Trivial Pursuit - the whole story

 It's Haney and Abbott, inventors of Trivial Pursuit.
   Ok, it's time to slay the cliche. Time to cure the Montreal disease: The Trivial Pursuit Non-Investment Remorse Syndrome.
  We no longer want to hear people kicking themselves about not buying in. It has become as boring as bagels. As stale as smoked meat.
   Over the last twenty or so years I've heard people around the Montreal Gazette regretting that they turned down an offer to pony up $1,000 to allow a couple of employees to create a board game that they had dreamt up. The duo were going to go sit on a beach in Spain just think it through. If you had invested the $1,000 you'd have come into a large amount of cash. But if you didn't well that also was a solid, sensible thing not to do.
  A few weeks ago my daughter Annika was chosen as a finalist for a story telling contest. She told of how she got lost in a pet store and how her dad didn't even notice, truedat. A feisty boy of about 7 told of how his grandfather still lives in regret because he failed to invest in Trivial Pursuit. The kid won a little prize for his tale his category.
   Ok. Sure a thousand dollars sounds like pocket change. But rents in 1979 were like $150 a month. Would you pop down eight months rent on your booze buddy's wacky invention idea?
  If you invested $1,000 in a variety of different, less crazy things you'd have done well. Local real estate is one obvious example. And if you had invested $1,000 in Microsoft in 1986 you'd have well over $300,000 now. Even if you let your thou sit at 10 percent over 30 years you'd have about $18,000.
   All but 34 people passed on it. Some like Terry Mosher failed to invest and really didn't say much about it. Probably cuz he's already loaded. Others like Joey Slinger of the Toronto Star - and many Toronto other media personalities - bought in.
  Scott Abbott, a sportswriter for CP, now 61, and Chris Haney, a photo editor for the Gazette, now 64, thought up the game in 1979. They offered shares at $200 to $500. The first to buy two shares was Jo Ann Saulk, now 60. She knew Haney in high school in Hamilton. Derrick Ramsey, a copy editor invested $1,000 for five shares. Only five investors bought ten shares, including David Cobb now 76 (assuming all these people are still alive).
   Within five years the game had pumped out $250 million but I'm not sure how much any one given share would have yielded.
  I discussed this today with Michael Würstlin. He designed the boards and reluctantly agreed to accept five shares instead of cash payment. He now lives in Toronto with his umlauts and runs a prestigious ad firm. He's around 56. 

I think my participation in Trivial Pursuit was
completely a positive experience throughout my life. But I designed the game ( I did not create the idea, just decorating, basically), so my experience would have been different than just pure investors. I was paid for my work with shares. I doubt very much if I'd have invested at that time as I was unemployed and desperate for income. In fact, it was with great reluctance -and foreboding - that I accepted the shares in leu of cash. But they didn't HAVE any money, so I had no choice. This, of course, was revealed well after the work was done. But the proceeds from the game helped me become middle class because it gave me a down payment to buy a house - which I rented out as I couldn't afford to live in it at first. And in my career (I'm in advertising and I was a designer), doors were opened because of the fame of the game. People want to be near famous or lucky people because there is, I think, a feeling that the luck will rub off on them. So I cannot support your thesis that the game brought misery to people, even several generations down the road. Not in my case anyway.