TSR TSR's Amazing Accounting Department

[JLowder]

Does audible count for Ring of Winter? Great novel!

Absolutely!

--Jim Lowder

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

The insiders's history of these events are fascinating, looking forward to more. On the Monty Haul thing, we were using the term by 1979-80 as I recall for some DnD games. I also recall a comic strip with it at some point. Wikipedia "Let's Make A Deal" with Monty Haul for those of you who weren't alive back then. You'll quickly understand why it was a derogatory term for some DnD games/campaigns.

Monty Hall, "Haul" was a great parody!

At least in the USA, the show "Let's Make a Deal" was revived several years ago, though the host has, of course, changed. If you spend time in waiting rooms or PT offices like me, you develop a fine taste for Game Show Network shows.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

It seems like a few of them were business people who knew very little about business.

That seems to be all too common among the kinds of small to medium cap companies like TSR back in Ye Olden Tymes. My dad worked for several, eventually advancing to just below the Vice President level---he was too much of a straight shooter to survive that level---and some of the tales he had of the upper management would peel paint.

One company's ownership had made so many foolish decisions in the bedroom it had serious consequences for the boardroom due to all the owed alimony. The owner would travel around the world ostensibly visiting factories to "learn about best practices" but he'd conveniently always end up in places like Bangkok... Manila... Vegas... of course, wife back home would eventually find out and.... Of course, appearances were such that evidently he "needed" to get married again and the cycle would continue.

Another company wouldn't divest itself of unprofitable product lines because the owner "preferred to to hang out with the people in the fifty to hundred million cap group to the twenty to fifty." That's despite the fact that he'd have ended up taking home a lot more money.

This is so pervasive I know someone who is retired now but used to be in a business school who had a productive academic career writing and researching this kind of thing.

You can have a great product that really sets the market and coast for a long time on that but eventually things catch up. That seems, in no small part, to be what happened to TSR. The stuff that late TSR was turning out is great. Take a look at the modules they generated for lines like Dark Sun, Planescape, Greyhawk, and even non-world specific---they're amazing! WotC inherited a fantastic pipeline and some of their best work was started under TSR.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

The more I read about TSR's history the more I wonder just how it held together as long as it did.

A senior professor I knew in grad school had done a good bit of work on the topic of business failures. Especially a company that had a killer product generated by a founder can often last a long time on the momentum started that way, which can cover for a lot of business shenanigans. But yeah, TSR sure did seem to have some real problems along the way until they finally died.

It may be hard (and sobering for those of us of a certain age) to realize, but WotC has owned D&D for nearly as long as TSR. TSR went from 1974 to 1997, so 23 years, and WotC has owned it for 22....

 

[Parmandur]

A senior professor I knew in grad school had done a good bit of work on the topic of business failures. Especially a company that had a killer product generated by a founder can often last a long time on the momentum started that way, which can cover for a lot of business shenanigans. But yeah, TSR sure did seem to have some real problems along the way until they finally died.

It may be hard (and sobering for those of us of a certain age) to realize, but WotC has owned D&D for nearly as long as TSR. TSR went from 1974 to 1997, so 23 years, and WotC has owned it for 22....

Yeah, it's not like Scrooge McDuck levels, but D&D brought in a lot of money: in the end, it wasn't even lack of sales that seemed to do them in, but they overextended themselves in expenditure and loans...

 

[Dungeonosophy]

JW: What did you argue with Bruce Heard about?

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Yeah, it's not like Scrooge McDuck levels, but D&D brought in a lot of money: in the end, it wasn't even lack of sales that seemed to do them in, but they overextended themselves in expenditure and loans...

It sure did, and they had some failed Venger... er, ventures, such as when Gary Gygax went to Hollywood looking to break into the larger entertainment industry. But they survived that and even managed to do fairly well despite the loss of Gygax as the founder for nearly a dozen years.

 

[Zardnaar]

Tried to work out when the got themselves in trouble. Best I can work out is 1993.

 

[Parmandur]

Tried to work out when the got themselves in trouble. Best I can work out is 1993.

They were playing Russian Roulette with their whole business model, they got themselves in trouble way before 1993: they had a very strong run of luck.

 

[Von Ether]

Was there any documentation on the crazier stories? Like every TSR employee having a company car at some point?