March 8, 1999

By Morgan Carlson

This one goes out to Tony, Ernie, and Brian.... such tragic news has never befallen this E-mail list before. And I'm not talking about the death of Stanley Kubrick, although the Kube-Meister COULD direct a pretty mean motion picture.

MY sadness comes from the death of a lesser-known legend: Larry.... Larry Laffer.

Not very long ago, the Sierra Entertainment company suffered a huge mass of layoffs. The president (not Ken Williams, some new corporate fuck who wouldn't know King's Quest from his shiny new Mercedes) fired over 200 of Sierra's legendary creative team, in order to 'streamline' the company to focus on on-line gaming and 3-D titles. Basically, Sierra is trying to become some sort of half-assed Id Software clone, cranking out the shoot 'em ups to appease the teenage boys across the land.

One of the people laid off was my man Al Lowe, designer of a ton of computer games, and especially the 'Leisure Suit Larry' series. The man has made Sierra a big stinking pile of money, and yet he got the boot from some shiny-suited corporate goon that only sees the bottom line. Larry may not make the kind of sales he did in his prime, but I'm willing to wager that he'd outsell 'Big Explosions VI', the game with all new bullet design.

Yeah, sure, it's just computer games. But for me, that means something. People mourned the end of 'Cheers', and 'Seinfeld'..... this is along those lines for the computer gaming masses. Larry has been an icon in the industry for over a decade.... now he's getting a pink slip so that a few hyperactive fat kids can blow up aliens with their shiny new boom-sticks.

I suppose that most of you won't understand, and it's all good. But I know that my man Brian won't let Larry die without a few choice words. Anyone who wants to fight for Larry's right to party can sign the 'Save Sierra!' petition at:

http://catz.interspeed.net/lsl/petition.html

(I'd also like it if two certain chaps from Elmwood got off their ass and spoke, but since they never seem to participate in any of my suggested on-line activities, I'm NOT optimistic. You lazy bums.)

Oh well. I guess I'll just turn off the creative part of my brain and join the slavering, bloodthirsty masses.

Brains. Need.... brains. Blood. Mmmmm.....

©1999, Morgan Carlson