Original subtitles

(air-raid siren blares) (tense music)

(explosions booming)

[Narrator] As a Nazi bombing campaign terrorizes England...

(radio crackling)

[Announcer] A third wave of German bombers

are reportedly heading to- (radio cackling)

I repeat, a third wave- (radio cackling)

Heading towards Birmingham.

(tense music)

[Narrator] One man brings his neighbors together

to lift their spirits.

Anthony Pratt, he used to play piano

at murder mystery parties.

And he had this brilliant idea

to turn these murder mysteries

into an actual board game.

Imagine we're all at an English country house,

but something has happened.

Murder.

(laughs) We start in the gun room.

[Narrator] What begins as a way to escape the horrors

of war will one day spread far beyond the bomb shelter

to become a global sensation, selling over 150 million units,

launching a multimedia franchise

that includes a cult classic film

and leads the way for a post-war reinvention of board games.

- (dice rattling) - Ready?

(dice clatter)

- Ah! - Hey. (laughing)

In this period of tranquility,

we see the rise of mind games.

Premium squares getting bigger towards the edge.

You really start to see barriers being broken down

in terms of how you would play games.

Now, the fun begins.

The inventors of Clue, Scrabble,

and Yahtzee had one thing in common.

They believed the sense of fun could be combined

with a thinking game.

[Narrator] Three innovators who break the mold.

You got a deal.

[Narrator] To forever change the way we play.

Sold them all? Bingo.

(dramatic music)

(tiles clatter) (heavy impacts)

(dice clatter)

(pensive music)

Pre-World War II,

a lot of board games were completely mindless.

Games were really just dumbed down games

of chance for children.

There was a lot of dice rolling,

a lot of flicking a spinner, drawing cards,

that sort of thing.

Or games which required an intense level of skill

and intelligence to play.

But nothing in between.

Nothing that sort of was a bit of both, and honestly,

the country really wasn't ready for something new.

(crowd exclaiming)

[Narrator] As the Great Depression takes hold,

Americans still find fun in simple pleasures.

[Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready?

- Yeah! - Excellent!

Excellent, we're feeling lucky.

[Narrator] Something 19-year-old,

door-to-door toy salesman Edwin Lowe is looking

to cash in on.

Lowe is an immigrant. He believes in the American dream.

Anybody can make it and anybody can be rich.

His father, a rabbi, tells him,

"If you're gonna be a successful salesman,

you need confidence and you need determination."

He's toying around down in the South

and stumbles across a community night.

[Announcer] Our next number is nine!

(players cheer) Lady Luck is in the house tonight!

And he saw this gambling-style game

that they were referring to as Beano,

and the people playing literally put beans on the board

and would yell out Beano when they had the proper number

of squares covered.

[Announcer] Do we have 23?

- [Players] No. - No! Oh, my.

So the origins of the game goes all the way back to 1530.

It is an Italian game known as Lotto.

It became very popular in Europe

and eventually made its way to America

around the 1920s or so.

Do we have eights?

- Yeah! - Oh, my God!

[Announcer] Ah.

[Narrator] Lowe thinks Beano is exactly what Americans

in the grip of the depression are looking for.

A simple game of chance, easy to learn and fun to play.

He realized instantly

that this game could be a massive hit.

He brought it back home, played it with some friends,

and in a highly serendipitous moment,

a friend of his got so excited, instead of shouting Beano,

she stood up and shouted, "Bingo!"

And the rest is history.

(tense music)

[Scott] Stumbling on the game Beano

and then rechristening it, "Bingo"

was very lucky. (phone rings)

Hello? Yeah, uh-huh.

But everything else Lowe did after this was very smart

and good, old-fashioned hard work.

[Narrator] In 1930, Lowe establishes his own toy company,

becoming the very first to mass produce Bingo cards.

[Scott] Lowe started to make Bingo an industry.

He literally had two factories and he claimed

that he was using more paper than the New York Times

to print the Bingo cards.

Thanks in large part to his ability to market the game,

Bingo took off like wildfire.

Because of the ease of producing it,

the low cost of participating in it,

and its deep acceptance in church communities,

Bingo becomes a hit during one of the darkest times

in American history.

[Narrator] As Bingo looks to be Lowe's ticket to success,

across the East River,

(birds chirping) (tense music)

another man is still looking for his ticket

out of the unemployment line.

Alfred Butts was born in Poughkeepsie, New York,

studied architecture.

He designed single family homes.

And then, the depression hit and Butts lost his job.

He didn't know what to do.

He made prints that he would try to sell.

He wrote short stories that would get rejected

and he was struggling, for sure.

