A Canadian invention that sold for $80,000,000 to Hasbro in 1993. Now it is a worldwide sensation. Come on, you’ve played it.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts |  Google Podcasts |  Amazon Music |  Blubrry |  RSS |  More

 

Dave Young:
Welcome to The Empire Builders Podcast. I’m Dave Young, and Stephen Semple is alongside, we’re talking about empires, empires that got built up by people who started businesses with an idea and a dream. Stephen just whispered today’s topic into my head, and… Through these headphones, I’m blown away because the topic is Trivial Pursuit, and he told me that it was a Canadian company that started Trivial Pursuit. Instantly, I have a million questions, like did they just steal U.S. state secrets to make all these questions?

Stephen Semple:
I wish I had the recording on earlier when you were like, “They’re a Canadian company?”

Dave Young:
You Canadians are smart. Nothing gets past you.

Stephen Semple:
We’ve done… God, what number are we at? We’re 130 or 140, and you’ve never reacted with that level of surprise. I was like, “Damn. I wish I had that record.”

Dave Young:
I mean, if you stop and think about it, it kind of makes sense. Up in the frozen north, you’ve got to spend a lot of time on board games.

Stephen Semple:
There you go.

Dave Young:
When it’s too cold to snowboard.

Stephen Semple:
That’s it. That’s it. It’s never too cold to snowboard, that’s the only problem. So it was created by fellow Canadians, yes, Chris Haney and Scott Abbott in 1981, and in 2008, Hasbro bought the full rights for $80 million. As of the most recent data I could get was, in 2014, they had broken through 100 million games sold, in 17 languages. 1993, it was named to the Games Hall of Fame, and basically, it’s sold over two billion copies worldwide.

Dave Young:
Amazing. I haven’t played it in years. It’s still around though, right? I mean, you still…

Stephen Semple:
Oh, yeah. And there are lots of different versions now.

Dave Young:
Well, I remember clearly the original version, whatever that was called. It was just called Trivial Pursuit-

Stephen Semple:
That’s right. Yes.

Dave Young:
That’s what it was.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Dave Young:
And it had enough questions that you could play it a bunch of times before you really needed to buy an expansion pack kind of thing.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Dave Young:
That was what was fun. But I think I played it so much with friends, and classmates, workmates eventually, that nobody would play against me on that original version. Then you get in, like, “Oh, the sports version. Nah, I’m no good at that.” I might remember the name Gordie Howe. Actually, that explains that it was a Canadian company, ’cause there were a lot of hockey stars in a lot of the question answers.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the origin goes back to 1970, it took them a while to get it going. So it’s the ’70s and the market’s dominated by games for kids, there are no adult games out there. Chris Hanley’s a photojournalist and a super creative guy. Scott Abbott’s a sportswriter-

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
That might be part of the sports part of it.

Dave Young:
Probably Gordie Howe’s cousin?

Stephen Semple:
There you go. And so one night they’re going to play Scrabble, and it’s missing some tiles, and they decide instead to do trivia. But to make it competitive, they decide to keep score.

Dave Young:
Okay.

Stephen Semple:
So here’s the interesting thing, trivia is a popular game as a game show format, because Jeopardy! was big.

Dave Young:
But try to figure out how to make a board game out of it.

Stephen Semple:
Right. So the idea was popular, but there was no board game around. So they decided to make a game, and they created it that night. They had started with a circle-

Dave Young:
No kidding.

Stephen Semple:
Had not been done before, they had spokes for each category. But the one thing that they realized is, that to increase the competitive part of the game, the score needs to be seen. That’s what creates the tension.

Dave Young:
So you have the little player piece that the little wedges of pie go into, you can see who’s getting close. And you can start to gang up on them.

Stephen Semple:
Yes, that’s right. But they also realized that what they needed was a catch-up feature, because if somebody gets too far ahead, how do you keep the game still exciting?

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
It’s like when you play chess, there’s a certain point where you lose interest, ’cause it’s like, “Yeah, I know I’m going to get slaughtered here.” So there’s that exact roll to get to the center, ’cause sometimes, man, it could take a long time for that to happen.

Dave Young:
Oh, yeah.

Stephen Semple:
And that gives the opportunity for others to catch up. When they were deciding the name, they said, “Okay, it should be trivia, plus something else. Trivia plus Pursuit.” And it was one of their wives that said, “No, no, it should be Trivial.”

