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Synnibarr vs WotC
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8787541" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>More to the point, only an idiot would think such a thing was even remotely possible. Had WotC wanted to 'crush the competition' they sure as heck wouldn't have bought out companies like LUG, lol. You would by WEG, Games Workshop, whatever was left of GDW by that point, etc. I mean, with the money they had from M:tG they could easily have swallowed up pretty much every other major RPG publisher (maybe not GW) out there without even burping. I mean, by 2000 pretty much all of them were in a shambles. WW imploded, GDW was basically gone and its IP wandering the streets like a hobo, Chaosium wasn't exactly making money, etc. etc. etc. Name one financially solvent game company besides WotC at that time, its not easy!</p><p></p><p>No, I think the explanation for LUG that Peter himself gives is perfectly believable. It was owned by one of his friends, whom he bailed out by buying the company. Presumably they did believe that it could prove lucrative, but I think that's plenty of underlying motivation. Even the TSR purchase was probably more motivated by connections with people and products he knew and liked vs some grand business plan. I'm sure Peter is actually fairly competent in the business sense, by comparison to most people. He has an MBA after all. Basically he was a pretty successful Boeing guy, and he wanted to do game stuff, and then lucked into launching Richard Garfield's crazy unexpected gold mine of M:tG. I suspect there was some degree of shrewdness there in terms of knowing when a project was headed for success vs going down the tubes. IME (started 4 companies) this is a key success trait, being able to look at an investment and say "well, we tried that, avoid the mistake of going on down THAT road!" or vice versa (I myself at least one time clearly could have made a mint, was in the right place at the right time, but did not correctly judge which path to take).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8787541, member: 82106"] More to the point, only an idiot would think such a thing was even remotely possible. Had WotC wanted to 'crush the competition' they sure as heck wouldn't have bought out companies like LUG, lol. You would by WEG, Games Workshop, whatever was left of GDW by that point, etc. I mean, with the money they had from M:tG they could easily have swallowed up pretty much every other major RPG publisher (maybe not GW) out there without even burping. I mean, by 2000 pretty much all of them were in a shambles. WW imploded, GDW was basically gone and its IP wandering the streets like a hobo, Chaosium wasn't exactly making money, etc. etc. etc. Name one financially solvent game company besides WotC at that time, its not easy! No, I think the explanation for LUG that Peter himself gives is perfectly believable. It was owned by one of his friends, whom he bailed out by buying the company. Presumably they did believe that it could prove lucrative, but I think that's plenty of underlying motivation. Even the TSR purchase was probably more motivated by connections with people and products he knew and liked vs some grand business plan. I'm sure Peter is actually fairly competent in the business sense, by comparison to most people. He has an MBA after all. Basically he was a pretty successful Boeing guy, and he wanted to do game stuff, and then lucked into launching Richard Garfield's crazy unexpected gold mine of M:tG. I suspect there was some degree of shrewdness there in terms of knowing when a project was headed for success vs going down the tubes. IME (started 4 companies) this is a key success trait, being able to look at an investment and say "well, we tried that, avoid the mistake of going on down THAT road!" or vice versa (I myself at least one time clearly could have made a mint, was in the right place at the right time, but did not correctly judge which path to take). [/QUOTE]
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