THE GAME MAKERS: The Story of Parker Brothers from Tiddley Winks to Trivial PursuitHarvard Business School Press -- hc
Boston, MA -- ©2004 -- 245pp
ISBN: 1-59139-269-1
A biography of one of THE most influential game-making families/business ever.
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I have to admit that I find the history of toys and games quite fascinating, so a book would have to be terribly dry and dull to not catch my interest. Fortunately this was not (dull).
I'd read Orbanes' history of the game Monopoly (which is fascinatingly complex) and knew that his writing style would be very approachable. Somewhat surprisingly, the older history seems most thorough and complete, but the more modern history, when Orbanes served as a VP at Parker Brothers, seems slightly more thin in detail. Is this because he was too close to the subject? Or because many of the people are still alive ... people who might hold sway over potential jobs? In any case, the oldest history of the origins of Parker Brothers is most fascinating.
What surprised me the most is how, what seemed like such a big name in game-making was really a pretty small-time, family-oriented company ... even up through the mid 1960's when I would have first discovered them. It was truly interesting to see how George Parker capitalized on ideas and times and managed to make things work; how his basic principles really were so effective; how such a small operation managed to achieved fantastic success.
I'd really like to read about the origins of Milton Bradley and Hasbro now!
