No hard feelings...

[upintheattic]

I was certainly volunteering my services much of the time, though I only found out about it after the fact. Toward the end I got tired of not getting paid, and I told him I'd be working for Paula until he paid me. That usually got me paid promptly. But at the very end I wasn't getting paid at all; I was just cashing checks from the stack he'd sent me to pay back loans I'd floated him. Working to produce revenue for him so that he'd have enough money to pay back loans made no sense; he owed me the money anyway, so why should I work for it? So I quit and kept cashing the loan checks.

As for why they should be struggling to right the ship, I didn't think they'd be able to and that's one of the reasons why I left. I'm amazed they've lasted this long, and I congratulate them on their new releases. But publishing hex-and-counter wargames as a fulltime job is not a winning proposition in this day and age. We wargamers are a small niche market and a rapidly aging one at that, and almost the entire industry has left us behind--even GMT is getting into producing computer games now. The world doesn't run on paper anymore and the future lies in the tablet or smartphone in the palm of one's hand, not on a game board. There will always be board wargamers, but enough of them to support a for-profit company with fulltime employees? I doubt it. Outfits like GMT and Victory Point Games are doing very well because they're hobby shops, not companies that have to pay salaries big enough to support people with families. They can pour all their revenues into producing new games because their people have day jobs, and that's why they work. AP should have gone down that road a long time ago, IMO.