:

it's clear they're trying to court the old guard and the new guard with this: king's quest for us, geometry wars for them. my issue is that we're dealing with activision. activision doesn't see games, they see dollar symbols. and i don't think these will sell /nearly/ as well as activision wants them to, which means that they'll come out and say, in the end, "oh, this was an experiment and we tried, but you guys don't love us enough and it failed, so we're going to stop doing this."

you can see /something/ of this from their press release. you need to scroll all the way down tot he end - the very nearly last paragraph that starts with: "cautionary note":

http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=865807

the way i see bobby kotick seeing it is: if it doesn't sell cod-like/world of warcraft numbers, it's a failure.

so, i'm not even really optimistic. i'm just going to watch from the sidelines and not bother about getting my hopes high at all, because they will just be dashed in the end.

moreover: there's no mention of drm-free here. which is somewhat amusing, because you'd think they'd want to go that one step further and court the old guard properly, but no. steam all the way.

I'm excited to see the Sierra name again.

While it would be going too far to say I'm "optimistic", I am looking forward to what they do and hope for the best. And I can't help but think that unless its a disaster, its pretty good news for King's Quest. Fans obviously still remember the series, but there was nothing interesting being done about it. The Silver Lining was pretty much awful imo.

I was speaking in the context of Activision wanting to get the Sierra On-Line games onto DD, not remaking them, but yes, I'm skeptical of their currently-advertised plan. The shareholders could complain over nothing even if the new King's Quest does well. They'd do well to take advantage of the current hype, though, by at least letting GOG repackage their old games.

That would be nice, and even intelligent. But too many gaming companies don't seem to have time for a small-but-regular input stream. Everything has to be a day-one megasuccess. Or, to view it in their terms, it's makes more business sense to burn down a full orphanage than to beat each orphan individually.

Gaming is a two-world model like movies now - big companies that care about blockbusters and independent studios that care about a unique voice. Well, there is a third world in both, the bottom-feeders that churn out cheap flicks and shovelware, but they are a side effect of the system, rather than one of the sides that sustain it.

Sierra is coming back. yay!!!
Remembers who owns it. poop.

I agree with what you're saying - but at least we're getting one game out of it. That's 1 more game than what we would be getting if they didn't go down this path at all. So, worse case scenario, we get to revisit Daventry again and enjoy the moment of Kings Quest making a brief commercial return - and spawn some interest in the series from newer players to boot. And there's always the chance it will do well and will kick off a few more games.

I agree with a few other posters - I'm not super optimistic - it IS Activision after all (still would have preferred Telltale). But - it could be a a great game, so I'm hoping for the best!

absolutely. one more game is better than no more games, but it /does/ depend on some amount of quality control. if it's "one more game" that amounts to phoenix-like fan-fiction then...i'm not sure i'm up for that. if it's a true return-to-form, then i'd be more for that.

one problem i'm seeing and that i hope they don't fall prey to is that activision might force the odd gentlemen down a path of "make it dark and edgy" and good lord, do not want. so much not wantery, you have no idea. ;)

regarding telltale versus activision, i think telltale are the lesser of two evils, having said that, i wasn't thrilled with them getting the license in the first place a couple of years ago. i feel like king's quest is /far/ out of their ambit. [i should, probably, also add a caveat here that i don't think /any/ modern studio could do a king's quest game justice, but i tell you who i'd like to see take a crack at it: wadjet eye's folks. they seem to be producing quality adventure games there and i feel like they'd be "a good fit" for this kind of experiment.]