Dave Young:
Man, it’s the same, but it’s so different.

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Dave Young:
Trivia versus Trivial. That’s such a bold move that they even accepted that.

Stephen Semple:
And they did. The idea behind the game was designed in a night, but here’s now where the fun really begins. They had no idea how to produce or make a game, but there was a toy fair going on in Montreal in 1980, and it was hard to get into these toy fairs, and it’s also to get new games going. Look, every year there are about 500 new games at these shows, about 50 get into stores, and about five are profitable.

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
But they decide to go to the fair. And they’re resourceful journalists, they’re both journalists. So they use their journalistic pass to get into the toy fair, saying, “Hey, we want to interview these people.” Yeah, they do want to interview them, ’cause they want to figure out how to get a game going. They go around interviewing all the toy executives on how to get a game made into the market.

Dave Young:
So my absolute favorite time of playing Trivial Pursuit was when I worked in the news department of a little radio station in Fort Collins, Colorado where I went to school, and in the news and sports department, we would get together and play Trivial Pursuit, all the journalists.

Stephen Semple:
Okay, there you go. So after doing all these interviews, they realized that they wanted to be a high-quality board game, they figured out how to get it made, and they realized it was going to be 40K to kind of get samples of the game made.

So how do you raise money? Well, they offered shares in the company. That didn’t work. New approach, now, crowdfunding didn’t exist really at that time.

Dave Young:
The internet wasn’t around. It had nothing.

Stephen Semple:
Right. Nothing. But they basically did a version of crowdfunding. They found 34 people who would kick in a few bucks. So now they’ve got the money to make the game. But what they figured was, to make it so that you could play the game on an ongoing basis, they would need 1,000 questions for each one of the categories.

There’s a sweet spot for the questions, not too hard, not too easy. So it took months of work to build those questions. If they quit their job to do the research, they go into massive debt. ‘Cause remember, this is before computers, this is almanacs, newspapers.

Dave Young:
Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Ketchup bottles are where they got some of their questions.

Dave Young:
Journalists are perfect for coming up with all of those, they have this inquisitive mind, and they know where to find weird facts.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. And they came across this reference book called Super Trivia. This is going to have an impact later.

Dave Young:
This was the days of… There were some really pop culture classics out, like trivial books, Book of Lists. Do you remember that?

Stephen Semple:
Oh, I forgot about that one. Yes, yes.

Dave Young:
Where they had lists of all kinds of things. That made it easier probably, things like that.

There were people out there doing your work for you.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. So it’s November 1981, it hits the shelves, they make 1,100 copies, and the recession hits. And this game is more expensive, it’s 30 bucks, and at the time, Monopoly is 10.

So they sold some in local stores around Canada, and they did sell out, and they did a second print run of 20,000 units. But what they realized is that even if it sold out, they would still be in the red. The problem was the tool and die costs, and this was an expensive game to do. And in 1982, they borrowed 70K to restock. They go to the New York Toy Fair, one of the largest in the world, and they try to sell directly to retailers. But this is the height of the video game trade, and everyone thought board games were done. So they come back from this show with a few hundred orders. The financial stress is rising, Hanley’s out one night and collapses, he thought he had a heart attack, but it was due to stress.

Dave Young:
Oh, wow.

Stephen Semple:
And they’re still able to sell some games in Canada, but they need to do something differently. So what they decided is, that what they wanted to do was license the game, and they wanted a 15% license fee, which is three times what others get. So they go to the two biggest companies, Parker Brothers, and Milton Bradley, and they pass. But they meet with a smaller player, Selchow and Righter, and they do a deal. And what they do is, they give them $75,000 plus a 15% royalty for the game.

Dave Young:
Okay.

Stephen Semple:
All right, so now they’re out of debt, they’ve got this. 1983, they hire a PR company, Linda Pezzano, who is great. So she has this idea, and this is brilliant, and lots of people have this idea, send out games to celebrities. But celebrities are bombarded. Here’s what she does. She sends out copies to celebrities who are in the game, and says to them, “You’re in this game.”

Dave Young:
“We have a question about you.”

Stephen Semple:
“We have a question about you in this game. Here, Johnny Carson, here’s a copy of the game, and there’s a question about you in the game.” Now, what’s going to happen?

Dave Young:
Was Gordie Howe still alive then? Did they send him?

