Ever wonder how your favorite board game came about? A few years ago, I read a fascinating book called The Game Makers. It described the invention, manufacturing, and selling of some of America’s most famous board games.
According to the book, an unemployed man named Charles Brace Darrow visited the Parker Brothers office in the early years of the Great Depression. He had invented a game about buying, developing, and selling real estate. At first, representatives of Parker Brothers were not impressed. However, as the Great Depression deepened, they decided to purchase the board game.
The company had a lot of work to do, but after several conceptual changes, it felt it had a viable product. However, George Parker, one of the founding partners, arrived from Europe and analyzed what his brain trust had produced. He was still very concerned about flaws he found in the game’s rules. Parker was a stickler for details, and he believed one essential part of a good board game was well-written rules.
Parker set about rewriting the rules. He spent three days with his staff debating the wording of the rule about throwing doubles. Ultimately, his hard work paid off. MONOPOLY remains the gold standard of board games to this day.
Organization and administration are two words that are often considered “dirty” in today’s workplace. This is a mistake. George Parker’s attention to detail and organization led to the invention of a great game.
Creativity starts the work; doing the little things makes it work.
Mark
Dr. Mark Edge
The WorkEdge Company
Telephone: 903-245-7851
Email: workedgetexas@gmail.com
Website: www.workedgetexas.com
Author of Holy Chaos How To Walk with God in a Frenzied Worldhttps://www.amazon.com/s?k=mark+edge&crid=3B1BM6W3LHOG0&sprefix=%2Caps%2C137&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_2_0_recent
For further read see: The Game Makers: The Story of Parker Brothers, from Tiddledy Winks to Trivial Pursuit by Philip E. Orbanes
WorkEdge leverages AI as a resource. While this material was not written or generated by AI, some editing was informed by AI tools.