TSR, Inc.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from TSR (company))

TSR, Inc.

Industry Role-playing game publisher

Founded 1973

Defunct 1997
 Fate Acquired and discontinued

Successor Wizards of the Coast

Headquarters Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States

Key people Gary Gygax, Brian Blume, Lorraine Williams

Products Dungeons & Dragons

TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original
publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies
Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been
unable to find a publisher for D&D, a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-
developing, so he founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products.
Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian
Blume in December as an equal partner. Dungeons & Dragons is generally considered
the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye
died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR
Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the
popular D&D as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games
industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other
son Kevin, making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies.

TSR Hobbies ran into financial difficulties in the spring of 1983, prompting the company
to split into four independent businesses, with game publishing and development
continuing as TSR, Inc. (TSR). After losing their executive positions, the Blume brothers
subsequently sold their shares to TSR Vice President Lorraine Williams, who in turn
engineered Gygax's ouster from the company in October 1985. TSR saw prosperity
under Williams, but encountered financial trouble in the mid-1990s. While their overall
sales and revenue were healthy, TSR's high costs meant the company nevertheless
became unprofitable and deeply in debt. TSR was left unable to cover its publishing
costs due to a variety of factors. Facing insolvency, TSR was purchased in 1997
by Wizards of the Coast (WotC). WotC initially retained use of the TSR name
for D&D products, but by 2000, the TSR moniker was dropped, coinciding with the
release of the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

WotC allowed the TSR trademark to expire in the early 2000s. Two new companies
have since utilized the TSR trademark commercially.

History[edit]
Tactical Studies Rules (1973–1975)[edit]
 Tactical Studies Rules

Original logo of Tactical Studies Rules: the entwined initials of

founders Gary Gygax and Don Kaye

Industry Role-playing game publisher

Founded 1973

Defunct 1975

Fate dissolved

Successor TSR Hobbies, Inc.

Headquarters Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States

Key people Gary Gygax, Don Kaye, Brian Blume

Products Dungeons & Dragons

Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) was formed in 1973 as a partnership between Gary
Gygax and Don Kaye, who collected together $2,400 for startup costs, to formally
publish and sell the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, the creation of Gygax and Dave
Arneson and the first modern role-playing game (RPG).[1] The first TSR release,
however, was Cavaliers and Roundheads, a miniature game, to start generating income
for TSR. The partnership was subsequently joined by Brian Blume in December 1973.
Blume was admitted to the partnership to fund further publishing of D&D, as Cavaliers
and Roundheads was not a commercial success.[2][3] In the original configuration of the
partnership, Kaye served as president, Blume as vice-president, and Gygax as editor. [4]

In January 1974, TSR—with Gygax's basement as a headquarters—produced 1,000

copies of D&D, selling them for $10 each (and the extra dice needed for another $3.50).
This first print sold out in 10 months.[1] In January 1975, TSR printed a second batch of
1,000 copies of D&D, which took only another five or six months to sell out.[5] Also in
1974, TSR published Warriors of Mars, a miniatures rules book set in the fantasy world
of Barsoom, originally imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his series of novels
about John Carter of Mars, to which Gygax paid homage in the preface of the first
edition of D&D. However, Gygax and TSR published the Mars book without permission
from (or payment to) the Burroughs estate. Warriors of Mars was quietly dropped from
the catalog and never reprinted.[6]

When Don Kaye died of a heart attack on January 31, 1975, his role was taken over by
his wife Donna Kaye, who remained responsible for accounting, shipping, and the
records of the partnership through the summer.[7] By the summer of 1975, those duties
became complex enough that Gygax himself became a full-time employee of the
partnership in order to take them over from Donna Kaye. Arneson also entered the
partnership in order to coordinate research and design with his circle in the Twin Cities. [7]

TSR Hobbies, Inc. (1975–1983)[edit]

TSR Hobbies, Inc.

Industry Role-playing game publisher

Founded 1975

Defunct 1983

Fate Split up

Successor TSR, Inc., TSR Ventures, TSR International and TSR

Entertainment Corporation
 Headquarters Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, United States

Key people Gary Gygax, Brian Blume, Kevin Blume

Products Dungeons & Dragons

Subsidiaries Greenfield Needlewomen

Brian Blume and Gary Gygax reorganized the business from a partnership to a
corporation called TSR Hobbies, Inc. At first, it was a separate company to market
miniatures and games from other companies, an enterprise which was also connected
to the opening of the Dungeon hobby shop in Lake Geneva.[7] TSR Hobbies then moved
to buy out the old TSR partnership's assets. Brian's father, Melvin Blume, invested
$20,000 in the nascent company which enabled it to buy out Donna Kaye's share of the
original TSR partnership. On September 26, 1975, the assets of the former partnership
were transferred to TSR Hobbies.[8] Brian Blume became the largest shareholder, Melvin
Blume the second largest, and Gary Gygax the third largest.[9][10] Gygax served as
president of TSR Hobbies, and Blume as vice president and secretary. The Dungeon
hobby shop would become the effective headquarters of the company, including the
offices of Blume and Gygax. TSR Hobbies subcontracted the printing and assembly
work in October 1975, and the third printing of 2,000 copies of D&D sold out in five
months.[5] Tim Kask was hired in the autumn of 1975 as Periodicals Editor, and the
company's first full-time employee.[9]

