Explore the early days of Disney’s foray into video games, focusing on the company’s collaboration with Sierra On-Line during the 1980s. The episode covers the background of Disney’s interest in emerging technology under CEO Ron Miller, the animation studio’s response to the home video and gaming boom, and how Sierra On-Line grew from a family-run business into a leader in graphic adventure games. Listeners will hear about the creation of classic games like Mystery House and the influence of pioneers Ken and Roberta Williams, as well as Sierra’s partnerships with Jim Henson (for The Dark Crystal) and with Disney for educational “edutainment” software. The episode also discusses the development of titles such as Winnie the Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood, Mickey’s Space Adventure, Donald Duck’s Playground, and The Black Cauldron. Eric explains the challenges of licensing Disney IP, why Sierra eventually moved on from Disney collaborations, and how shifts in Disney leadership impacted the future of Disney video games. This is part one of a series on Disney gaming history, with future episodes covering Disney’s relationship with Capcom and the rise of the Disney video game empire.
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00:01 --> 00:55 Cindy loves company. We have this coterie of rich franchises, the company now that people want to engage with. I came here to try and continue what Walt Disney and his associates set in motion 50 years ago, which is to experiment with every new and innovative kind of entertainment possible. It's what we hope to do here is to really develop something that, well, just more than an entertainment enterprise, it's something that contributes in many other ways.
01:06 --> 28:32 On October 25, 1983, newly appointed Disney CEO Ron Miller took to the pages of Variety to talk about the uncertain future of the Walt Disney Company. In the article, Miller previewed future Disney animation classics like the Black Cauldron and explained that the company was ready for the electronic revolution. In the 1980s. Emerging technologies were making some media companies nervous. But Ron Miller was convinced that Disney was ready. It was in the Disney DNA. Walt had taken a big bet on television when the other movie studios feared it would cannibalize their theatrical features. And that bet paid off big for Disney. Ron Miller was certain that Walt Disney Productions could once again maneuver these technological advances while he was at the helm. Just like his father in law, Walt had done before. After all, Disney had just launched a state of the art theme park, Epcot center, that was on the cutting edge of technology and blended education and entertainment. The Disney Channel had just taken the emerging cable television market by storm. And Disney's home video division was testing the waters of a very lucrative VHS market. Miller was ready to welcome any new medium to enhance the Disney studio. What we have is a multifaceted demand presenting large and potentially profitable markets in in all areas, feature motion pictures, network and other commercial television, cable television cassettes, video discs, video games and computer software. Hey, this is Synergy Loves Company where we explore how Disney connects to to everything. So you can feel connected to Disney when you can't be at the parks. I'm Eric and today we are getting into the beginnings of Disney video games by taking a look at some of their collaborations with the biggest video game makers of their time. This is a three part series so make sure you're subscribed and that you won't miss an episode. Also, I want to give a shout out to friend of the show, Sean Jecks and and his book Dreaming in the World of Disney Video Games. This book served as inspiration and a big source for this series and you should definitely check it out. You could pick up a copy for yourself and I left you a link in the description. Anyway, let's get on with the show. Today it's Sierra Online and Disney. For all Ron Miller's optimism, Disney was about to hit a very rough patch just after the publishing of that Variety article. But they weren't the only ones in a rough patch. At the time, the console video game market was not in a good place either. Back in 1983, the market for home video game consoles crashed because of oversaturation and a very terrible ET movie tie in game for the Atari 2600. Okay, I know it's a little more complicated than that, but how? I gotta take a jab at that ET Game. When you think of video gaming even today, you probably either think of playing a game on a console, you know, like a PlayStation or an Xbox. It's got some controllers and it's all hooked up to a tv. Or you think of a PC game that lets you play on your computer. Sure, you could hook up a controller there too, but you're probably gonna use your mouse and the keyboard. And in the 80s, when consoles had that brief decline, many people turned to gaming on home computers like the Commodore 64 and the Apple II. Home computers offered versatility. You