01/08/2004

It's been a while since Laz Rojas revealed "the True Story Behind the Collapse of WolfAddict Software" on his Wolf3d site, and it's been a while since I first read it, but I feel I would not be complete in my duties if I didn't say anything about it. If you want to read Laz's explanation of what happened, click here.

The first thing I want to say is that to the best of my knowledge, everything Laz revealed is true. I was not aware that Bruce continued to do business on his own after the incident occurred, but I'd known about the rest. I'll quote myself, from the Wolf3d page I created in May of 1998:

That was the last scenario I completed. I had begun plans for another, but then Bruce got into some naughty legal trouble and things pretty much went downhill from there. As far as I can tell, WolfAddict Software has ceased to exist.

The "naughty legal trouble" I referred to never had anything to do with id Software, and never had anything to do with MacPlay, as some people may have believed. I, too, received the e-mail that Laz referred to from Bruce's wife Jennifer. At the time, I was still in high school... what did I know about this strange subject matter that had been thrust out in front of me? Nothing, of course. I could hardly believe the whole thing, partially because I'd seen Bruce in real life and he seemed like a nice guy, and partially because he was an Internet acquaintance and I would never have thought about such things when dealing with somebody over a network.

As he had contacted Laz, he contacted me as well from his friend's house. Bruce seemed truly upset and apologetic. He said he didn't know what would happen next. Honestly, I don't remember exactly what I said to Bruce, but I'm pretty sure I didn't exactly confirm or deny whether I wanted to stay with WolfAddict (if there was any of it left). Shortly thereafter, he told me that he was being prohibited from contacting minors on the Internet.

I had no contact with Bruce after that. Shortly afterwards, I noticed that the WolfAddict Web page was down, and when I attempted to send Bruce e-mail, AOL politely told me his account no longer existed. I know that Bruce had told me some months ago that he owed me money, some figure like $20 or something (who knows if it was really more? I never asked for an exact number of registrations), but I never saw the money.

By the time I set up my Wolf3d page in May of 1998, WolfAddict had already been dead and gone for a while. That was why I decided to put up everything I'd created on the page as freeware. But in my brief telling of the WolfAddict story, I decided to leave out these last few details, because I didn't think it was entirely appropriate to say. I felt it would be the wrong thing to do... I'm not quite sure why. I felt that even if Bruce never saw my page, it would be disrespectful to reveal something like that to the world, and that it may be better if it stayed a rumor forever.

So when I saw Laz write publicly about what really happened, I was quite shocked. Here was A Dark Secret that only a select few of us knew about, transformed into public knowledge in the blink of an eye. Am I offended or upset that Laz released the information? Well, not really; it's been a really long time, and someone probably would have found out eventually anyway. But I don't think I ever would have told the world what really happened.

My final thoughts: I don't know where Bruce is now, but wherever he is, I hope he's well, feeling regret and learning from his mistake--but at the same time, moving forward with his life. I also hope he contacts me again someday.