subject: Yahtzee History - All About Yahtzee In A Nutshell [print this page] The pioneering marketer of this game was Edwin S. Lowe. He began actively promoting this game in 1956. Under Lowe's marketing skills, from 1956 - 1973, over 40 million games were sold, a hugely impressive figure! This of course was not a huge surprise, as the American Economy was booming in this period.
Of course, having a solid marketing strategy, and catchy slogans also aided the company greatly. One of it's best known slogans at that time was "Yahtzee, The Fun Game That Makes Thinking Fun!" They were able to appeal to the masses in that period very effectivelly through the advertising campaigns.But of course, not all was smooth sailing. In fact, initially, there was a great deal of trouble experienced in marketing the game due. This was due to a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was virtually uknown. Secondly, the rules were hard to explain via advertising campaigns.
To overcome this, the marketing team adopted a completely new approach. They organised a number of parties at which people were taught how to play the game, and were given an opportunity to play it as well. This strategy worked extremely well for the company as word of Yahtzee literally spread like wildfire!It was the confidence in both the game and the economy that led to purchase of the rights of the game by the Milton Bradley company in 1973. And about a decade later, the company was taken over by Hasbro Inc, which now also owns the rights to Yahtzee. Under this company, an impressive 50 million games have been sold on a yearly basis
The reason why it's been so impressive is due to the fact that from 1973 onwards, while the American Economy was generally robust, a huge numer of countries were experiencing a tremendous downfall all over again. Despite all this, such a huge number of units were still sold.
In general, Yahtzee's roots come from a variety of dice based games. It's basically a hybrid of games such as Generala (which is Puerto Rican), Poker Dice and Cheerio (which are both British). Despite it's age, this dice game has remained popular amongst people, and it seems likely that Yahtzee will have followers for a fairly long period of time!