could run productivity software like word processors. In addition to playing games, home computers could be educational and entertaining. And one of the companies on the cutting edge of entertaining software was Sierra Online. Sierra Online, like Disney, started as a family business focused on entertainment entertainment through the merging of using technology in the name of storytelling. In Los Angeles in 1979, computer programmer Ken Williams brought home a teletype terminal from work so that he could work on projects from home. Before home computers with screens like we're used to today, people used machines called teletype terminals to talk to the real computers. They weren't the actual computer themselves, just a way to communicate with a computer. Imagine a loud, heavy typewriter that was connected to a mainframe computer with a long cable or even with a modem over phone lines. You'd type a command on the keyboard and instead of seeing a response on the screen, the machine would print out a reply on paper, line by line. There was no mouse, no graphics, just typed words and printed responses. It was slightly slow and clunky by today's standards, but at the time, it was a powerful way to interact with a computer. Since Ken Williams was going to bring this big clunky machine into his home, he thought it would only be fair if he would show his wife Roberta, how to use it. He looked for some software that might be useful to Roberta on the mainframe and stumbled upon a text based adventure game called Mammoth Cave Adventure. Roberta instantly fell in Love with the game. She read the printout descriptions, typed her responses and used her imagination to explore the adventure in the cave. Roberta was a lifelong storyteller who had a great imagination. So of course she loved the experience. So much so that she tried to find more and more adventure games. And when Ken brought home an Apple II computer with an actual screen, the Roberta played every text based adventure she could get her hands on. But there weren't enough out there. Roberta decided that she would have to make her own adventure game. But text wouldn't be good enough. Home computers like the Apple II had graphic capabilities and she decided that her adventure games would need to have graphics. Around this time, Ken Williams was trying to launch a software company of his own. But his concepts for software were more productivity and professional based. Roberta though, pitched him the idea of the concept of a game. Her idea was a murder mystery in an old mansion, kind of like an interactive Agatha Christie novel. And of course it would not just be text, it would have visuals to immerse the player in the game. After hearing about it, Ken decided to take a chance on her Mystery House game. They could work together to make this happen. To map out the game, Roberta kind of took a page out of the Disney animation Handbook. She actually drew a flowchart of each scene and visual that would appear in succession like a video game storyboard. Storyboarding was pioneered by the Disney studios in the 1930s based on an idea by animator Webb Smith. And to better help animators understand the visual scenes and cues and beats that would need to come to life on the screen. It was a succession of thumbnail sketches that would be more beneficial than like a text based script for such a visual medium like animation. The same provided true for Roberta's 1980 graphical adventure game Mystery House. Mystery House was a DIY entrepreneurial experiment. But it would come to dub Roberta the queen of graphic adventure games. The Williams has sold the game at a few local computer stores and put a mail order form ad in a computer Enthusiast magazine. The first month they sold enough copies to make $10 profit. The second month they made 20. Each month profits grew more and more. And later that year, Ken was able to quit his job and he and Roberta founded Online systems. Owning his own company was Ken's dream. And in an interview later in his career, he mentioned that two of his biggest influences for how he would run his company were Microsoft's Bill Gates and Walt Disney. And in the way that he and his wife Roberta worked, they share some similar dynamics with Walt and Roy Disney. Two sides of a coin. Walt's creative storytelling and Roy's making that dream practical so it could come to life. Roberta was prolifically writing games. As Ken would introduce new computing capabilities to her, she would stretch the limits of what graphical games could be. Their follow up to Mystery House was the fantasy title the wizard and the Princess. And that one would introduce the use of color in their graphical adventure games. All of these graphical adventure games, this whole anthology series would be dubbed the High Res Adventures. These games along with some of their other software was super successful. And in 1982 Online Systems was able to move into an office campus near the Sierra mountains and they changed their name to Sierra Online just after their move. Their graphical adventure games