Game Wizards
The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20015477 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jon A Peterson (corresponding author), Jon Peterson (0009-0006-5211-9822) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Pages | 400 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-12 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | BOOK |
| Venue | Game Wizards (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | The MIT Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.7551/mitpress/13472.001.0001 |
| Wikidata | Q114426544 |
| OpenAlex | W3207571719 |
| ISBN | 9780262366748 |
| Open Library | OL34138449M |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
The story of the arcane table-top game that became a pop culture phenomenon and the long-running legal battle waged by its cocreators. When Dungeons & Dragons was first released to a small hobby community, it hardly seemed destined for mainstream success—and yet this arcane tabletop role-playing game became an unlikely pop culture phenomenon. In Game Wizards, Jon Peterson chronicles the rise of Dungeons & Dragons from hobbyist pastime to mass-market sensation, from the initial collaboration to the later feud of its creators, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. As the game's fiftieth anniversary approaches, Peterson—a noted authority on role-playing games—explains how D&D and its creators navigated their successes, setbacks, and controversies. Peterson describes Gygax and Arneson's first meeting and their work toward the 1974 release of the game; the founding of TSR and its growth as a company; and Arneson's acrimonious departure and subsequent challenges to TSR. He recounts the “Satanic Panic” accusations that D&D was sacrilegious and dangerous, and how they made the game famous. And he chronicles TSR's reckless expansion and near-fatal corporate infighting, which culminated with the company in debt and overextended and the end of Gygax's losing battle to retain control over TSR and D&D. With Game Wizards, Peterson restores historical particulars long obscured by competing narratives spun by the one-time partners. That record amply demonstrates how the turbulent experience of creating something as momentous as Dungeons & Dragons can make people remember things a bit differently from the way they actually happened
Art · Battle · Feud · Literature · Mainstream · Media studies · Multimedia · Narrative · Political science · Sociology · Video game · Computer Science · Digital Games and Media · History · Law · Recreation
| Citations per year | 0.8 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Highly cited | No |