Empire of the Petal Throne became the first game product published by TSR Hobbies,
followed by two supplements to D&D, Greyhawk and Blackmoor.[10] Also released in
1975 were the board game Dungeon! and the Wild West RPG Boot Hill.[10] The company
took $300,000 in revenues for the fiscal year of 1976.[11] TSR began hosting the Gen
Con Game Fair in 1976, and featured the first ever D&D open tournament that year.[10]
[12]
D&D supplements Eldritch Wizardry and Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes were released
in 1976.[10]

TSR also began to branch the Dungeons & Dragons product into two: Dungeons &
Dragons as a general audience product intended for novices, and Advanced Dungeons
& Dragons (AD&D) for a more complicated product aimed at hardcore fans. In 1977,
the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set was released for D&D, and the Monster
Manual was released as the initial product for AD&D, the first hardbound book ever
published by a game company. The next year, the AD&D Players Handbook was
published, followed by a series of six adventure modules.[10] Due to the inclusion of the
word "Advanced" in the title, TSR did not pay Dave Arneson any royalties
on AD&D products, saying his co-creation rights extended to the base D&D name only.
[13]
Also in 1978, TSR Hobbies moved out of Gygax's home and into downtown Lake
Geneva, above the Dungeon Hobby Shop.[10] In 1979, the AD&D Dungeon Masters
Guide was published, and radio ads featuring "Morley the Wizard" were broadcast.[10] All
of these core books would go on to be major hits; the D&D Basic Set sold well in 1977
and 1978, would sell over 100,000 copies in 1979, and would continue to be updated
and re-released for years.[13]

During this era, there were a number of competitors and unofficial supplements
to D&D published, arguably in violation of TSR's copyright, which many D&D players
used alongside the TSR books. Among these were the Arduin Grimoire, the Manual of
Aurenia, and variants such as Warlock and Tunnels & Trolls. TSR regarded these very
warily, and in cases where they felt their trademarks were being misused, they issued
cease-and-desist letters. More often than not, this legal posturing resulted in only slight
changes to competitors' works, but caused significant animosity in the community.[14]

In 1979, TSR signed a contract with Random House with unusual terms. In most deals
between publishers and distributors, publishers are paid directly based on books sold
downstream by the distributor to bookstores. In TSR's contract, however, Random
House would loan money to TSR as an advance upon shipment of product from TSR to
Random House, a loan equivalent to 27.3% of the suggested retail price. The
arrangement was mutually beneficial at first: TSR could acquire money up front to fund
their work, and not have to worry about immediate sales. Many of TSR's products had
consistent sales over time, and the loans allowed the company to recoup the investment
immediately and use the funds to make more books. Returns were generally low,
leading to Random House's confidence in TSR. However, the arrangement would cause
trouble later in the 1990s.[15]

Gygax granted exclusive rights to Games Workshop to distribute TSR products in the
United Kingdom, after meeting with Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. Games
Workshop printed some original material and also printed their own versions of
various D&D and AD&D titles in order to avoid high import costs. When TSR could not
reach an agreement with Games Workshop regarding a possible merger, TSR created
a subsidiary operation in the UK, TSR Hobbies UK Ltd, in 1980.[10] Gygax hired Don
Turnbull to head up the operation, which would expand into continental Europe during
the 1980s. TSR UK published a series of modules and the original Fiend Folio. TSR UK
also produced Imagine magazine for 31 issues.

The first-published campaign setting for AD&D, the World of Greyhawk, was introduced
in 1980. The espionage role-playing game Top Secret came out in 1980; reportedly, a
note written on TSR stationery about a fictitious assassination plot, part of the
playtesting of the new game, brought the FBI to TSR's offices.[10] That same year,
the Role Playing Game Association was formed to promote quality roleplaying and unite
gamers around the country.[10] In 1981, Inc. magazine listed TSR Hobbies as one of the
hundred fastest-growing privately held companies in the U.S.[11] That same year, TSR
Hobbies moved its offices again, this time to a former medical supply building with an
attached warehouse. In 1982, TSR Hobbies broke the 20 million mark in sales.[10]