caught the attention of future Disney legend Jim Henson. Jim Henson was an innovator like Walt Disney and and the Williams. And he had played some of their games and was a big fan of Sierra Online. So he saw the potential in a video game tie in for his upcoming movie the Dark Crystal. Jim Henson approached the Williams's about creating one of their high res adventures to accompany the release of the movie. Roberta understood the significance of this connection and of course she jumped at the opportunity. She was sent a script and some art from the movie to get started on the game. The Dark Crystal was released to theaters in December of 1982 and it was kind of a blockbuster disappointment for Jim Henson since his name was tied to it. Many people expected the humor and theatrics of the Muppets. But the Dark Crystal was something entirely different. A dark high fantasy that only shared puppetry with Henson's previous successes. The game for the Dark Crystal was released a few months after and it received some positive reviews. Some even claiming that the source material of the Dark Crystal served the video game medium better than the theatrical screen. And after the success of working with Jim Henson on the Dark Crystal game, the Williams and Sierra Online decided to license some other characters for some games with the idea that you could put some well known characters in your game and it would get you more exposure through recognizability and you would prob go on to sell more copies of those games. And of course the most recognizable characters out there are from Disney. It was coming together perfectly. Just like Ron Miller said. Disney was looking to make more video games and software and Sierra is in the market to license some characters. Hold on though, not so fast. We can't just put Disney characters in a brain rotting video game that doesn't represent the company. And at the time a lot of the criticism of Video games was that it was an unhealthy habit that would waste players time and corrupt the youth. You know, like the stuff that comes along with any new entertainment medium. Disney couldn't have that criticism. And in the spirit of Epcot, the theme park, they decided to go the edutainment route. These video games could teach you something, not rot your brain. In Ron Miller's Variety article, he had also mentioned Walt Disney's dream of making maximum use of high technology and in order to both entertain and educate edutainment. And on that note, and all the future technology Miller was interested in for Disney, we were still kind of in that what would Walt do? Era. Sierra Online and Disney entered into a licensing deal to make some edutainment games featuring some of their most popular characters. The series was called Walt Disney Personal Computer Software. Inside Sierra, the company assigned their new hire, game developer Al Lowe, to take on the Disney game projects. Before joining Sierra Online in 1984, Al Lowe was a public school music teacher for over 15 years. He had a passion for both music and technology, and in the early 1980s he taught himself how to program on an Apple II computer. Using his newfound skills, he began developing and self publishing educational and family friendly games like Dragon's Keep and Troll's Tale. His work caught the attention of Sierra Online, who'd hired him to adapt those titles and eventually brought him on full time. His first new projects for Sierra were the Disney titles on the Disney side of things. Since there was no department that handled video games yet and the software was supposed to be educational, the department of the company that was connecting with Lowe and Sierra was the same department that handled products meant for schools. Educational products were more like film strips to be used in the classroom and workbooks or teacher supplies. Probably the same people in charge of the teacher center at Epcot. They didn't know much about video games, so they mostly left Al Lowe alone. The first game that Al Lowe worked on was based on Winnie the Pooh. Lowe had recently read the original Winnie the Pooh stories to his son and really wanted to capture the world of the Hundred Acre woods in a game. And that game was Winnie the Pooh. In the Hundred Acre Wood. Players explore the Hundred Acre Wood to help Winnie the Pooh and his friends by finding and returning their lost items. Each character, from Piglet to Eeyore has misplaced something important and it's up to the player to retrieve the items and bring them back to the right friend. The game features a grid based map made up of individual scenes Each representing a different part of the forest. Players use the keyboard to move north, south, east and west, navigating from screen to screen. And there are no major action elements or time limits. I mean other than this static screen with Tigger who would bounce in and scramble up the items so you might have to find them all over again. It's all about exploration, memory and simple item based puzzles. The game uses text based descriptions alongside graphics, but