Bruce Ryder

Founder of WolfAddict Software and former Wolfenstein modder and businessman. Also invented the pseudonym "Reuben Andajetsky" in order to populate the WolfAddict roster, according to yyr.

## WolfAddict's Downfall and Legal Issues

### DOOMenstein Legal Issues

WolfAddict Software was a company that already existed on the legally shaky ground of selling Wolfenstein mods, tutorials, and editing software. The company was kept legit by selling their mods as "scenario" files or patches that required a buyer to already own a copy of Wolfenstein 3D on the Mac in order to play.

In 1996 Ryder released his First Encounter mod DOOMenstein for retail preinstalled on The First Encounter, an action which resulted in WolfAddict being contacted by MacPlay. Despite Ryder initially agreeing to not distribute the game preinstalled on The First Encounter, MacPlay demanded that any mods sold by WolfAddict by sold specifically as "scenario" files that would require the full registered version of The Third Encounter to play. After Burger Bill Heineman, working as a go-between, laid out these stipulations, Ryder and fellow WolfAddict developer Laz Rojas turned their attention toward Doom wads and Third Encounter scenarios. They released WolfAddict's First Encounter mods as free patches to ensure that any mods WolfAddict profited from would require MacPlay to have already made their profit in sales of Second and Third Encounter.

Despite MacPlay's supposing that WolfAddict's First Encounter mods were what were hindering Third Encounter sales, those sales did not improve when WolfAddict restricted their catalog to Third Encounter scenarios. Consequently, as Third Encounter sales dropped, so too did WolfAddict's now Third Encounter reliant sales. According to Rojas, Ryder had offered MacPlay a deal in which MacPlay would distribute The Third Encounter prepackaged with several WolfAddict scenarios to boost sales but this offer ultimately went ignored.

### Personal Legal Troubles and Alleged Sexual Misconduct with Minors

On an unknown date, members of WolfAddict received an email from Ryder's wife Jennifer informing them that she had expelled Bruce from her house after she learned he had molested her young daughters (his stepdaughters).

According to Laz Rojas, Ryder then contacted him via email from a friend's house to confirm the accusations which resulted in Rojas resigning from the company despite Ryder's pleas for him to stay aboard. Though Rojas is unsure whether or not Ryder had contacted other members of WolfAddict about this, yyr later contributed a write-up confirming much of what Rojas had said, including the accusations of Ryder's sexual misconduct.

Ryder allegedly did not serve jail time for molesting his stepdaughters but was required to undergo therapy and was henceforth prohibited from selling games to, or contacting in any way, minors over the internet. Rojas suggests that *this* is what ultimately resulted in WolfAddict ending as a business, because the founder of the business was no longer able to sell products over the internet. At this point, WolfAddict could not legally function.

### Persistence, Betrayal, and Disappearance

While Bruce had been between homes after being kicked out by his wife, he had given Laz Rojas a password to his personal AOL account so Rojas could help manage some personal and business affairs as long as Ryder's ability to reach the internet was tenuous. Rojas performed this duty for Ryder until he had resigned, but Ryder had not since changed his password.

Sometime after Ryder had received his order to stay off the internet and WolfAddict had ceased functioning, Rojas signed into Ryder's personal AOL account in response to an intuited suspicion. In doing so, Rojas allegedly found that Ryder had not only been contacting people on the internet against the judge's orders, but was using his personal email to sell scenarios and software created by the WolfAddict team and pocketing the money for himself. Rojas contacted Greg Ewing, the creator of WolfEdit 2 on Mac, to inform him that Ryder was still selling his software. Rojas then contacted Ryder to let him know that his scheme and threatened to sue. After that, Rojas stopped hearing from Ryder.

In Laz Rojas's own words: "I had every right to sue him for violation of my contract, but that would have been the least of his problems. As soon as it became evident that he had violated the court order barring him from selling games on the Internet and having contact with minors, he would have received a jail sentence for sure. Selling his own scenarios would have been enough to land him in serious legal trouble. Selling my scenarios, along with Greg's program, would have just added more weight to the trouble."

While it appears that Ryder has disappeared for good, Rojas has mentioned that it was brought to his attention that somebody had surfaced at one point using one of Ryder's pseudonyms from the WolfAddict days. Rojas did not, however, investigate further.

## DOS mods

* Astrostein (3-Level Demo Version)
* Doomenstein

## Mac scenarios

* Doomenstein
* Finder Mike
* GRUNT!
* The Courtyard

## MacWolf Editing Tutorials

* Wolf-Aid [1] (requires an old Mac computer or an emulator such as Basilisk Ii or Sheepshaver)

## References

1. ↑ yyr's Post-Mortem of his experiences with Ryder and WolfAddict
2. ↑ The True Story Behind The Collapse of WolfAddict Software written by Laz Rojas
3. ↑ yyr's Response to Laz's write-up