Space Quest 7 - Development History

This Guide contains the History of Space Quest 7 leading from its Beginnings to Chainsaw Monday.

1. Early 1997 - Space Quest 7 project was started

In early 1997 Sierra decided to make another Space Quest. The decision was based upon the relatively successful Space Quest 6 (which was released a while back in March 1995) and upon the feedback Sierra was getting from fans all around the planet who demanded to see another Roger Wilco space adventure. Whatever you might have heard about Space Quest 6 sales figures, the game was a success. It sold a lot more copies than Space Quest 5 did. However, it had cost around 5 times more and unfortunately (I'm sure you saw this one coming), it didn't sell 5 times as much. This known fact would later be an argument for the marketing guys to scrap the project.

The design team for Space Quest 7:
Scott Murphy - Designer/Writer
Leslie Balfour - Designer/Writer
Jay Lee - Programming
William Shockley - Programming
Mark Aro - Graphics
Richard Powell - Concept Artist, Character Design, Graphics
Tim Loucks - 3D Graphics
Lori Lucia - Project Manager
Craig Alexander - Project GM

2. June 1997/July 1997 - Sierra released some information about Space Quest 7

The team is currently developing a Space Quest 7 prototype (which will be a playable demo) and a rolling SQ7 promo, which will be included in the upcoming Space Quest Collection CD-Rom. Since the project is still so young, not much has been decided regarding story line, interface, etc. The team will be trying to introduce a multiplayer aspect to SQ7, as well as a single-player mode. It remains to be decided whether they want to go for the RPG-style multiplayer, or a hybrid. According to Scott Murphy Space Quest 7 will contain some 3-D elements. However, these elements will NOT require the use of a 3D accelerator card and the game should retain its standard 2-D scrolling view.

Some working titles were released:
- This time it's Personal
- Show me the Buckazoids
- Return of Roman Numerals

3. August 1997 - Sierra released more information about Space Quest 7

Around August 1997, the team released this drawing you see here to the left. It was made by the character designer Richard Powell. According to Leslie Balfour, Dougie is a slime monster who likes to hang out with his friends on the streets of Polysorbate LX to hassle passers-by. Maybe this tells us that Roger is returning to Polysorbate (the highly polluted planet from SQ6).

Sierra released yet another Space Quest Collection which featured a promo movie for the new Space Quest 7. The manual contains a promotional page which features the release date for Space Quest 7: late 1998. Things looked bright for the future of the ever-so-popular Space Quest Series.

Unfortunately, the new Space Quest Collection flopped. It was soon to be found in software store's bargain bins for a buck or two. The guys at Sierra (read: management geniuses) now thought there wasn't enough interest for another Space Quest.

4. December 1997 - Space Quest 7 project "on hold indefinitely"

The Space Quest 7 project was being put "on hold indefinitely" around late December, 1997. The reason why was given in this e-mail fans from all around the globe received. It was written by Scott Murphy and Leslie Balfour:

"To the Friends and Fans of Space Quest,
As you all know, the path to Space Quest 7 has been long and bumpy, and we were never sure what we would find at the end of the road. The decision has been made, after much soul-searching and agonizing, to put Space Quest 7 on hold indefinitely.

The joy for the team has been in the journey. We've made many friends out there, and it has been quite heartening to know that Roger Wilco has so many fans. I look forward to continuing the friendships I've developed over the last year. But Sierra is in the process of many changes, and we had to take a hard look at whether a Space Quest 7 project made sense. Unfortunately for those of us who love Roger and his stupid antics, other projects just have more to offer both to the company and to our customers in general at this time.

Please don't worry about the team. We will all move to other projects at Sierra On-Line. Many of us will go over to the Babylon 5 space combat game, which will be coming out in Holiday 1998. Others will go over to the B5 adventure game, which will also come out in 1999. Both of these products will reflect Sierra's commitment to excellence in space games, and I hope you'll consider playing them if you have the opportunity.

I am sending this email to those of you who have sent me mail lately. Please pass the information on to any Space Quest fans I inadvertently omitted.

Finally, don't be sad for Roger. Just think of him as weary from making us laugh for all these years, ready for a break from his adventures. He and la Wankmeister want to settle down, raise a family. And perhaps as we look up in the sky, a distant star will remind us that somewhere, in a distant galaxy, Roger Wilco is probably getting pantsed.

Thanks again for all your support,
The Space Quest Team
-Leslie Balfour
-Scott Murphy"

5. February the 22nd, 1999 - Chainsaw Monday

The team got back together and started working on Space Quest 7 again.

Then on February the 22th, 1999 (which is called "Chainsaw Monday" by Scott Murphy) Space Quest 7 was finally axed. Sierra closed down its Oakhurst California facility, firing two-third of the employees there. Scott Murphy, who was an old timer at Sierra, also had to pack his bags as his contract had expired and was not renewed. The rest of the employees has been given an opportunity to relocate to other Sierra divisions like Belvue Washington. The Oakhurst facility was the roots of Sierra. It produced games like Leisure Suit Larry, King's Quest, Quest for Glory and of course Space Quest. This action of corporate consolidation was taken by the new owner, Havas, which bought Sierra from CUC Software. The following letter was written by the founder of Sierra, Ken Williams, in respond of Chainsaw Monday:

"Dear former Sierra employees,
Roberta and I wish to express our deepest sympathies for the recent loss of your jobs. Hopefully, it will not be long before you resume work at Sierra in Seattle, or at some other company... in Oakhurst, or elsewhere. According to tradition, I'm supposed to say something uplifting and motivational to help everyone feel better. Unfortunately, I have failed at this task. There is really nothing good that can be said. This is a sad ending to Sierra's twenty-year operating history in Oakhurst, which at one time, represented over 550 Oakhurst-based employees. This story should have had a happy ending, but instead has had a long string of bad news concluding with the shutdown yesterday of all of Sierra's Oakhurst-based product development activities.

