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Gen Con is a major American tabletop game convention, once owned by TSR, which was bought by Wizards of the Coast, which was bought by Hasbro. The rights to the con were bought by the former director of Wizards of the Coast, Peter Adkinson.
On Jan 10, Lucasfilm announced that it was suing Gen Con.
On Feb 15, Gen Con released a press release indicating that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Chapter 11 allows the company to restructure its organization and continue operations while it tries to find ways to pay its creditors.
Living Dice did some rooting around and found out to whom Gen Con owes its money. Top creditors are:
- Geo E Fern Co (convention services) $748,956.81
- John Jordan (loan) $542,971.03
- Hasbro Inc $431,055.00
- Lucasfilm Ltd $284,099.32
- Thomas DesBrisay (loan) $211,601.67
- Make A Wish Foundation (supposed to receive income from auction) $148,562.13
- Los Angeles Convention Ctr $148,342.50
- Westin Bonaventure Hotel $140,401.69
- The Biltmore Hotel $138,623.85
- Board of Equalization (taxes) $131,636.18
- Hidden City Games (makers of Bella Sara collectible card game about horses) $125,000.00
So Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast and it’s owed money from Gen Con, owned by Peter Adkinson, former director of Wizards of the Coast. Furthermore, Peter Adkinson founded Hidden City Games, which is also owed money from Gen Con.
Got it.
Update: Peter Adkinson is the former (not current) director of WotC, as noted by Propagandoid in the comments. Also, see Tiger’s comment for further suggested elaboration.
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Nobody’s ever accused Peter of being a good businessman. He’s a brilliant guy, and latched on to and rode a revolutionary idea, but his financial acumen isn’t all that. Or a bag of chips.
Peter Adkison sold Wizards of the Coast in 1999, he is not the director of the company…he has no position or affiliation with WotC at all.
There aren’t any explainations on what is owed, or when it originated either.
Some of these “debts” may be from upcoming money due to be paid (say, for GenCon Indy 2008) and had to be declared as well.
Also, Peter is included in his own debts. That is because GenCon LLC is, well, an LLC. It is seperated from the owner’s assets and his own company may owe him money.
My unfounded assumption is that they made some bad business expectations and did not meet their bottom lines at some events. Star Wars Celebration got a bit out of control and the tape and bits holding it all together fell apart and so did their accounting… leaving themselves unable to pay for and explain their expenses. By February they owed money to folks from SWCIV and for the upcoming GenCon Indy… so rather than leave themselves open to lawyers clawing what was left into shreds, they filed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and will sort everything out with a (hopefully) better business plan and more accurate accounting.
But then again, maybe they’ve been doing bad accounting the whole time, funneling money into something like a shoe company rather than paying the bills for GenCon or something. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened in the gaming world.
I posted some additional documentation, the complete financial filing for the month of March. You can see it for yourself here:
http://www.livingdice.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=Gen-Con-Bankruptcy-Financial-Statement-for-March-2008.html&Itemid=116
Trask, The Last Tyromancer
Peter’s last name is spelled Adkison. See http://www.hiddencitygames.com/management.html
Seems quite sad that a charity was owed money out of all that (on top of the loss to all geek kind!), I do wonder how hasbro ended up being owed too :P