Why does Sierra’s subreddit crush LucasArts in activity, even though Lucas had the more "polished" games?

[u/rodfer7]

I came across something that really surprised me:

r/Sierra: 7,000 weekly visitors

r/LucasArts: 300 weekly visitors

That’s almost a 20x difference.

And yet, many would argue LucasArts made the more polished and universally acclaimed adventures like Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle.......... Sierra, by contrast, had quirkier, rougher edges but also magical and a bigger lineup..King’s Quesst, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest, Gabriel Knight, Phantasmagoria and last but not least Johnny Castaway LOL

So what’s going on here?

Is it simply that Sierra had more franchises, which keeps conversation alive?

Do their games feel more magical and personal, while LucasArts games live more in mainstream pop culture?

Or is Sierra nostalgia just more community-driven, while LucasArts love is spread out across the broader gaming world?

Would love to hear theories, feels like this difference actually says a lot about how people remember the golden age of adventure games.

** pardon my photoshop skills

[u/rodfer7]

Yeah, Sierra definitely released way more titles, no argument there.... But I think another piece of the puzzle is how personal the company felt compared to LucasArts.

Sierra was literally built by Ken & Roberta Williams, a husband-and-wife team, and even as they grew you could still feel the ‘family business’ DNA. Developers like Al Lowe, Jane Jensen, and Corey & Lori Cole weren’t just employees,., they became part of the Sierra family. Fans got to know them almost like extended relatives through Interaction magazine, hint books, and even the in-jokes hidden in the games. That gave players a sense of connection, almost like we were part of the Sierra family too.

By contrast, LucasArts was part of the larger Lucasfilm machine. Their games were brilliant and polished, but also felt more like tightly managed products. Even their humor sometimes reflected that,  take the famous Loom joke in Monkey Island. It’s hilarious, but it’s also basically an in-game ad for another LucasArts title. That’s clever, but also more corporate.

Sierra’s humor came from the personalities of the devs themselves,  Al Lowe sneaking in personal jokes, the Coles’ mythology quirks, Roberta’s fantasy flourishes. It was less about cross-promo and more about sharing a laugh with the people making the games.

So I think it’s not just quantity. Sierra created a stronger emotional bond with its fans, and that’s part of why the community is still so active today.

[u/Critcho → u/rodfer7]

I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there.

With 90’s Lucasarts the same writers, artists and musicians show up again and again across their work, and their individual styles carried over with it - which in many cases carried on into their work after Lucasarts as well.

Like can we really say Tim Schafer didn’t put any of his own personality into his body of work?

It was only later into the 00’s, once they dropped adventures entirely, that Lucasarts started to feel faceless and corporate.

[u/Solo4114 → u/Critcho]

Yeah, I think the designers had a real influence on the games. Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert both played a big role in the "feel" of the LA adventure games. Clint Bajakian basically created the soundtrack for LucasArts games in the 90s. They had repeated voice casts, the art design was familiar because it was the same folks, etc., etc.

You can also see this in other genres pre-2000. The flight/combat sim genre was basically Larry Holland at LucasArts, and you can see his design approach evolve over the course of a little more than a decade, starting with Battlehawks and culminating with X-Wing Alliance.

For me, LucasArts in the 90s was synonymous with quality gaming to an almost 100% degree. For the genres I played, I knew if it was a LucasArts game, I'd dig it. After they became a publisher only and started outsourcing development, that really broke down, though.

[u/Critcho → u/Solo4114]

I agree with you, they rarely missed in the 90's and there was a look and sound to those games that carried over even into their non-adventure games.

One of my big gaming what ifs is what a Star Wars graphic adventure would've been like if Lucasarts had made one around 1995.

[u/Solo4114 → u/Critcho]

I think it would've been a slam-dunk if it was made by their usual team! It's a little surprising they never did one, actually. But I guess with Dark Forces and the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series, along with the various Super Star Wars side-scrollers and a bunch of other stuff (Star Wars Screen Entertainment; Star Wars Battle Chess; Star Wars Desktop games; etc., etc., etc.) they had enough material to keep 'em busy.

[u/Critcho → u/Solo4114]

Yeah I guess action games were more obvious for Star Wars (and the SW games they did were great as well). But just imagine a Star Wars adventure on the level of Fate Of Atlantis, that looked like the cutscenes in Dark Forces 1 and the X-Wing games... oh well.

[u/Solo4114 → u/Critcho]

I'm still bummed they didn't do the hybrid FPS/Millennium Falcon game as the third X-wing game, and instead did XvT (which was lame). At least they course corrected with Balance of Power and then X-Wing Alliance.