Peter Adkison

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Peter Adkison bigraphy, stories - American businessman

Peter Adkison : biography

Peter D. Adkison is the founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast (1993 to 2001), as well as a hobby game professional.

During Adkison’s tenure, Wizards of the Coast rose to the status of a major publisher in the hobby game industry. Wizards achieved runaway success with its creation of Magic: the Gathering, which started the collectible card game category. It also distributed the Pokémon trading cards, and later acquired the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, releasing a successful new edition.

Adkison is the current owner of Gen Con, a massive yearly game convention in the Midwest. In January 2001, Adkison sold Wizards of the Coast to Hasbro. As of 2005, he is the current CEO of Hidden City Games, publishers of the Bella Sara collectible card game for girls. As of 2013, he has started a production company known as Hostile Work Environment LLC.

As a longtime fan of role-playing games, Adkison has recently become an advocate for indie RPGs. His own game design work includes The Primal Order, a "capstone system" for use with any of a number of different role-playing games.

Background

As a child, Adkison enjoyed playing strategy games and war games, and in 1978, he was exposed to Dungeons & Dragons, which "blew [him] away." In 1981, he created a Dungeons & Dragons campaign titled Chaldea, which he continues to run today. As of 2002, Adkison was running two Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, and playing in three. He enjoys a wide variety of games including Magic: the Gathering, Twitch, The Settlers of Catan, Robo Rally, Call of Cthulhu, Vampire: The Masquerade, and the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game.

While working at Hidden City Games, his public biography from 2005 claimed that he was married to Melissa Reis Adkison.

Career

Adkison received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Walla Walla College in 1985. He also has a MBA degree from the University of Washington. From 1985 to 1991, he worked as a systems analyst for Boeing.

While working for Boeing, he became involved in the founding of Wizards of the Coast. With the success of Magic: the Gathering, Peter began working full-time for Wizards of the Coast. As CEO of Wizards of the Coast, he presided over Wizards purchase of TSR, Inc.. According to game designer Ed Stark, Adkison said, "Look, computer gaming is the future of roleplaying. We’ve got to get involved in this."

In January 2001, Adkison sold Wizards of the Coast to Hasbro and entered "semi-retirement", engaging in rock-climbing and "lying around". In May 2002, Adkison purchased Gen Con from Hasbro, which he had been attending since 1992. Adkison claims to have "always loved" Gen Con.

In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Peter Adkison as one of The Millennium’s Most Influential Persons "at least in the realm of adventure gaming".

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