there's no typing. Players interact using simple command selections, making it very accessible to young players. The edutainment angle brought kid friendly interactive storytelling with creative problem solving, blending light puzzles with gentle character driven gameplay in a warm familiar setting. Winnie the Pooh was Al Lowe's personal choice, but if you got the Disney license, you gotta use Mickey and friends. The next game he worked on in the series was Mickey's Space Adventure. In Mickey's Space Adventure, players join Mickey Mouse on an interstellar quest to help an alien named XL30 from the planet Oran, whose precious memory crystal been shattered and scattered across the galaxy. Mickey, along with his pal Pluto is chosen to travel from planet to planet to recover the lost crystal pieces and restore the alien's history. This is a graphical and text hybrid adventure game where players explore various planets, choose commands like look, get or use to interact with characters and objects. And the game features colorful screens for each location and simple puzzles and aimed at younger players. As Mickey moves from planet to planet in his spaceship, players must solve the logic challenges and gather clues to find all the crystal pieces. The edutainment angle in this one is all about astronomy. Well, Mickey goes to the nine planets in our solar system. Yeah, I said nine. This was 1984. Pluto was still in the planetary crew. Well, the planet, not the dog, but the. The dog's in the game too. Anyway, when Mickey and Pluto travel to a planet, they would be presented with information and facts about the planet. To teach players about the planets in our solar system, this one has gotten Epcot Rainbow space suit Mickey energy all over it. I wish they would have had Mickey in that Epcot Rainbow spaceship in the game. That would have been awesome. Anyway, these two, Winnie the Pooh and Mickey's Space Adventure had similar gameplay and used a game engine developed by Al Lowe. They also operated similar to the High Res Adventures. That big image up top with minimal animation and some text and command options on the bottom of the screen. The next game Al Lowe developed for Disney used a completely different game engine. And that had a lot to do with some big events happening at Sierra in 1984 Sierra had released King's Quest, the cutting edge 3D animated adventure game for the IBM Jr. King's Quest was groundbreaking as the first 3D animated computer adventure game allowing players to control a character in a world with simulated depth where they could walk behind and in front of objects, something unheard of at this time. Unlike earlier text only or static graphic adventures, it combined typing commands with real time animated exploration, making it a visually immersive and interactive storytelling experience that set the standard for future adventure games. This would provide Sierra with its next level of game design and gameplay. Engine the 3D animated engine used for this game was called AGI or Adventure Game Interpreter. Al Lowe used this new game engine while working on Donald Duck's Playground In Donald Duck's Playground players would help Donald Duck earn money so he can build a playground for his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. The goal is to complete tasks, earn wages and use the money to buy playground equipment for the kids to Enjoy. It's a 3D animated computer adventure edutainment game that mixes light arcade style minigames with real world skills like counting money, telling time, and basic problem solving. Players take Donald through different jobs like working at a vegetable stand, loading freight, or organizing toy shelves, each offering a unique mini game challenge. Once Donald earns enough money, players will head to the store to purchase swings and slides or other equipment and place them piece by piece into the playground. The 3D gameplay made Donald Duck's playground fun and educational, but probably not as fun as King's Quest Adventure Game Interpreter had been designed for this high fantasy adventure. If Disney had a high fantasy adventure, it might just fit the gameplay better. Oh wait. Disney actually had just the thing. For years, Walt Disney Animation had been working on a high fantasy film based on Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain and it would finally be released to theaters for Disney in 1985, hopefully to great success in the box office. I know I'm in the future Also. Sierra, seeing this connection, used their licensing deal and got the green light to make a game for the Black Cauldron. Al Lowe, Sierra's go to Disney guy, teamed up with newly hired programmer Scott Murphy to create a team 3D animated computer adventure game themed to the Black Cauldron. Disney gave them access to background art, animation cells and music from the movie before it had even been released so that they could create a cohesive synergistic tie in game. In the summer of 1985, Black Cauldron premiered in theaters and boy did it flop. It wasn't pretty and that's