(pensive music)

[Narrator] But in his downtime,

he starts noticing an interesting trend.

Just like we saw during COVID,

the board game industry blossomed

during the Great Depression.

If you don't have the money to go out,

the board game is actually a pretty good way

to pass the time.

Anytime there's any kind of economic downturn,

I think games sort of answer the call.

[Narrator] This keen observation

gets his wheels turning.

It was really a financial question for him.

He didn't have a game idea.

He decided, "I'm going to make a game to make some money.

Now, I need to think of what that game is."

He laid out the three basic kinds of board games.

Men on a board, card games, word games.

And he listed a bunch of the first two kinds

that were very popular, chess, backgammon,

checkers, bridge.

But he wasn't really seeing a hit word game

and he was right.

The only thing that really is out there is this game anagrams,

just a basic word formation game.

Players form a word and lay it down on the table

and then try to add to the words

that have already been formed to make new words,

which really wasn't very much fun.

There really wasn't a word game

that makes you wanna play it again and again,

creating a huge market opportunity.

[Player] I've got a U, what do I do with a U?

[Stefan] Butts looked at the game anagrams

and decided that the problem with it was

that it was just too hard to make words.

It looks like there's not enough vowels there.

[Narrator] Then it hits him.

He can make an improved version of anagrams.

And this was a guy that had a very organized,

mathematical, almost computer-like mind.

He recognized we use more of certain letters

than other letters in word formation

that what you needed was for the pieces

to reflect the English language.

[Narrator] For more insight,

he remembers an obscure story he's recently read.

(tense music)

So Edgar Allan Poe, in his short story, "The Gold-Bug",

there's a sequence where a character's trying

to break a code and Poe lists the letters of the alphabet

in the order of their frequency in the English language

to help solve that code.

"Now, in English, the letter

which most frequently occurs is E.

Afterwards, succession runs A, O, I, D."

[Stefan] He sensed, this isn't exactly right,

and if I can figure out the correct frequencies

of letters in the English language-

- Figured it out.

That'll make my anagrams spinoff more fun.

[Narrator] But he has his work cut out for him.

Counting how many times letters appear in words

in 1930 is a really daunting task.

Today, you could go do a search for a letter and instantly,

you are told there's 50 S's in this essay.

He can't do that.

He has to literally count those S's one by one.

[Narrator] While Butts takes on

a seemingly insurmountable challenge,

Edwin Lowe is about to experience one of his own.

Good evening.

Unfortunately, with success comes imitation.

And the market's flooded with a bunch

of imitation Bingo cards.

[Lowe] What's this?

The problem with Bingo was it's very easy

to print Bingo cards.

You might have a special look for your game,

you might have a special name, but without a trademark,

you don't have the ability to protect it.

It was not something that he was gonna be able

to continue making money on year after year,

decade after decade.

[Narrator] As easily as he first found Bingo,

Lowe is now in danger of losing it.

I sell Bingo, no one else!

[Narrator] In 1931,

Alfred Butts can't create his new word game

without answering an unprecedented question.

How often do we use each letter of the alphabet?

Alfred was a super meticulous guy.

The idea of just guessing was not gonna be enough for him.

The way that you amass data about language is

by aggregating text and it was hard to do

because computers didn't exist.

So he starts by counting the letters in the newspaper

and building this gigantic database,

and he's doing it day in, day out

for weeks and weeks and months,

literally just counting word by word.

It was a pretty intensive process.

Dozens of spreadsheets with these tick marks

and boxes and charts,

and that was how he calculated the way

that language is used by us.

[Narrator] After two years of intense research,

he finally gives his new game a name.

Lexiko.

Not only is Lexiko an odd name,

it's even an odd name to look at.

It's L-E-X-I-K-O.

It sounds like a delicious Greek dish with feta cheese.

So Lexiko, the idea was you have the tiles.

There is no board, it was really just anagrams.

[Narrator] The objective, make as many words as possible

from 100 tiles.

He created a point system

and gave some of the tiles extra value.

[Narrator] The less common the letter,

the higher the points.

Butts made the pieces for Lexiko in his apartment.

(saw whirring)

And sawed and cut,

pieced and glued.

He put the letters on these little wooden squares.

(tense music)

In 1934, he was selling a few dozen sets a month

at $1.50 each.

This was not a successful game and it was not a money maker.

So he did send letters and samples of Lexiko

to Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley and they rejected it.

They just didn't feel that a game that crossed the barrier

between children and adult audiences,

play and strategy, could be a success.

When you go to play a board game,

you either want your brain on or your brain off.

And a lot of times, people wanted their brain off

in the early part of the 20th century.

