Creating Magic

For me, games have been a life-long passion.  I can remember, around the age of eight, spending hours designing my own games out of shoeboxes, doing my own art and creating my own components for the kids in my neighborhood to play.  Explaining and playing the games with my friends was rewarding. Their enjoyment fueled the fire to continue to create new and different games.   At that time, I was in love with Parker Brothers’ Games, the class act of the business. Their packaging and componentry was what really set me off.  I would model my games off of theirs complete with extensive real estate trading equipment or something tangible allowing you to get hands-on with the game.  The hands on factor was something that I did, and still do value when I produce my games. 

In 1958, a few years and many shoebox games later, I bought shine, a brush and a rag and set up shop in front of 200 Fifth Avenue.  As you can probably guess, this was the International Toy Building, and I shined the shoes of the executives who worked there.  I just wanted to be a part of the magic that happened in that building, and dreamed of creating that magic myself.  

In 1971 that dream manifested itself in the form of a sales position with Selchow & Righter.  I was selling Scrabble and Parcheesi games on the East Coast.  As I rose through the ranks of Selchow & Righter, I worked territories all across the country, gaining an understanding of the toy industry.  I had a few successes, namely breaking Barnes & Noble and convincing them to carry another line of product with Scrabble.  This may have been obvious in my eyes, but it was still a break through for Selchow & Righter and helped land me the National Sales Manager position.  Then, the dream of my youth became the reality of my adulthood. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was on the verge of a magical ride and a magical time for Selchow & Righter, the toy business and me. 

In 1983, I caught wind of a game that was generating quite a buzz north of the border in Toronto, Canada.  The first time I saw the game; I knew it had the IT factor.  It had what other games at the time were missing. Despite being viewed as a huge risk at the time, I wanted to sign the game immediately. I had to convince Selchow & Righter that this was going to be a hit.  At that time in the industry games were marketed for children and retailed around $5.99.  Trivial Pursuit, however, broke all the rules.  The box was too big and the game was too intellectual.  It was geared for adults, and there was a huge royalty involved, something that was not common practice at the time.  AND most importantly, this game was expensive!  Retailing at $40, it was twice as expensive as the next most expensive game on the market.  Despite Selchow’s hesitancy, I knew this game would take off, and I put my reputation behind it.  Luckily for all involved, Trivial Pursuit was a runaway hit.  We had a great ride, selling 22 million games until Selchow & Righter was sold in 1986.   

After the sale of Selchow & Righter to Coleco, I, along with a group of Selchow salesmen, formed a company called The Games Gang.  We were displaced by Coleco as their corporate culture didn’t mesh with our old school ideals.  In other words, we weren’t willing to sell out.  The key to our success at The Games Gang, something that remains to this day with Endless Games, is we are very open to inventors and new ideas.  In 1986, that new idea came in the form of an unemployed waiter demonstrating his charades-like drawing game outside of a Nordstrom’s.  I immediately knew this game, much like Trivial Pursuit, had the IT factor.  It was unlike anything on the market and had a play value that could consume a group of people for hours.  It was fun!  Pictionary jumped off the shelves in the first four months, selling over 50,000 games in that span, becoming the hottest board game in the country.  In its first full year of production, sales topped one million pieces and over $150 million. 

I sold The Games Gang in 1991, but found my next endeavor a few years 

later.  It was then that I was forming a new game company, Endless Games.  

Though I had our inaugural line in place, I was looking for something to make 

it stand out.  That is when I came across the zany Six Degrees of Kevin 

Bacon website.  Seeing first-hand the craze it was causing on college 

campuses across the country, I saw the same IT factor appear again. In 

what may be my most cherished move in my career, I turned this zany linking 

game into Endless’ lead item for the 1997 Toy Fair.  It was the first time a 

board game was created from an Internet fad and was exactly the cutting 

edge offering that balanced the rest of my line.  With the buzz having already 

been generated from coast to coast, The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Game 

put Endless Games on the toy industry map and is still a successful part of the 

Endless Games’ line.  

Though technically I am not an inventor, I wanted to share my inventor success 

stories with you, since they are successes for inventors in general.  The 

common thread among all of the successful games I’ve been a part of are 

the IT factor and an open-minded company willing to listen to ideas.  For that 

reason, I continue to listen to every idea that comes my way.  It has proven 

successful in the past and there is no reason to think it won’t in the future.   

Kevin McNulty

www.EndlessGames.com