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. They sent one to every person who’s named in the game.

Dave Young:
Perfect. Yeah,

Stephen Semple:
Johnny Carson mentioned it on The Tonight Show. Boom. 1984, they shipped 20 million units that year. That year, they beat Monopoly. Monopoly sold four million units, they sold 20 million.  This success led to an interesting lawsuit. Fred Worth, in his book, Super Trivia, had planted a trick question in the book, and the question was the name of the famous Detective Colombo in the book was Phil, and that was incorrect, and they used that name in trivia-

Dave Young:
Oh, no.

Stephen Semple:
Trivial Pursuit. So there was a lawsuit around it. But here’s the interesting thing, the judge ruled you cannot copyright facts.

Dave Young:
That’s got to be like a… Been used in lots of other court cases.

Stephen Semple:
Yes, it’s one that has been referred to many, many times, you cannot copyright facts.

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
In 1984, sales hit 20 million sets, then there were spinoffs, there were 50 additions, and over $2 billion in sales. But the interesting thing, again, another one of these… How many times have we seen it? Over and over again.

Now they’re one of these empires where the idea did not come from somebody in the toy business, the idea came from somebody who was looking for a game. But what they also recognized when they built this game, it’s about making it competitive.

Dave Young:
Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
The competition is the part that makes it a game and makes it fun. And they recognize that, and baked that right in, this has to be competitive. And the PR strategy was brilliant, so many people go, “Oh, all you have to do is send stuff out to celebrities.”

Dave Young:
No.

Stephen Semple:
What this PR person recognized, what Linda recognized was that to break through that clutter, you need to make it interesting to them. So, Dave, you would get a game, your name is in this game.

Dave Young:
Exactly. It’s not that it’s interesting to them, it’s that, man, you made it about them, right?

Stephen Semple:
Yes.

Dave Young:
There’s nothing we like better than hearing other people talk favorably about us.

That’s a focus for any business. Man, talk about the customer in language the customer loves, in terms that are about the customer. You can’t go wrong with that.

Stephen Semple:
Right, right.

Dave Young:
You really can’t.

Stephen Semple:
And look, and that’s what caught Johnny Carson’s eye, and Johnny Carson mentions it on the Tonight Show, and boom, you’re off to the races. Especially at that time, and how big that show was. And look, it was going to be him or somebody else. ‘Cause we often talk about strategy versus tactics, and people get caught on that, ’cause it’ll be easy to read this, and go, “Oh, well, how they became successful, they sent out celebrities, so I’m going to send my stuff out to celebrities.” Tactic. The strategy was, “How do we get attention? Oh, celebrities are named in this game. Well, let’s send it to the people who are named.” It was a strategy that involved the tactic of sending it out, and that’s the difference.

Dave Young:
If you send it to a celebrity who doesn’t have a question, their name’s not even in it, they’re not interested in talking about it to anybody.

Stephen Semple:
Or even if you sent it and didn’t tell them that they’re in it, they’re not going to be interested in looking at it.

Dave Young:
They probably aren’t going to dig through it, but if you tell them, “Hey, question on this card.” It’s going to work well with the people that are in it, it’s not going to work at all for the people that aren’t.

Stephen Semple:
Correct. Correct.

Dave Young:
‘Cause they’re going to feel a little hurt. It’s a great story.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah.

Dave Young:
I like it. And I’m really pleased that they were Canadians because you’re a Canadian.

Stephen Semple:
‘Cause I’m a Canadian. Well, we’ve got to every once in a while slide these Canadian stories in.

Dave Young:
And it’s still around.

Stephen Semple:
It’s still around. Yeah, they don’t own it any longer. Hasbro is who bought the full rights for it in 2008, but the game’s still around.

Dave Young:
Thank you, Stephen. That was a fun story.

Stephen Semple:
And we’ll see you next week.

Dave Young:
All right. I’m trying to think of what piece I always wanted when I played Trivial Pursuit. Usually the green slice.

Stephen Semple:
We’ll make sure we pull all the green ones out ahead of time.

Dave Young:
Thank you, Steve.

Stephen Semple:
Thanks, David.

Dave Young:
Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please share us, subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and leave us a big, fat, juicy five-star rating and review. And if you have any questions about this or any other podcast episode, email to questions@theempirebuilderspodcast.com.

Latest posts by Stephen Semple & Dave Young (see all)