Big game companies rejected Lexiko 'cause it was boring

and Butts realized the game needed to be tweaked

to make it more fun.

(tense music)

[Narrator] At the same time,

Ed Lowe is fighting his own losing battle.

Despite Bingo's success,

Lowe is not able to trademark or copyright this game.

He hires up to like, 40 different lawyers trying

to get the rights to Bingo.

Just find another law firm then.

Unfortunately, it was not a truly original idea.

The basic game was already so widely played.

[Narrator] As soon as he has a huge hit

on his hands, it's gone

and Lowe is forced to search for another one.

As an independent game designer,

you were looking for that one big hit

that was gonna make you rich.

And this drives him to want to find another game

that he can get the rights to.

[Narrator] But stumbling upon Bingo

was like capturing lightning in a bottle.

Doing it twice will be next to impossible.

(pensive music)

Four years later and five miles away,

Alfred Butts is also back at square one

until another word game catches his eye.

Crossword puzzles were hugely popular.

They were in every newspaper

and that certainly informed his thinking.

[Narrator] Most importantly,

they inspire a design breakthrough.

The playing board.

The board changes everything just design-wise.

You take the very familiar crossword

and you put it into a board form.

"I get it, I see it, I can market it."

[Narrator] And another simple addition transforms the game

into something fun.

He came up with the idea to create bonus squares.

Premium squares getting bigger

as you move towards the edge.

That added a whole new element of excitement.

You're like, okay, I can go there, I can go there.

I can go up and I can go down.

And then someone takes the spot

and then just ruins my brilliant, 5,000-point word.

[Narrator] The premium squares turn the board

from a crossword puzzle into a battlefield.

That really makes it a strategy game.

You can actually think through,

"What's gonna make me the most points?"

It goes from a game that's just about,

"Check out my big brain and my big words,"

to strategy, to outmaneuvering your opponent.

Butts didn't know what to call his new game.

He called it "It"

because he just couldn't come up with anything.

And then he finally settled on "Criss-Cross Words".

Another firecracker of a name!

Criss-Cross Words.

And if you haven't heard of that game,

it's 'cause that name is terrible.

[Narrator] The concept is groundbreaking,

but unfortunately for Alfred Butts,

selling this version isn't any easier.

Criss-Cross Words was a lot like Lexiko

in that games companies rejected it.

By the early 1940s, Butts didn't make or sell many copies,

about 100 in all.

I think he was disappointed with rejection

and failure again, and so he got a job.

He didn't need this to be his life's work.

[Narrator] By the outbreak of World War II,

Butts puts his game on the back burner.

While across the pond,

(air-raid siren blares) (tense music)

Anthony Pratt turns to games to escape the horrors

of the Nazi's blitz bombing campaign.

On April 9th, 1941,

there was a massive raid on Birmingham.

(intense music)

And that was the last straw from his point of view.

He just decided, "To hell with the war.

I'm going to create a game."

What's on your mind?

Anthony Pratt, pre-World War II,

he was a pianist and was often entertainment

for these murder mystery parties.

The guest asks questions

and see if they could fur it out which one was the murderer.

He remembers that people loved playing that murder game.

Why can't he do a version

where people could play it at home?

How do I put the amazing parlor game experience

into a box?

But in terms of putting it into a box, selling it,

marketing it, and distributing it to the masses,

Anthony Pratt doesn't have...

a clue.

(tense music)

A clue. (tense mu)

[Narrator] As millions take shelter

across England during World War II,

Anthony Pratt wrestles with how to deliver the magic

of a murder mystery party in a simple board game.

Nothing like this has really been done

in a board game before.

Pratt comes in and he doesn't care.

He's like, "I have a vision.

I wanna bring fun back and I think I can make it happen."

[Narrator] For inspiration, Pratt steals a page

from his favorite author.

At this time, especially in England,

the murder mysteries of Agatha Christie

and her detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple,

have taken the nation's imagination by storm.

Anthony Pratt was steeped in this culture,

so he started with the iconic archetypes

of a British murder mystery.

So you've got the colonel, the professor, the femme fatale,

the rich entitled person, and then the servant.

[Narrator] Then he places the characters

in the perfect setting.

His wife recommended the floor plan

of a mansion be the layout of the game board.

This fabulous, gothic, mystery mansion that pulls on

all of the tropes of the very popular

mystery novels at the time.

[Philip] And then she actually rendered it for him.

Oh, wow.

And so that was the starting for the physical appearance

of the game.

[Narrator] Elva Pratt's mansion adds crime scenes

for the potential murders

and their weapons of choice soon follow.

