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Sierra On-Line Games History: How it all Fits Together

In the realm of vintage gaming, Sierra On-Line was the heavy-weight sales leader and gaming company of choice for a generation of old-school gamers. Even today, this elder statesman of gaming remains the collector's choice in the field of old-school gaming software.

Sierra released a plethora of software tiles on several gaming platforms, including MS-DOS, Windows, Atari 2600, Atari ST, Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore AMIGA, Apple II, Macintosh - even the Sega Master System! However, in the interest of brevity, this article focuses on the PC platforms only (Apple, Atari, IBM PC, and Commodore series of personal computers).

The first Sierra titles were shipped in ziplock bags - no cardboard boxes whatsoever! Mystery House and The Wizard and the Princess are examples of early titles that were released in this format. Realizing more sales would result from the use of more professional-appearing packaging, the company began to use full-color folders as packaging (around 8"x11" large) within the next two years. (Examples of games released in the folder format are Ulysses and the Golden Fleece and Softporn Adventure.) At the time, games were one or two disks in size, manuals small, and the packaging did not need to be very large to accommodate its contents. However, as games became more sophisticated they required more diskettes, and more diskettes meant that the folder concept was now seriously in jeopardy. Accordingly, the first grey-boxed (with plastic inserts) packaging for Sierra software was introduced in 1984, and games such as King's Quest II and Space Quest were released.

Even so, the grey boxes were still too small to fit the company's newer multi-disk games, and the company discontinued their use in 1987, replacing them with a tan-colored, two-piece box that had the Sierra logo printed on it, and a full-color slip cover surrounding it. Gold Rush and King's Quest IV are examples of this style of packaging. This worked well until some of their games again began to bulge the box - such as The Adventures of Laura Bow: The Colonel's Bequest and Conquests of Camelot: The Search For The Grail - so Sierra once again changed their packaging to suit their product. The two-piece box style was kept, but it grew to around twice its size. The logo was removed, as was the color; the boxes were now white. The full-color slipcase remained, also, and games such as Ecoquest: The Lost Secret of the Rainforest and Conquests of the Longbow: The Legend of Robin Hood are examples of games that used the white box packaging method.

Now there was plenty of room for the game disks, manuals and the myriad brochures and advertising offers that the software came with...except technology jumped forward, the CD-ROM drive was introduced, and disk-based software model became obsolete. Now the white-box format was simply too big for its contents. This left the Sierra marketing team at a crossroads: should they return to their previous configuration, or boldly strike out in a new direction? Since it was a board room decision, the company managed to do both: the box depth was reduced to around its previous size, but the length and width of the box was increased to 8.5"x10.5", much like a hardcover book. Games such as Betrayal at Krondor and Phantasmagoria took advantage of the increased visibility of this packaging size and had more shelf-presence than their predecessors. But events outside the company were soon to change the way Sierra presented their products once again!

Around 2000, retailers banded together to ask software companies to reduce their box sizes to more closely match their console game counterparts. Sierra was no different than any of its competitors, seeing an advantage to reducing materials costs and unwilling to risk the ire of the large retail chains that supplied them with a steady revenue stream, so the company essentially reduced its box size back to 1984 levels. Lords of the Realm III is an example of this box format. Gone were the massive printed game manuals as it was far less expensive to simply include a game manual file directly on the CD.

Of course, as technology marches on, there is no doubt that Sierra will be required to change their packaging to better suit the times!

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