A member of InfoDope's crack investigative team, penetrated the iron-clad human resources department at Triton, and managed to get hired. Once inside, he sniffed around alot and nosed his way into things nobody was to know, all-the-while appearing to toe the line. As expected, his reports show that Triton is but a front for a drug and stolen merchandise ring.
Apparently, orders placed on a special 800 number had nothing to do with software. When a "customer" ordered GHOSTBUSTERS on this number, he would be shipped a half gram of heroin and could charge the $100 price to his Visa or Mastercard. Liewise, MINDSHADOW orders were filled with Mescaline, ALTER EGO with Hashish oil, SPINDIZZY with Valium, TASS TIMES IN TONETOWN with Barbituarates, and ZOIDS with LSD. TOP FUEL ELIMINATOR seems to be one of many codes for ordering cocaine. The most expensive item on this special order form was HOWARD THE DUCK at $35,000 for a kilo of white powder.
Drug accessories are also sold through Triton. GARRY KITCHEN'S GAMEMAKER KIT is actually a crack laboratory in a box. I AM THE C128 customers receive a collection of drug paraphernalia, including a bong, a coke bullet, and a computer shaped roach clip.
Gamestar products sold through Triton are actually stolen jewelry, and it is still unconfirmed that Infocom boxes shipped from Triton contain counterfeit currency.
Triton apparently uses Activision employees to pick up some of the merchandise when they are "on vacation" in such tourist hotspots as Peru, Ecuador, and Brazil.
The big question, of course, is Does Activision know. Activision honcho Bruce Davis was unavailable for comment. Newly hired Director of Direct Marketing, Luigi "Big Looie" Clamari, was quite broken up at hearing the news, sniffling loudly, obviously in tears, during a brief telephone conversation.
National Football League players, Chicago teachers, and Boston school bus drivers have just been joined on the picket line by strikers from a different quarter. Infocom, Inc. has announced that the development department, affectionately known as the "imps," has taken a vote to join the Teamsters (Local 42) and has gone out on strike effective immediately.
The striking imps are demanding higher wages, more bagel days, a shorter work week, free agency, better benefits, royalties, and no Friday Party duty. Management has been tough on the imps' demands, looking at bagels as the only point where they might give in.
Tuesday Imp lunches are generally a time of light-hearted talk over nectar and ambrosia. Last week, talk turned tough as the Imps, in their monthly union meeting took a strike vote against Infocom. Union rep Steve Meretzky read a prepared statement to the press explaining the Imps Union disgruntlement with management over such issues as free agency, overtime, benefits, and bagels.
The striking Imps set up picket lines outside 125 CambridgePark Drive carrying signs proclaiming "Info Unfair!" and "More Bagels, More Freedom!" Picket lines by sympathetic Teamsters were set up in Cresskill, NJ, Mountain View, CA, Menlo Park, CA, and Upper Sandusky, OH (just for the hell of it). Back in Cambridge, Infocom's Micro Systems Group and Testing Department refused to cross the picket line in a show of solidarity with the Imps.
Chris Reeve, InfoVice Pres of Development explained that management has been trying to get the Imps to the bargaining table for months, but they refused to come. Dave Lebling, an Imp Union leader, hearing this, exclaimed, "He's full of grueshit. Trying to talk with management is like a bad wizard trying to nitfol. It just doesn't happen. They've been stubborn for months and haven't once even approached anything vaguely resembling a bargaining table."
Mike Dornbrook, InfoMarketing Director, the most vocal of management explained later that Beyond Zork, Border Zone, Sherlock, Infocomics, and a host of other games are in danger. But management has a plan should the Imps stage a long strike.
"Bring on the NURDs!" shouted Gabrielle Accardi, InfoSales Development Manager. NURDs are Non Union Replacement Designers that management plans to employ on a per game basis if the Imps stay on strike. Management plans to bring in the NURDs through the steam tunnels from 150 CambridgePark Drive, thereby avoiding a possible confrontation with the Imps. Plans are also set to release "replacement games" for those that are endangered by the strike.
"Beyond Bork" would be the tale of a misguided judge, written by Robert Bork, who was a tester at Infocom, but when he couldn't get a job as an Imp, quit and went on to Yale Law School. "Sort of Groan" is a game about East-West Summit meeting in the late 1980's that will be written by Frank Blank, a distant cousin of Marc Blank, the designer of "Border Zone." Unconfirmed rumors also exist that InfoManagement has contacted Michael Bywater as a potential NURD.
In a flagrant violation of company policy and good taste, the Imps have booby-trapped the 20 with all sorts of witty sayings to disrupt the flow of replacement games, but thus far there has been no violence.