The Sun

Press cutting added by Ste Pickford on Sun, 01 Aug 2004
Subject: Pickford Bros.

© 2002 News Group Newspapers Limited.

This is an article in the business section of British tabloid newspaper The Sun, about the announcement of Zed Two's sell out to Warthog in December 2002.

I was shocked when I received a phone call from the financial editor of the biggest selling national newspaper in Britain asking for a photo, and a bit of background info, after we issued a press release announcing the sale of Zed Two to Warthog in late 2002. I couldn't understand why what was a small story even in the world of video games would warrant any attention in the wider world of big business and finance. I expected that they'd squeeze a little inch high column in the corner about us on what must have been a slow news day, or worse have some dreadful angle on what a bad deal Warthog had done signing this bunch of idiots, but I was pleasantly surprised to find our press release expanded to become a full page success story.

Although we'd seen our names in print in various video game mags before, it was quite exciting being in the 'real' media - in a paper that my mum and dad or their friends might read - but the downside was that everyone thought that we were now rich (I felt this in the hearty hand-shake and congratulations I received from the guy who sat in front of me at football, who'd never spoken to me before).

Of course we weren't actually paid £1.5m, nor were we supposed to be; we were to get shares in Warthog capped at that value based on our future profits, but Warthog closed the studio down before we got the chance to fulfill our potential (we were profitable when they shut us down).

Guess how many shares Warthog eventually paid us for our company? Clue - the number begins with the letter 'z', and its not a zillion...

Tags: biz, newspaper

Follow up post: Manchester Evening News, Wetrix+

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