Game History 2: Jono Hey
Trivial Pursuit: The rise and fall of Inconsequentia
For as long as I can remember, Trivial Pursuit has been my family’s favorite Christmas pasttime. It hasn’t been mine, but I’ve grown to at least join in.
Trivial Pursuit was started in 1979 by two chaps, Scott Abbott and Chris Haney when they met to play Scrabble one day. Noticing that a few pieces were missing instead of playing Scrabble they set about designing their own game that, let’s face it, is incredibly simple.
Thanks ghirson for the photo
The game of Trivial Pursuit has two or more teams doing their best to answer trivia questions on a range of topics including Geography, History, Science and Nature, Sport Entertainment and Arts and Literature. Getting a question right just allows you to have another roll of the die as you quest about a wagon wheel shaped track in search of ‘Wedge pieces’ or ‘Cheeses’ to fit into your playing piece. You have to collect a Wedge by correctly answering a question on each topic after landing on a special square before you can head to the center to finish. It has its own curious rituals of the privilege and responsibility of asking the questions, the free for all in the rules as to how long a team can take before answering, and the now classic 'Roll again' squares.
Trivial Pursuit is more than just a selection of Trivia. It was designed for the Baby Boomers (which is why you or I can find it so hard) by packing the questions with information from the 50s, 60s and early 70s. The beauty of trivia is that, even though you know it’s trivial it doesn’t seem that way when you know it. Packing the game with information from that era celebrated the Baby Boomer’s youth, validating its place in history.
The game also kept it self light-hearted by picking out curious facts, not just important ones - "Which animal has the highest blood pressure?"* - and playing on trick questions - "What’s the largest diamond in the world? A baseball diamond of course." The ‘trick’ nature of the questions helps the players play not just against themselves but together against the deviousness of the game writers.
As a conseqeuence of the questions of the eras, winning at trivial pursuit feels more than just winning at a game. The winners get the smug knowledge that they lived most in the culture of the time. The reward is pride in your own life, not just beating your friends. Which is why the reverse is also true. I distinctly remember when I was young not being able to answer a single question as a whole game would pass me by. At the same time my parents, aunts and uncles would reel off the answers as if it was comon knowledge. It can make you feel stupid. If you’re not good at it, unlike other games, it doesn’t feel like a challenge to get better, it feels more like an insult. If you can’t get the questions then you obviously weren’t paying attention as life passed you by. A curious effect.
In contrast, I also remember the great feeling of correctly getting an answer at the family table as well as the even better feeling of suggesting the right answer within your team only to have it ignored by the team captain. The apologies and respect of the team more than make up for forfeiting your go.
Although Scott and Chris originally self-published the game at a loss in their first year the game has gone on to sell over 80 million copies. Not bad going for a bunch of random Trivia.
The game has been updated to include questions suitable for more recent generations, but somehow it’s lost the cachet of its original release. It’s not an accident that it was my parent's favorite Christmas game and not the kids’. Now with the wonders of Wikipedia at your fingertips it make disputing someone’s answer that much more difficult. Yet, there are signs that trivia's not going away. Now you just go play at the pub over a beer where the questions are read out by a guy with a microphone...
* A giraffe
February 2007