D&D General The First Demise of TSR: Gygax's Folly

[TiQuinn]

In business school, a lot of course study is about the forensics of business, finding out what went wrong. Ultimately, it is about the product, not the personalities, so a chevy is a chevy, apple an apple, and dnd is dnd. Gary did ok until he didn't, which is the same old story with business.

There's also a entire subject devoted to management which has nothing to do with the products, and everything to do with the personalities, the processes, and culture.

 

[Warren]

Lots of businesses make all the right decisions and still fail. TSR wasn't that in the early 80s. It was a quickly growing and profitable enterprise that was mismanaged and fumbled.

 

[dragoner]

There's also a entire subject devoted to management which has nothing to do with the products, and everything to do with the personalities, the processes, and culture.

Eventually Gary was going to go, and someone else take over. It is interesting to see how it happened, though nobody would say someone making millions was a failure. lol

 

[TiQuinn]

Eventually Gary was going to go, and someone else take over. It is interesting to see how it happened, though nobody would say someone making millions was a failure. lol

Is that what we're really discussing here? Whether he was a failure? And if so, failure at precisely what?

 

[dragoner]

Pretty much.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Lots of businesses make all the right decisions and still fail. TSR wasn't that in the early 80s. It was a quickly growing and profitable enterprise that was mismanaged and fumbled.

Yeah, for a time TSR had a license to print money, and the MGT's fatal error was ass/u/ming that that would continue forever and no domain knowledge would be needed.

 

[MGibster]

I don’t know, to me that sounds like you overestimate Gygax or underestimate yourself, imo he did pretty poorly, below average (at running a business)

Gary dropped out of high school his junior year and while he took a few college courses never got his degree. Gygax was an intelligent, well read individual, but he did not have much in the way of a formal education nor did he have any experience running a business generating millions in revenue. I'm quite impressed by what Gary was able to accomplish given his particular circumstances. In many ways it's the quintessential American dream. Gygax was down-on-his-luck, cobbling shoes to make ends meet for his family, and with just one good idea became fabulously wealthy.

One of the things that struck me is how Gygax made mistakes that are very common for those of modest means who suddenly find themselves financially successful beyond their wildest expectations. Making sure everyone's friends and relatives have jobs is a trap a lot of suddenly wealthy people fall into. Just ask MC Hammer.

 

[mamba]

One of the things that struck me is how Gygax made mistakes that are very common for those of modest means who suddenly find themselves financially successful beyond their wildest expectations. Making sure everyone's friends and relatives have jobs is a trap a lot of suddenly wealthy people fall into. Just ask MC Hammer.

being a successful artist is very different from running a successful company. In the former case you are not really employing your friends & family as employees of the company (i.e. expect them to generate enough money to 'pay for themselves'), you give them handouts because you expect the good times will keep going much longer than they end up actually doing.

In a way that is what happened with TSR as well, they expected not only great sales but growth to continue indefinitely, but that is no way to properly run a business, as they soon found out... I am not saying their mistakes are not relatable, but they were quite full of themselves and their business acumen, when they really had no reason to be. If they had listened and learned, and hired people with experience, things could have gone much differently. I certainly do not see their performance as above average, which brings me back to where I started, i.e. I would not expect you to do worse either

 

[Older Beholder]

Gygax very much caught lightning in a bottle. Quite frankly, we were also lucky to have someone like Gary Gygax during the Satanic Panic when D&D, and all role playing games, were under attack. He did a great job explaining what D&D was to the masses and defending the game from unfair criticism.

I never felt like RPGs were in danger from the satanic panic.
I thought it was basically free advertising that tripled sales.
If anything it was more dumb luck.

 

[MGibster]

being a successful artist is very different from running a successful company. In the former case you are not really employing your friends & family as employees of the company (i.e. expect them to generate enough money to 'pay for themselves'), you give them handouts because you expect the good times will keep going much longer than they end up actually doing.

Yes, it is very different. However, in this particular case, I was referring to Gygax's and even the Blume's practice of hiring friends and family who essentially had no real function at TSR and were quite a drain on resources. Distributing such largesse to friends and family to the point of harming their own bottom line is a fairly common practice among people of modest means who have no experience handling large sums of money who suddenly find themselves swimming in it. i.e. It's something Gygax had in common with MC Hammer and even a lot of lottery winners.