Sierra (now owned by Activision Blizzard) only approached Lori and Corey Cole, designer and programmer respectively, to remake a Quest for Glory game once since the game was released in March 1989 even though the tandem desires to “make upgraded versions” of the games. The reason for the lack of remakes, apparently, is due to ancient Sierra’s stance that remakes didn’t make money.
“Only once — when Sierra had us remake the original [Hero’s Quest],” Corey Cole told me via e-mail when asked if Sierra ever approached him. “They envisioned it as a faster, cheaper alternative to creating an entire new game. However, it actually cost more to make than the original, and almost as much as a full game.”
“Interestingly, although most of Sierra’s VGA remakes were unprofitable, QG1 VGA was a notable exception. I believe it actually sold more units than the original game. However, by that point, Sierra management had a picture that remakes did not make money, so ours was one of the last.”
Naturally, the Coles are interested in making more Quest for Glory games. Hit the break for the full interview (questions answered by Corey Cole) and learn about how they envision the upgraded versions, how they wanted to do expansion packs for Quest for Glory 5, what they change if they could Quest for Glory all over again and their thoughts on current adventure games. Would you like to go back to Quest for Glory?
Yes. We’d love to make upgraded versions of the first three games as Lucas is doing with The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition. It would be even more exciting to have the opportunity to create additional games in the series. In our Sierra days, we discussed three possible directions that could go – expansion packs to QG5 set in the Mediterranean, an entirely new series set in Asia, or a massively multiplayer online game. Since then, World of Warcraft has demonstrated that an MMO based on a popular game can be hugely successful, but we would not have been able to get that level of budget while we were at Sierra. Except for Quest for Glory 5, all of our Sierra games cost well under $1 million to develop. An MMO can cost $10-$20 million or more and has no guarantee of earning that investment back.
Is there anything you would change about Quest for Glory?
We would have spent more time on each game to ensure it was entirely bug-free before release. Most of the games in the series were developed in under a year, which did not leave enough time for testing.
Given the mythical unlimited budget, we might have developed the series the way Peter Jackson filmed Lord of the Rings — by filming all three movies at the same time, he managed to get perfect continuity between them. Because the QG games were developed over a period of 10 years, the first two seem dated and need special software to run properly on current computers. We always intended that players would play the same character through all of the games, beginning to end. Together they tell a bigger story than we could fit in a single game.
Do you enjoy current adventure games?
Actually, we don’t play them. The only game we both play regularly is World of Warcraft. The last adventure games we played were LucasArt’s Monkey Island and Indiana Jones series. We tried the demo version of a recent episodic adventure game and got stuck very quickly. On the whole, we prefer role-playing games to traditional adventure games, which is why we made Quest for Glory a hybrid of the two types. I (Corey) also like some strategy games, such as Heroes of Might and Magic, Civilization, and so on, although I haven’t been playing those recently. I still regularly play live bridge and online poker. Those games are timeless.
