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In December 1979,Chris
Haney got together with his friend Scott Abbott and
the two decided to create a new board game.
After many
concepts and iterations thereof, they finally settled
on a fairly simple idea - a game that dealt with the
who, what, why, where and when. Chris' wife suggested
the name Trivial Pursuit and it stuck.
The
goal of the game is to earn wedges by answering questions
from four of the six categories. The categories are
represented by different colors and by answering a question
correctly, you receive a matching color wedge. After
earning four different wedges, you are then looking
to move to the center of the board where you will have
an opportunity to answer a final question in order to
win.
After
forming a company, Haney and Abbott began seeking investors
and raised enough money to manufacture the board games.
Although he initial lot of 1,000 game sets cost $75.00
each, they were able to attract the attention of game-maker
Selchow and Righter and they reached an agreement where
Selchow and Righter helped to initiate a public relations
and marketing strategy which helped to turn the game
into a hit. Five years after developing the game, more
than 3.5 million game sets had been sold. One year later,
they sold 20 million units and by 2000 they had sold
more than $1 billion dollars worth of game sets as the
United States went Trivial Pursuit crazy.
Eventually
the game which began to sweep the nation bean to sweep
the world as it was distributed in various languages
and in different formats (including handheld electronic,
desktop computer and online web-based versions)
Only
time will tell whether their success will parallel that
of board games like Scrabble but their PURSUIT of success
was not so TRIVIAL after all.. |