sad, because the Black Cauldron was a special project to Disney CEO Ron Mil, but Disney had gone through quite a shakeup since they started working with Cyr. Ron Miller had to fight off corporate raiders and his cousin in law Roy E. Disney, but it was ultimately game over as CEO. Less than a year after his optimistic Variety article, Michael Eisner and Frank Wells took over the reins of the Walt Disney Company and brought Jeffrey Katzenberg in, who disgusted, despised the Black Cauldron. The movie was cut down and released mostly to get it out of the way of their vision of what the Walt Disney Company would become. Despite this, Sierra got to release their version of the Black Cauldron, and much like the animated film, the Black Cauldron game follows Taran, a young assistant pigkeeper, on a quest to stop the evil Horned King from using a magic cauldron to unleash an army of the undead. With the help of friends like Princess Ilanwe and Fluter Flam, Taryn must protect the oracular pig Henwin, escape danger and destroy the Cauldron before it's too late. This game blends graphic adventure with more simplified controls to appeal to younger players. The Black Cauldron uses a menu driven interface and keyboard or joystick input, allowing players to make choices without typing. The game includes multiple paths, puzzles and even alternate endings depending on player choices. This was pretty unusual for the time players explore a richly illustrated world, collect items and solve problems and try to avoid danger while progressing through the story. Unlike the movie it was based on, this game actually stood out. It was one of Sierra's more cinematic and accessible adventures and it offered a faithful adaptation to the movie and while introducing moral choices and replayability, which was, like I said, pretty rare in mid-80s adventure games. With the shakeup at Disney and the box office failure of the Black Cauldron, Sierra started to sour on licensing Disney characters. Or really any characters for that matter. Sierra found that when they licensed a character, sure they would get some recognizability that would help them sell some games, but they would also have to pay licensing fees on all of the copies of sold. Most of the money was skipping right by Sierra and going straight to Disney. Then if you had an instance like the Black Cauldron where the movie did not become so well known, they weren't going to sell as many copies as they had originally expected and they would still have to pay Disney. Sierra had one more edutainment title started for Disney that got scrapped when they decided to let the license lapse. Goofy's Word Factory was supposed to work on grammar and sentence structure where you would help Goofy build sentences in a word factory. The only thing we ever got for this game was some promotional material. Sierra decided it was just better to let the license lapse and focus on their own IP and design their own characters. Hello, Sierra's Go to Disney developer actually did a 180 and created a character for Sierra. So un Disney like but also probably one of Sierra's most famous or infamous characters ever. Leisure Suit Larry was an adult adventure game definitely too risque for Disney, but that's not the end for Disney video games. No no no. Make sure you're subscribed so that you get the next part of the story. Michael Eisner and Frank Wells had a different plan for Disney and his gaming consoles started to ris and thanks to Nintendo, Capcom was able to snag a Disney license and bring Disney gaming into the Disney decade. Don't forget to check out Sean Jack's book Dreaming in Digital for the full story on these Disney video games and more. Thanks for joining me for this look into Sierra Online and all things Disney. I'd love to stay connected with you online so you can follow me on social media to keep up with everything I'm working on. On Bluesky I'm rickhsynergy and on Facebook, Instagram and Threads I'm ynergylovescompany. Wherever you're tuning in, Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, whatever, click, follow and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And if you're enjoying this show, please, please please share it with someone who loves Disney just as much as we do. Send them a link, tag me on social, or just bring it up the next time you're chatting about your favorite ride. You can send them to synergylovescompany.com and one last thing, Synergy Loves Company is supported by listeners like you. If you like the show and would like to help keep it going, check out my new shop. You can buy shirts and products inspired by episodes and a ton of Synergy Loves Company branded merch. You can also just donate to the show if you want to give back. For the content that I share and that you enjoy, visit shop.synergylovescompany.com Every bit of support helps me continue making something special for fellow Disney fans like you. Thanks again for listening. And remember, Disney magic isn't just in the parks, it's all around us. So go out there and keep discovering the magic in everything.