Aztech New Media Corp.

Aztech New Media Corporation was a Canadian-based software company created in 1992 which established itself as a seller of shareware compilations via CD-ROM. By 1997, the company website claimed that Aztech was a multi-million dollar company selling more than fifty products in over six thousand retail locations "across North America and more than 25 countries world wide". They also claimed that they did everything in-house, from design, marketing, packaging, and development, to scanning, as well as CD-ROM pre-mastering.

One of Aztech's earliest shareware collections, released in 1994, was The Home Entertainment Cube (also known as The Home Entertainment Collection), a massive compilation of shareware games and entertainment titles packaged across seven CDs. Aztech would eventually follow up on this collection with additional "Cubes" collecting hundreds of shareware titles for DOS, Windows, and Macintosh.

Beginning in 1995, Aztech released the first MacCube collection, which, according to Aztech reached #1 in sales for August of 1996 (citing PC Data's "Hit List" for that month). Aztech followed up in 1997 by producing new "Cubes" for the PC, including The Kids Cube, The Kids Win Cube and The Hall of Fame Games Cube, among others. They also produced two additional "Cubes" for the Macintosh, including More MacCube and MacCubed³.

During this time, Aztech was also able to produce compilations of fully licensed games for the Macintosh known as "MacPacks". They released four such compilations, which included many major titles such as 7th Guest, Descent, King's Quest VII, Heroes of Might and Magic, Command & Conquer, and Return to Zork, as well as the only Macintosh release of Shock Wave 2 (released as "Shockwave Assault 2"). One such collection, MacPack Attack, in October 1996 placed #3 on "Mac Games Best Selling List" according to Aztech (again citing PC Data).

Aztech did not confine themselves to computer game software. They also sold application software packages for Publishing, Multimedia, and Art & Design, published a tabletop role-playing manual ("The Power"), and funded the development of a novel gaming device known as "The Slammer". "The Slammer" was a buzzer device which plugged into a PC and which Aztech claimed "does for Trivia Games what the joystick does for Flight Simulation.". "The Slammer" originally retailed for $49.99, and came bundled with two games: You Don't Know Jack and Jeopardy. Unfortunately, "The Slammer" was a commercial failure, with investment in "The Slammer" having contributed to the company failing to record a profit in 1998.

Despite this setback, 1997 had seen Aztech New Media reach an agreement with Blizzard Entertainment Inc., making them one of only two companies authorised to create add-on missions for StarCraft in the form of StarCraft: Insurrection. On March 11, 1998, Aztech New Media became a publicly traded company on the Alberta Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol "ANM".

Personnel listed in the company's corporate report as of 1997 included: Founder and President Christopher Seepe, Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President Rene Pardo, Chairman Bernie Klein (former President and Chairman of Sanyo Canada), and Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Alan Bass.

By 2000, Aztech's website had closed down and, in 2001, their domain was acquired by Aztech Systems, an unrelated company based in Singapore.

Sources* Aztech New media homepage (1997) * Aztech product page for "The Slammer" (1997) * Aztech New Media corporate information (1997) * Aztech New Media corporate information (1998)