ScumSoft Corporation

ScumSoft Corporation (aka ScumSoft, Inc) is a subsidiary of Vohaul Enterprises located on the Ortega moon of Pestulon.

Background

The diabolical Scumsoft is a sleazy, money-hungry computer cartridge software company. Employees spend their programming careers having to 'sell out' their talents to churn out second-rate cartridge arcade games. They make both console and arcade videogames games, and occasional PC floppy games. But have also been known to work on operating systems and in some cases computer bios software, and other hardware devices.

They were known for flops such as Stuntflogger, Aquatron and Scumword.

Roger Wilco had damaged the company's reputation (it had shakey reputation to begin with), when he saved the Two Guys from Andromeda. years later, the CEO of Scumsoft, Elmo Vohaul Pug was the laughingstock around the company in the final days of the company.

Following events of events of Space Quest 6, during the Space Quest VII (time sector), merged with D.U.D. Software.

ScumSoft would apparently see some sort of a comeback in later years including the Space Quest X era. They were apparently involved with publishing or distributing of Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (ScumSoft) and SpaceQuest IV Hintbook for Sierra's future market, as well as associated with a number of other business ventures.

By SQ12 era, Elmo Pug was too involved in his accounting books and pirated software to exact the kind of revenge Vohaul had done to Xenon. Roger figured he'd just sell him a phony hint book or something if he wanted to get back at him.

The Scumsoft School of Game Design (Scumsoft SGD) and ScumWorld Arcade are subsidiaries of Scumsoft.

Employees

• Elmo Vohaul Pug
• Phil Phudge
• Two Guys From Andromeda
• Ken
• Rick
• Mojo Ricci
• Nerds & Fink
• Pirates of Pestulon
• Buckazoid Bill
• Scums
• Pencilhead
• Pencilhead Number 2
• Sammy SlideRule

Divisions

• ScumSoftSoftware
• ScumSoft Galactic HQ
• Scumsoft School of Game Design
• ScumWorld Arcade
• ScumSoftWorld Theme Park
• Technoid division
• ScumSoft Security
• Accounting Department (corporate accounting department )
• Programming Department
• Sanitation Engineering Supply Depot HQ
• Elmo Pug's Office
• Nukem Dukem Arena
• Scum Soft vehicle bay.
• Pirates of Pestulon

Games

• Astro Chicken
• Ms. Astro Chicken
• Astro Chicken 3: Henhouse of Doom
• Chicken Quest
• Tic-Tac-Toe Construction Set
• Cluck Egger's Advanced Chicken Simulator
• Stuntflogger
• Aquatron
• Scumword
• Checkerboard Construction Set
• Battle Cruiser
• Stooge Fighter 3
• Bring Me the Head of Roger Wilco--Only He Can Heal My Broken Heart (found on the Leisure Suit Larry 4 disks)
• Hoyle program (stolen/distributed from Sierra)
• Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers (distributed or produced for Sierra (Sierra Cosmos On-Line) by ScumSoft)

Movies

• The Last Stoogefighter

Other products

• 8086 BIOS Copyright (C) Stardate 12.245.67 Scumsoft, Inc.
• Nukem Dukem Robots
• Egg-o-Doom
• Astro Chicken Egg Timer

Behind the Scenes

The name "ScumSoft" is a play on Japanese software publisher "Sunsoft", a company that Scott Murphy had briefly considered producing games from, but never did. Before using the idea for Space Quest III, he'd seriously considered using the name for a company of his own.

"The ScumSoft company name was my idea. In Space Quest, ScumSoft is spelled with one 'm' as one word. I’d come up with it as a name for my own software company before we started Space Quest 3, which is where it’s first mentioned publicly. It was too good not to use as Space Quest 3 came together. I even own the ‘scumsoft.net’ domain but haven’t done anything with it yet. I have letterhead somewhere in my boxes of crap in storage that I’d used to use when writing letters to my nephews in the days before email. Yes, there was a time."

ScumSoft's Nukem Dukem robots are a nod to Mattel's Rock'em Sock'em robots. ScumSoft's focus on making cheap games may have also been a nod to Sierra's position at the time, that cartridge-based systems, video game machines, and arcade games were not "serious" business.

At the time, Sunsoft was known in American markets for producing very basic, arcade-style video games with tedious, often repetitive game-play, which contrasted starkly with most leading American computer game developers. This made Sunsoft ripe for the picking and created a somewhat conflicting contrast to the way the Sierra company is portrayed at the end of the game, given that much of ScumSoft's design and presentation was a commentary on Sierra's internal environment. According to Scott Murphy:

"But, it’s also a reference to the evil side of what Sierra was becoming at the time, which is evidenced by the cubicles and catwalk scene in Space Quest 3 showing Ken Williams and his then henchman (Rick Cavin). They’re both shown walking along the catwalks cracking whips on the people in the extremely tiny cubicles below. When he’d bring people through for the ‘dog and pony shows’ (as I like to call them), Cavin would insist that I show them the ‘catwalk and cubicles’ scene, because he thought it was so cool that he was in the game. If you see yourself in that role and are proud of the depiction, well, enough said really."

Some fans incorrectly believe the name to be a parody of Microsoft corporation's name, or a dig at LucaAarts (Scumm engine). ScumSoft has nothing to do with the Scumm engine Lucasarts used in their own adventure games. This is what Scott Murphy had to say on the matter:

"To this day I haven’t played Maniac Mansion and I didn’t really hear about the SCUMM system until after my tenure at Sierra had officially come to an end in January of 1999. By then I was sick to death of the industry. I was burned out. We worked in a vacuum in Oakhurst and we were too busy working on game after game after game to spend any time reading the few articles in magazines about other companies. We were primarily interested in how our games and others from Sierra were being written about. Back then, reviews usually needed a three month lead time since it was print media only."

Another often misunderstood reference is the belief that the presentation of the boss of ScumSoft was a thinly veiled parody of Bill Gates. Although more direct satire of Microsoft appears in Space Quest 6 (see Microsloth), according to Scott Murphy, Elmo Pug was actually a parody of then Sierra Online CEO Ken Williams:

"Well, the various past lawsuits against Space Quest are something of a legend, so I guess so. You know, lawyers are like life insurance salesmen but without the sense of humor. We've made a lot of fun of Roberta Williams over the years, but she doesn't seem to care so that's not any fun, and maniacal ScumSoft President Elmer Pugg was patterned after Ken Williams...Gee, I hope Ken doesn't read this."

In one of the live action ads for Space Quest III, the Two Guys try to infiltrate ScumSoft only to be captured and forced to make games for them in their dingy basement. The location used for ScumSoft in the ad is the Sierra Professional Center, Sierra Online's headquarters in Oakhurst at the time.