I got a call from Activision a few days ago. They're trying to put together a 300 game pack, and since most big retailers now refuse to stock shareware packs (as it pisses off customers), they're interested in my games to pad the number out to the magic 300. To quote my old project manager for Expert "Yeah, John might be interested in making more games for us, but I don't think hell will be freezing over anytime soon".
I'm still amazed at how badly Activision botched the Expert buy. It took them almost two years to complete the Expert acquisition, and that process basically consisted of dropping all of Expert's products, changing the name to "Activision Value", and re-releasing about 10% of the products without even upgrading the packaging. Expert's shelf-space in major retailers, which is the main reason Activision wanted 'em, disappeared within three months of the buy. Activision basically paid $23 million for a couple-dozen minor titles that they can't put on the shelves.
Anyway, when pitching the 300-game pack, their first question was whether or not any of my games violate any Hasbro copyrights. They've never even seen 'em!
Sheesh.
Got my taxes done yesterday. Dunno why I wanted to get 'em done so early this year, but they're done. Maybe I'll take Presidents' Day off in celebration.
