Simulations Publications, Inc.

• 1. Introduction

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  Simulations Publications, Inc., known in the hobby as SPI, once produced a role-playing game called Dallas, based on the prime time soap opera of the same name. Co-founder Redmond A. Simonsen later judged the print run "79,999 too many." That quote sat inside a much bigger story.

  SPI had spent the 1970s pushing out an enormous number of wargames. It aimed to pull control of the hobby away from Avalon Hill, the dominant publisher of the day, reshaping how the business worked. Its flagship magazine, Strategy & Tactics, carried a full playable wargame inside almost every issue. Each one came with a map, a rulebook, and a sheet of die cut counters. Within a few years, the same company lost everything to Dungeons & Dragons publisher TSR, which called in a loan secured against SPI's own assets. What turned Simulations Publications from a scrappy challenger to Avalon Hill into a company that could not pay its bills comes first. What TSR did with everything it seized comes after that.

• 2. A Rival Is Born

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  Jim Dunnigan first played Avalon Hill wargames while serving with the U.S. Army in Korea. He returned to civilian life in 1964 and began writing for two outlets at once. One was Avalon Hill's own house publication, The General. The other was an independent magazine called Strategy & Tactics. In one piece for The General, Dunnigan took aim at Avalon Hill's 1965 release Battle of the Bulge, arguing it lacked historical accuracy. Thomas Shaw, who ran Avalon Hill at the time, then asked Dunnigan to design and submit a wargame of his own. Dunnigan's answer was Jutland, published by Avalon Hill in 1967.

  Two years later, after designing 1914 for Avalon Hill, Dunnigan decided to strike out on his own. He said there had to be, in his words, "a more effective way to publish games." He gathered a staff of like-minded designers, among them Al Nofi and Redmond A. Simonsen. Strategy & Tactics itself was in financial trouble at the time, and Dunnigan acquired it from its founder, Christopher Wagner. In 1969 he founded Simulations Publications with Simonsen as co-founder, intending simply to keep the magazine alive. The new company quickly proved itself a game publisher first and a magazine publisher second, pushing out a wide range of wargames almost immediately.

  That fledgling company was about to spend its first two or three years on an expensive advertising campaign. It needed a readership that Strategy & Tactics did not yet have.

• 3. Selling the Hobby

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  Scientific American magazine carried full-page advertisements for SPI in its first two to three years, an expensive bet for a young publisher. New subscribers received a free copy of Napoleon At Waterloo. It was described as an "easy to play" game with a foldout map and 78 pieces punched from card stock. The pitch worked. SPI's subscriber base grew substantially, and the company came to be seen as a serious competitor to Avalon Hill.

  Strategy & Tactics had begun life as a wargaming fanzine. Under SPI's ownership, it turned into something closer to a military history magazine that happened to include a wargame. In 1972 SPI launched a second publication, Moves, as a house organ covering current and upcoming SPI games. Moves gave readers a look at SPI's own game design process, a rare glimpse for hobbyists used to buying a finished product.

  That subscriber growth gave SPI enough momentum to start looking past its own borders for new customers.

• 4. Crossing the Atlantic

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  J.D. Bardsley began receiving shipments of SPI's wargames in the United Kingdom in 1974, selling them under the name SP/UK. He worked the games two ways, through mail order and face to face at gaming conventions. Sales took off. By March 1976, SP/UK had sold 25,000 units. SPI responded by forming a formal British subsidiary, Simpubs Ltd., in June 1976. Simpubs launched its own bi-monthly periodical, Phoenix, with Bardsley serving as managing editor.

  That overseas foothold whetted a bigger appetite. Within a few years SPI went looking for outside investors to bankroll further growth.

• 5. The Dallas Gamble

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  Lorimar Productions and SPI struck a much-publicized deal in 1980 to build a role-playing game carrying the Dallas license. SPI printed 80,000 copies, banking on the show's popularity to move them. The game did not sell, and inside the company it became remembered as a costly miscalculation.

  SPI had already gone looking for venture capital in the late 1970s, betting that the wider gaming market was about to expand. The expected profits never showed up, only higher sales volume, and the venture money eventually had to be paid back. SPI and Avalon Hill held talks about a merger or acquisition, but the deal fell apart. SPI's cash losses kept growing under rising inflation and falling revenue. Avalon Hill did buy five of SPI's titles outright, which helped cover operating costs, but SPI still needed more money than that provided.

  That shortfall sent SPI looking for one final source of cash: a loan from TSR.

• 6. A Loan Called In

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  The loan itself came with conflicting numbers even in retrospect: contemporary accounts put it at $225,000, though other records list it as $400,000. Either way, TSR secured the promissory note against SPI's own assets. SPI used the money to pay off its venture capitalists. Less than two weeks later, TSR called the note due.

  With no cash on hand and no other options, SPI handed its entire inventory stock over to TSR in early 1982. The company was effectively finished. TSR first claimed it had acquired SPI outright, then reversed that statement once it became clear that would make TSR liable for SPI's debts too. What TSR actually took over, formally in 1983, was SPI's trademarks and copyrights, not its debts or other liabilities. TSR then used that same "assets, not liabilities" arrangement to refuse honoring existing SPI subscriptions, a decision that alienated many of TSR's own potential customers.

  Despite the collapse, the wargaming hobby had already handed SPI some of its highest honors throughout the 1970s. That recognition had nothing to do with the company's balance sheet.

• 7. Industry Recognition

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  Strategy & Tactics received the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best Professional Magazine four years running, in 1974, 1975, 1976, and 1977. SPI's games racked up honors across the rest of the decade too. War of the Ring took the Charles S. Roberts Award for All Time Best Fantasy Board Game in 1977. To the Green Fields Beyond won Best 20th Century Game in 1978, and City-Fight took the same category in 1979. The Creature That Ate Sheboygan won Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Game in 1979. That same year, Commando earned the H. G. Wells Award for Best Roleplaying Rules. Empires of the Middle Ages won Best Pre-20th Century Boardgame in 1980. DragonQuest took the H. G. Wells Award for Best Roleplaying Rules that same year.

  None of those trophies were enough to keep the lights on once TSR came calling.

• 8. Aftermath

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  TSR had inherited a backlog of nearly finished SPI games that had simply lacked the money for printing. It released several of them, including Battle Over Britain and Richard Berg's A Gleam of Bayonets: The Battle of Antietam. That title belonged to the Great Battles of the American Civil War series. TSR reboxed a handful of SPI's older, more popular titles under its own logo. These included Air War, Blue & Gray: Four American Civil War Battles, and Napoleon's Last Battles.

  New SPI game development stopped entirely. Most of the designers who had built the company's catalogue resigned and crossed over to Avalon Hill. They were drawn by a subsidiary the rival company created just for them, called Victory Games.

  TSR, though, kept a version of the SPI operation running for years afterward, not shutting it down until 1987.