The problems began with the move of corporate to Seattle. The move to Seattle was mandated for several reasons, primarily due to the difficulty we were having recruiting senior management staff and software engineers. The relocation, although it was painful for Oakhurst, was instrumental in our tremendous growth from 1993 through 1996. I remain convinced that this relocation was the right decision for Sierra, and that we would not have prospered without it.

I can't say the same about either the sale of The ImagiNation Network (INN) in 1993, or the sale of Sierra itself in 1996. When Sierra started INN in 1991, it was a decade ahead of its time. After investing millions in INN, Sierra found that it did not have the financial resources to support INN's continued operations. In 1993, AT&T sought aggressively to acquire INN, promising to market the service and grow the company. Unfortunately, AT&T lost interest in INN and sold it to AOL, who to my great disappointment, shut INN down.

Sierra, as you know, was purchased by CUC International in 1996. Because CUC was offering to buy the company at a price roughly 90% higher than it was trading, the decision was out of management's hands. At the time of the purchase, we did believe that through consolidation with several Sierra competitors (Blizzard, Knowledge Adventure, Davidson and others), Sierra would become a much stronger company. We had good reason to believe that the acquisition would cause us to grow faster, not shrink. Unfortunately, CUC elected to transfer control of the company to Davidson, and shut down several groups at Sierra. Later, as we all know, CUC was merged with another company, HFS, to form the Cendant corporation, with roughly 12,000 employees. A few months after this merger it was discovered that someone, or possibly some group of people, within the former CUC organization had been fraudulently preparing financial statements. The actions of this handful of people, who shall hopefully get their due, caused the plunge in Cendant's stock price, and wiped out the net worth of many HFS and CUC employees, including many of you, as well as much of my own. Cendant was sued by its shareholders, CUC's former management team was terminated and the decision was made to sell the software business. It should surprise no one that morale suffered through all of this anarchy, and although I have not seen Sierra's financials for several years, my assumption is that the recent consolidation of operations is driven by a quest for restored profitability and stability. If this story were written as a book, the publisher might seek to classify it as "Fantasy", "Science Fiction" or even "Horror". It is much too outrageous to be true. But the bad news is that these events really did happen.

I console myself in the following way, and perhaps it will help you to cope with what has occurred. Let's imagine that a stranger had walked up to any of us, on the street, in 1979, and said: "Would you like to move to one of the greatest cities on earth? While you are there, you can play a key role in creating a company that just about everyone will know and respect. Your grandchildren will be amazed when they learn that you once worked there. You will be the envy of your peers, because they will know that your team created the largest collection of hits ever to come from one company. There will even be years when you will have played a role in over half the products on the industries top ten lists! You will be surrounded by incredibly intelligent, hard working people, who will work 20+ hours per day when it takes it to get the job done. And, you will have more fun than you ever thought possible. There's only one catch though. This will only last for twenty years." Even knowing it wouldn't last forever I would have followed that stranger anywhere. I'm disappointed that it didn't last forever, but, a 20 year ride on the greatest roller coaster on earth beats the heck out of life in the slow lane any day. Life may never be the same, but it also isn't over, and we all have some great memories we shall never forget. Good luck, and I miss you all."

[Krushak]

Also, if you read his book, Ken regrets selling like he did thinking it would boost his company.

[makeitlunchbox]

Its so weird how an awesome team that made the funniest games in history got axed up like that. Original ideas are what lead gaming history.

[Miller]

I have wondered for years as to what happened to Space Quest when Sierra was still producing
other software titles for some time longer. This is great! Shows what happens when a small company does good. Some large corporation buys them because they have a great product, then shoots the place in the back. As said, heart wrenching. I still run SQ3 through SQ5 on an OLD 250Mhz Pentium II, Win98SE I restored. If anyone knows where I can find a running 5-1/4 1.2MB floppy, I could run the first 2. Excellent research, kudos.

[AV]

That final letter from Ken Williams is heart-wrenching....

On the plus side... After reading it I can now imagine Gary Owens exuberantly exclaiming, "Wow! Sounds like Sierra got CUC'd!"

So... at least there's that :(

[Ash Tré]

Very informative. I used to be a big Space Quest fan, although I haven't played these games for close to twenty six years...

Thanks a bunch for doing the legwork to gather this information for other fans.

[VolnuttHeroP64]

@Daniel Rydell
Homeworld, Austin Powers Trivia, YDKJ Offline, Half-Life Opposing Force & Gabriel Knight 3 were the last good Sierra games of 1999.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MQTnYtEaTI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTsP5DwqqE4

[Daniel Rydell]

These games were my childhood. That letter literally breaks my heart.