About

Description

The Sierra Chest is a fan site, dedicated to preserving the legacy of the gaming giant Sierra through its many incarnations - from its early days as On-Line Systems through its golden years as Sierra On-Line, as well as through its tumultuous times as subsidiary of CUC, Cendant, Havas and Vivendi, and stretching to the present day as recently revived branch of the Activision portfolio. Covering over three decades of Sierra products, history and more in staggering detail, collaborating with numerous fan sites, developers and Sierra alumni, as well as offering a wide range of community features, the Sierra Chest is the most encompassing Sierra fan site known in existence, growing continuously with new site additions and providing the latest updates in the magical world of Sierra.

Brief history

Following the merger between Vivendi Games and Activision in 2008, and upon learning that the Sierra brand and official forums would soon cease to exist, life-long Sierra fan, collector and former forum moderator Rudy Marchant launched the Sierra Chest on October 11 2008. Lacking the knowledge on how to build a website, he called in the help of programmer Bojan Arah to build the initial code and had it hosted on a mere 120MB of available space. Originally only featuring video walkthroughs, text walkthroughs, a handful of screen shots and a forum, the site dramatically expanded its scope over the years with the addition of biographies, game credits, box art, trailers and demos. Requiring more hosting space, it moved to a different host in February 2010, quickly growing to 10GB and beyond. Further expansions to the site, including the addition of a music player and publications section, as well as overall code upgrades were conducted by Britton Mathews.

Meanwhile the Sierra Chest forums had been taken down in preference of a Facebook group through which Rudy made contact and became acquainted with many more fans, as well as Sierra alums and indie game developers, often collaborating on cross-promotion and forming strong relations and personal friendships over the years, as well as serving as admin of Ken and Roberta Williams' Sierra Gamers for a number of years and participating in various other Sierra-related projects.

The Sierra Chest's biggest upgrade however was yet to come. Moving away from the outdated look and functionality of the original Sierra Chest (pictured), in late 2016 the site was upgraded to version 2: Legacy of the Half-Dome, featuring a whole new interface, accessibility on mobile devices and a range of brand new community features.

Sierra Chest Classic



Ken and Roberta Williams with Sierra Chest founder Rudy Marchant


Credits


Design & Content: Rudy Marchant
Programming: Rudy Marchant, Britton Mathews, Bojan Arah
Graphics Rodrigo Martin Campo, Eriq Chang, Chris Ushko, Ryan Richardson, Daniele Payne, Santi, Pinky, Ragnarox, Emmanuel Lasa, Rudy Marchant
Hardware Support Bojan Kotur, Britton Mathews, Edi Rupnik
Backup Tom Logue, Joshua McMillin, Josh Henry, Britton Mathews
Community support Rudy Marchant, Brad Herbert, Brandon Klassen, Andrew Branscom
Contributors & Special Thanks Jessica Ackerman, Ken Allen, Jess Beebe, Chuck Benton, Cesar Bittar, Brandon Blume, Andrew Branscom, Signore Buccheli, James Carey, Eriq Chang, Corey & Lori Cole, Tyson Y. Cote, Bill Crow, Jean-Baptiste de Clerfayt, Matt Detullio, Konstantinos Dimopoulos, Ronald Dragstra, George Esparza, Robert Fischer, Scot Forbes, James Gavin, Alistair Gillett, Travis Givan, Sven Groot, Katie Hallahan, Hilmar Hallbjornsson, Weldon Hathaway, Scott Hawkins, Josh Henry, Brad Herbert, Douglas Herring, Richard Hescox, Robert Holmes, J. Mark Hood, Nicolas Huck, Marc Hudgins, Jeffrey Huffine, Michael Hutchison, Moritz Jacob, Jane Jensen, Brandon Klassen, Matt Korba, Axel Kothe, Robert Lindsley, Andy Linnenkohl, Randy Littlejohn, Tom Logue, Al Lowe, Lori Lucia, Jane Magyar, Josh Mandel, Christy Marx, Joshua McMillin, Omer Mor, Dave Morrow, Andrea Morstabilini, Serena Nelson, Karin Nestor, Troels Pleimert, Chris Pope, Richard Powell, Scott Rashleigh, Christopher Ray, Mark Seibert, Samwise, Michael Shaw, Bill Shockley, Shyranis, Damon Slye, Alessandro Socci, Eli Tomlinson, Jeff Tunnell, Lovro Turk, Chris Ushko, Donald Waller, Jim Walls, Scott Ward, Pascal Welsing, John Williams, Ken & Roberta Williams, Chris Willis, Lynda Wilson, Dan Woolard, Scott Youngblood
Very Special Thanks Sierra On-Line and affiliates, Britton Mathews, Ken and Roberta Williams, and the Sierra community.

Website stats

Website launch: 2008/10/11
Total games: 817
- Individual titles: 692 (156 completed)
- Collections/compilations: 125
Screenshots: 34,092 across 165 games
Releases: 1,972
- Physical: 1,920 across 658 games
- Digital: 52
Songs: 6,902 across 249 games
Trailers/non-interactive demos: 272
Playable demos: 177