#gaming

Sierra's catalog — Half-Life, Homeworld, Tribes, plus the adventure canon — reads like a modern major's. The brand is a dormant trademark inside Microsoft. Two distinct forces explain the gap: a financial collapse and a market shift, routinely mistaken for one story.

The crash erased ~97% of the US video game market in two years. Players hadn't stopped wanting games — Atari lost control of who could publish, the shelves filled with junk, and trust collapsed. Nintendo won by re-imposing the gate.