Why no Gabriel Knight Collection?
 

Can we persuade Sieera to relese a Gabriel Knight Collection? I'm thinking that with Grey Matter being released next year, that there might be a renewed interest in all things Jane Jensen.

Is there any way to e-mail to otherwise contact Sierra?

I'm not really suprised that they didn't release a GK collection. Adventure games don't have any priority anymore at Vivendi. Just take a look at the current collections: bad documentation, crappy installation instructions, no KQ8 (up for debate :)), no LSL7 etc.

I don't know why they didn't release a GK collection, but I can tell you one thing:

The head honcho's at Vivendi are idiots! Yes, I said idiots!

Well, there is a collection, isn't there? A three in one box, quite large, probably without any fancy toys, but still, it exists, or what are you refering to? Perhaps it's out of print, are you refering to a new one?

edit: I could only find boxes with the two first games, so I might have mixed it up. My memory is not a good source so I'll keep quiet. :)

There was a collection pre-Gabriel Knight III, with the first two games, the novel and the soundtrack CD.

Good question: why were the "final" tally of games never collected?

I have no idea, personally. Did the final game come out as classical Sierra was in its death throes - a lack of time? Or... ?

I often get the feeling that some publishers treat their custumers as a core of fans, or a community of adventure game-nerds. To me, adventure must be the game type that suites the broadest group of consumers, why not put a little more effort and cleverness in marketing and sales? :r

Probably they think they can't earn that much of money. So they don't care about the "few" adventure fans out there. If we were more fans, and more important perhaps, if we spend more money on buying new adventure games, then maybe they would change and release Gabriel Knight Collection, Quest for Glory Anthology, Manhunter, Laura Bow, Phantasmagoria and better (and complete) LSL, KQ, PQ and SP collections

and maybe then they wouldn't out source the project to a company with no idea what they were doing...

maybe actually provide <gasp> real manuals!

... jewel cases!

.....dare I say... BONUS MATERIAL???

Instead we get paper sleeves in cheap card board boxes and 90 page PDF manuals that don't even always match the version of the game on the disc (Im looking at you LSL2)

This is a very good question since there have recently been released Kings Quest-, Police Quest-, Leisure Suit Larry- and Space Quest-collection. Why not Gabriel Knight? :shifty:

Or a QFG collection?!?!?

because they were able to squeeze all those games on 1 to 2 cd's.

The gabriel knight series on the other hands would span 10 cd's (and they are reluctant to make dvd only games still).

10 cd's would cost... oh, I don't know... 50 cents more? Another 50 cents for the time to burn them.... and dont forget another 5-10 cents for all those paper sleeves.

My gosh, they would have lost over a dollar if they did that!!!

You probably are responsible for several heart attacks at Vivendi with that one...

Probably because Gabriel Knight isn't as old as the other games...I believe GK3 was Sierra's last adventure game (quite a good note to end on, actually).

I always found it a bit ironic that GK3 showed so much innovation and had so many ideas for how adventure gaming could successfully leap to 3D in the future, yet it was the last game they made. Think about it! They used that G-Engine for ONE adventure game and then buried it in the company archives. What a waste of excellent technology! I mean, can you imagine if they'd continually updated that engine and licensed it? The current version would be incredible.

...sorry about that. Anyway, a Gabriel Knight collection would also eat up 10 cds...probably a few more than the other collections. Lord knows that a GK DVD would limit their market and cost too much extra.

But it really is stupid of them...its frustrating for me to see they have this content, this award-winning, beloved, content they could easily profit from, but they completely ignore it. A GK collection could catch eyes with all the awards its won.

First off.. I have to disagree that GK3 was a 'successful' example of a 3d adventure game. The graphics were horrid, the lighting nonexistant, and everything looked very bland. The story was great - but the game would have been much better if it hadn't been forced into that 3d mold.

Second, If you go back and read the thread you'd see that only 3 posts ago I already mentioned the 10 cd requirement.

Third - when vivendi went to re-release those old games they only did it due to the fact they all ran in dosbox. They purposefully left out games that were windows based (lsl6 talkie, kq7 win, kq6 win [with high res portraits], and even totally leaving out lsl7).

Considering that gk1 is the only game dosbox could have run, that doesn't equal much of a collection by itself now does it?

I think the reason that GK wasn't released is because they don't have all the necessary rights to make a collection out of the games. Doesn't Jenson own the rights to all the GK stuff? Of course, the other reason is that it would take up numerous CDs (as others have stated) and they probably don't think many people are interested in a series that is based almost completely on the story (unlike, say SQ or LSL, which are more of a humour type game).

Nope. Sierra always retained the rights for all of the characters, names, locations, etc. in the games that they made.

That's the reason why Jane Jensen is making Grey Matter as opposed to Gabriel Knight 4.

Can someone enlighten me why a DVD-collection isn't even an option? :crazy:

Large Publishers want to maximize their profits. So, they look at statistics. Statistically, computer owners with CD drives largely outnumber those with DVD drives. So, based on those statistics, they don't want to release a product that won't potentially reach the most users possible.

Tell that to Steam's hardware survey.

I would say steam is not an accurate representation of people with computers.

People running steam either specifically got it by buying HL2 or stumbled across it by trying to play one of the lesser known titles distributed by it.

Out of the number of consumers that have steam, it is safe to assume that most of them also have broadband (ever tried getting anything off there without it?)

Just because most steam users have broadband internet does not mean a majority of the country (or the world) has that as well.

Besides, consumers with steam are already gamers. Many people who own a pc are not. Gamers typically have higher end pc's, as it is one of the most resource hogging applications of a computer.

So again - it's not an accurate represenation of the entire consumer base.