29 February 2016 and GDW

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I just remembered a somewhat melancholy fact about 29 Feb for this year - it was the 20th anniversary of Game Designers Workshop closing down.

Although statements from GDW staff members say that the closure was voluntary and resulted from the staff "burning out" after too many years of producing too many games, some of us feel they were being deliberately polite and politic in there public responses.
There's no doubt in many people's minds (me included) that the heavy handed actions of Lorraine Williams, who was then in charge of TSR, in her desire to stop Gary Gygax from making any competitor games to D&D*, battered GDW into financial difficulties to the point where they had little choice but to close up shop.


* At that time Gygax had been working for GDW producing his Dangerious Journeys fantasy RPG (originally planned to be named Dangerous Dimensions but given a name change due to the threat of lawsuits from TSR claiming that Dangerous Dimensions, i.e. DD, was too similar to D&D). Rumour has it that Williams wanted to prevent Gygax from making any more games and her pursuit of this lead some to speculate that she hounded & harassed GDW to the point where they simply didn't have enough money left to pay all the ensuing legal fees and hence, they closed down - TSR was left in financial troubles as well and the year after (1997) TSR, facing insolvency, was purchased by Wizards of the Coast. It would appear that Williams, in her desire to remove Gygax from the gaming industry so as to stop once source of competition, actually caused the closure of her own company (along with GDW).