By
Mary
Bellis
It was the board game Time
magazine called the "the biggest phenomenon in game history."
Trivial Pursuit was first conceived on December 15, 1979 by Chris
Haney and Scott Abbott. At the time, Chris Haney worked as a photo editor at the
Montreal Gazette, and Scott Abbott
was a sports journalist for The Canadian Press. The two friends came up with
the basic concept of Trivial Pursuit within a few short hours. The pair were
playing a game of Scrabble when they decided to invent their own game.
However, it was
not until 1981 that the board game was commercially released.
On November 10, 1981,
"Trivial Pursuit" was trademark registered. That same month, one
thousand and a hundred copies of Trivial Pursuit were first published in
Canada. Haney and Abbott had taken on two more business partners (Ed Werner,
corporate lawyer and John Haney, Chris' brother) since 1979 to form the Horn
Abbot company, and had raised their initial funding by selling five shares in
the company for as little as $1,000. Eighteen-year-old artist, Michael
Wurstlin agreed to create the final artwork for Trivial Pursuit in exchange
for his five shares.
The first copies of Trivial
Pursuit were sold at a loss, the manufacturing costs for the first copies came
to seventy-five dollars per game and the game was sold to retailers for fifteen
dollars. Trivial Pursuit was licensed to Selchow and Righter a major U.S. game
manufacturer and distributor in 1983. The manufacturers financed a successful
public relations effort and Trivial Pursuit became a household name.
In December 1993, Trivial Pursuit was named
to the "Games Hall of Fame" by Games magazine.
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