It was the board game Time magazine called the “the biggest phenomenon in game history.” Trivial Pursuit was first conceived on December 15, 1979 by Chris Haney and Scott Abbott. At the time, Chris Haney worked as a photo editor at the Montreal Gazette, and Scott Abbott was a sports journalist for The Canadian Press. The two friends came up with the basic concept of Trivial Pursuit within a few short hours. The pair were playing a game of Scrabble when they decided to invent their own game. However, it was not until 1981 that the board game was commercially released.
On November 10, 1981, “Trivial Pursuit” was trademark registered. That same month, one thousand and a hundred copies of Trivial Pursuit were first published in Canada. Haney and Abbott had taken on two more business partners (Ed Werner, corporate lawyer and John Haney, Chris’ brother) since 1979 to form the Horn Abbot company, and had raised their initial funding by selling five shares in the company for as little as $1,000. Eighteen-year-old artist, Michael Wurstlin agreed to create the final artwork for Trivial Pursuit in exchange for his five shares.
The first copies of Trivial Pursuit were sold at a loss, the manufacturing costs for the first copies came to seventy-five dollars per game and the game was sold to retailers for fifteen dollars. Trivial Pursuit was licensed to Selchow and Righter a major U.S. game manufacturer and distributor in 1983. The manufacturers financed a successful public relations effort and Trivial Pursuit became a household name.
In December 1993, Trivial Pursuit was named to the “Games Hall of Fame” by Games magazine.