D&D General WotC Has Owned D&D Longer Than TSR Did

As Matt Forbeck pointed out on Twitter, WotC has owned D&D for 24 years since it purchased TSR in 1997. TSR created D&D in 1974, 23 years before WotC bought it.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Feelin' OLD huh?

 

[Dausuul]

Man, I'm old.

 

[ChaosOS]

Seems like a good time for a rebrand - Dragons and Dungeon!

 

[Blue Orange]

Supposedly it was Gail Gygax who convinced them to go with the alliterative name--before that it was just 'The Fantasy Game'.

EDIT: ninja'd. I am wrong!

 

[Waller]

Supposedly it was Gail Gygax who convinced them to go with the alliterative name--before that it was just 'The Fantasy Game'.

Seems unlikely as they married in 1987, 13 years after D&D launched.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

A good time to sell it to Free League, Modiphius, or Paizo.

 

[Erdric Dragin]

Correction, HASBRO owned it longer (than both). And lot of good that did. I think D&D would have been way better had WotC not been tied down by Hasbro. I'll never forget Sean Reynolds "Forgotten Rum" story about what went on behind closed doors for D&D's future.

 

[Pauper]

Correction, HASBRO owned it longer (than both).

Hasbro has only owned D&D since September of 1999, when they purchased Wizards of the Coast, so they've only owned D&D for 22 years.

You could argue whether Wizards of the Coast, as a subsidiary of Hasbro, 'exists' in the sense of ultimately owning the rights to the game, but it won't be until after next year's GenCon that Hasbro has owned the game longer than TSR.

And of course, if WotC does still 'exist' despite being a subsidiary of Hasbro, then Hasbro will never have owned D&D longer than WotC has, for the same reason that you'll never grow older than your older brother (until he dies, anyway).

--
Pauper

 

[billd91]

Honestly, this freaks me out a lot less than the realization, three years ago, that we had passed the point when the Berlin Wall had been gone longer than it had been up.