A lot of people ask me: "If you were just the Gen Con coordinator, how do you know so much about TSR's internal strategy?"
Fair question.
Here's a little story that might give me some legitimacy.
In 1994, TSR's VP of Marketing, Rick Behling, convinced Lorraine Williams to spend $150,000 on market research.
That was a MASSIVE amount of money for TSR at the time.
They paid Nielsen—yes, the TV ratings people—to add questions about Dungeons & Dragons to one of their regular surveys.
The results came back.
And I was in the meeting when Rick presented them.
Here's what we learned:
-9 million people had played D&D at some point in their lives.
-2 million people were actively playing.
-TSR controlled 80% of the role-playing game market.
-The other 20% was "leakage" to competitors.
-On paper, we were crushing it.
But then Rick explained the real problem.
He used a metaphor I'll never forget:
"The RPG industry is like a water pipe. TSR controls the pipe. But there are little springs—little holes—where water leaks out to other companies.
The problem is, the pipe is only about 7 years long.
Most people get into D&D, play for roughly 7 years, and then get out. Forever.
They don't come back."
That's when I realized TSR was in trouble.
Because if your entire business model depends on:
Capturing new players
Flooding them with so much product they can't afford competitors
Losing them after 7 years
Then finding NEW players to replace them
...you're not building a sustainable business.
You're building a treadmill.
And eventually, you run out of new players.
Rick's strategy—the one TSR actually used—was this:
"Make so much product, there's no money left over to buy other people's product."
Flood the market.
Capture the entire wallet.
Starve the competition.
It worked for a while.
Until it didn't.
Three years later—1997—TSR collapsed.
Wizards of the Coast bought us.
Spanked us. Hard. Because Wizards figured out what TSR never did: You don't win by flooding the market for 7 years.
You win by keeping players for LIFE.
So why was I in that meeting?
I was the Gen Con coordinator.
Gen Con was TSR's biggest marketing event—30,000+ attendees, vendors, distributors, press.
Rick wanted someone who understood the ground-level reality of the market.
I wasn't an executive.
But I had access.
I saw things.
I heard things.
I was in rooms where strategy was discussed.
And 30 years later, I remember that meeting like it was yesterday.
Because Rick's "water pipe" metaphor explained everything:
Why TSR made so many products
Why quality dropped
Why retailers couldn't keep up
Why players got exhausted
Why we collapsed
We optimized for the wrong thing.
7-year wallet capture instead of lifetime engagement.
I'm telling these stories because:
1. I was there. I witnessed things that aren't in the history books.
2. For my children. So they understand what Dad did and why it mattered.
3. For the ADHD community. Because my brain is Swiss cheese—I forget names but remember strategic presentations from 30 years ago.
4. For gaming history. Because if I don't tell these stories, they disappear.
Podcast coming: "ADHD is a Hell of a Thing."
TSR stories. ADHD chaos. Cosmic justice. The water pipe. And why being in the room matters.
More stories coming.
PS - why haven't you and Joe and all these things shoot at the TSR logo well, from what I remember, Rick Behling was hired away from Hasbro. Interesting to think that has bro sent in espionage to finally get what they wanted just 20 years later! Bew ha ha ::cough:: ha ha!
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