The+Parker+Brothers


 * The Beginnings before monopoly:**

The first game that the //Parker Bros.// created was //Banking.// George S. Parker developed this when he was 16 years old in 1883. It was played by taking money from the bank and earning more by different investments. It involved 160 cards that were much like the “chance” cards in Monopoly to see how to place their money, whether it is giving the money back to the bank or further investments. He only made about 500 copies of it and all were sold. He spent 40$ on each copy, and overall making a profit of 100$. He later created similar games that had to do with controlling money, including //Baker's Dozen// and //Famous Men.// After this minor success he created the //George S. Parker Company. Parker Brothers// was founded when George’s brother Charles joined with him financially and creatively in 1888. The final brother, Edward, joined up in 1898.

**Why Games?** Most people can say that when they are born, they did not want to spend the rest of their lives developing board games. TheBros. may not entirely have been the ones who were destined to do this. After the early company had its few copies of //Banking//, they settled down for a while. This was until when in 1886 their mother grew increasingly ill. At this point the company was still th e George S. Parker Company, so this was the reason to start and put their thoughts together. The brothers joined in one by one and started //The Parker Bros.// in order to maintain a steady flow of income to take care of their mother. It wasn’t until June of 1887 when the company received their first loan in order to start producing and consulting on how to make a game that would appeal to the general public and sell at the same time. But their mother was not the only reason the brothers got into the game business. George especially, had a fascination with English and prided himself on taking complex structures of words and decomposing them down into the finest and simplest form that they could be said. This made him an excellent producer for the instructions of a game, especially for once as complex as //Banking// and //Monopoly.//

**Making It Big:** The Parker Bros. had finally done it by creating the New round Game of Tiddledy Winks. The game had a small pot and small circular pieces made of colored plastic that were flicked into to the pot. It was considered an addicting novelty and this gained the attention of the J. Jacques and Son firm who sold it for the Parker Bros. The Bros. rushed to a trademark seal from the U.S. and later their name was out and investors were spending. Hundreds of thousands of copies of Tiddledy Winks were sold at around 25 cents a piece, which contributed to the next sensation, Pillow-Dex. Pillow-Dex was basically a scheme for sales since it appears to just be a rubber balloon that you would play "keep up" with. It was extremely popular with the upper-class society because it allowed "proper" men in women to engage in childish games. **War Strikes in the 1890s** The Spanish were seen as attacking the U.S. ship //Maine// and our country went to war on the orders of Teddy Roosevelt, who went himself to fight with the Rough Riders. The war did not last long but the country had severe conditions of war fever and the Parker Bros., like any other business, took advantage of the world and its involvements around them. The developed 4-5 different war games; War in Cuba, The Siege of Havana, The battle of Manila, and The Philippine War. Each were basically the same game with different cut outs and set designs. They were target based shooting games where bullets fired from spring loaded little cannons were fired at the cardboard soldiers. The gimmick of the game was that when you bought one of them, you were basically buying all of them; therefore all the sales were profit after profit. It would be like going and buying a movie on DVD, Bluray, and VHS. George saw war as a primary way to sell. He believed in mixing business with war since the constant love of violence from the public was a guaranteed way to make sales. You never saw kids running around granting wishes with flowers, you saw boys running with fake guns and shooting the other boys in the neighborhood. **You might have even stumbled upon a boy lying on the street corner, pretending he was dead for the sake of creating a more realistic war zone in his neighborhood.**

**A Little Ping Pong and Corp.** December 12, 1901, the Parker brothers took the giant leap into the world of corporations and out of their shell as a family owned and beloved business. They went public and started out with 2,00 shares at $100 for each. Half went to the 3 brothers but mainly to George, which was well deserved. This was around the time when McKinley was shot and the country went into a panic state where nobody bought anything. This was until George traveled to London in search for an idea.

George went to England and discovered a game that he became immediately addicted to. The game was ping-pong and George knew just how t sell it. The reason that is was not popular in England at the time was that the paddles did not function well and the ball was highly flammable.

George brought the idea to America and developed a different formula do give the balls the same sound when they bounce, but less flammable. Though many of them are still easily lit, especially the brightly colored ones today. George worked without rest on trying to make ping-pong a legitimate sport and helped organize the American Ping-Pong Association, which still stands today. This is and could be his greatest gift to the game world in unison with Monopoly.


 * Leading up to Monopoly[[image:monopoly2.jpg width="184" height="165" align="left"]]**

During the early 1900's the game industry was growing at an extremely fast pace. The Parker Bro's released their most popular card game "rook" in 1906. It was quickly the highest selling game rook was the first of many great games to come from the parker brothers. The deck in Rook contains 57 cards there are four suits: black, red, green,and yellow. in each suit the cards are numbered from 1-14. The 57th card is the rook card, the rook card has a picture of a bird on it. all in all rook is a very extremely complicated game. things seemed to be going perfect for the parker bros. Then the great depression hit and businesses were falling left and right. but throughout this depression the parker brothers came up with their most profitable idea "Monopoly". this multi million dollar board game was rejected at first by the company but in 1934 the idea came to life. It was based on gaining and surviving monopolies with a chance card every now and then to test your luck. It showed the modern horrors of monopolies when you land on Boardwalk's double hotel. It has become one of America's pastimes like baseball where everyone has a memory of sitting around the board and praying to roll anything but a 5 and landing safely on Free Parking. The game was so successful so quickly they couldnt keep up with the demand for the game, kind of like the modern day Nintendo Wii when it came out. both were so popular they were virtually impossible to get. It sold millions of copies and is still selling toady with such editions as Harley Davidson, Peanuts, Future, Candy, and wild west etc. Most of us know the parker brothers from monopoly, but they invented many games know all around, such as clue, risk, trivial pursuit and sorry! All went to live on past their generation and become great success'.


 * Ownership of company[[image:hasbro_box_4Color_1280542149.jpg width="149" height="170" align="right"]] The parker brothers remained a family business even after the death of the founder George Parker. That changed in 1963 when General mills purchases the company. in 1985 General Mills merged with Kenner, and then in 1987 Tonka Acquired the company. most recently Hasbro bought the company in 1991. Since 1883 the parker brothers have published a staggering 1800 games. The most popular ones you may know are Clue, Aggravation, and monopoly. The ideas of the parker brothers were so incredibly brilliant, they had no competition when it came to board games. The parker brothers could be compared to the modern day Microsoft(when it comes to video games). they are way above all of their competition. **

 Works Cited "Monopoly - History & Fun Facts." // Hasbro Toys, Games, Action Figures and More... // Web. 16 Feb. 2011. .Orbanes, Philip. "Monopoly: the World's Most Famous ..." // Google Books //. Web. 16 Feb. 2011. .Orbanes, Philip. "The Game Makers: the Story of Parker ..." // Google Books //. Web. 16 Feb. 2011. ."The Parker Brothers History - Google Search." // Google //. Web. 16 Feb. 2011. .