They had different weapons than we are used to now,

like hypodermic needles.

Poison, a bomb,

a fireplace poker,

a walking stick, like hit someone over the head with,

and then some of the weapons that we all know today.

(gun fires)

But the big problem that Anthony Pratt faced was,

how do you create a murder mystery game

with a different outcome every time?

[Narrator] His simple solution is revolutionary.

He and his wife were both passionate bridge players

and it quickly dawned on him

that he could achieve random solutions

if you relied on cards.

You take one card out of the pile of suspects,

out of the pile of weapons, and out of the pile of rooms.

Those are tucked away and hidden,

and that became known as the missing card mechanic.

The card removal and the missing information.

Today, that is a critical element in many,

many deduction games.

The actual mechanics of Clue is a math puzzle.

What information do you know that other people don't know?

And he did that in such a simple,

wonderful way that I'm still kind of in awe of it.

[Narrator] The mechanics are innovative,

but the unique, immersive narrative

makes the game come alive.

I think narrative makes you forget that there are rules

and cards and math, and instead you are on an adventure.

A social experience in a board game

that also has some pretty intense logical reasoning

is a beautiful combination that we just have not seen.

It's one of the first games where you are asked to roleplay

and by having these rooms and these characters,

you're immediately sort of immersed

into a novel or a TV show.

And even as a kid, I felt like I was someplace else.

I've got the perfect name for it.

Murder.

(both laugh)

[Narrator] While Pratt believes he has a new,

hit game on his hands,

(tense music)

Ed Lowe is still searching for his,

doing whatever he can to keep his company afloat.

He develops a pretty successful business

during World War II,

selling mini games that could be shipped

to soldiers on the front lines.

They're not new inventions, they're the old favorites.

The one thing that is missing is really something

that is new and different and unique,

and that is still the thing that Lowe is chasing.

(pensive music)

[Narrator] As the war nears its end,

Anthony Pratt feels the time is right

to pitch his game to the leading British game manufacturer.

It's set in a beautiful, English country house.

Waddington's, in the 1940s,

was one of England's leading printers,

thanks to the relationship

with the great American game company, Parker Brothers.

And Norman Watson was the key decision maker

at the John Waddington Company when it came to new games.

Anthony Pratt goes in, and it's his first time designing.

He's got one game,

he's talking to the number one publisher in the UK.

It's daunting.

And now, the fun begins.

From the game designer perspective,

you were trying to figure out a way

to convince them to take your game.

Mrs. Silver,

in the gun room,

with the bomb.

(tense music)

Mrs. Silver in the gun room with the bomb.

(Watson chuckles)

And he sells it, so, good for him.

Watson really liked the game,

but he did not like its name.

"Murder" doesn't really fly.

It's a hard thing to sell to children.

[Narrator] Watson changes the name to Cluedo.

They combined the word clue with Ludo,

the name of the English version of Pachisi,

which in Latin meant, "I play."

[Narrator] And he insists on a few other changes as well.

[Adam] When Pratt was developing the game,

he had 11 rooms, 10 suspects, and 9 weapons.

In the finished game,

there are 9 rooms, and 6 weapons, and 6 suspects.

They changed the weapons to be more household items,

things like a lead pipe or a candlestick

as opposed to a syringe or a bomb.

I think switching to the final six items

really embodies the murder mystery

and you can see the person grabbing the lead pipe

in the kitchen or taking the candlestick

from on top of the mantle.

There is, however, a hiccup in this success story.

Because of rationing during the war,

Waddington's doesn't have enough cardboard

to produce the game board for Cluedo.

[Narrator] The setback puts the future of the game

on hold indefinitely.

(dramatic music)

(tense music)

(tiles clatter)

[Narrator] By 1949, Alfred Butts believes the world

has forgotten his word game,

until a stranger shows up at his house unexpectedly.

James Brunot was living in Connecticut on a farm

where he raised sheep and he wanted to start a business

that could keep him in the country.

He was given a copy of Criss-Cross Words,

played the game and liked it.

[Narrator] Brunot believes this is the opportunity

he's been looking for.

He makes Butts an offer.

The rights to the game in exchange

for royalties on each set sold.

Alfred was relieved with an offer to take the game over

and try to sell it.

Where Butts was more of a creator,

Brunot was a businessman.

And Brunot didn't like the name Criss-Cross Words.

He wanted something that was sort of flashier.

[Narrator] From that day forward,

the game becomes known as Scrabble.

Scrabble actually is a real word.

It means to grope frantically,

and in point of fact, is worth 14 points.

He liked how "scrabble" related to the game,

fishing through a bag of letters.

He also liked the fact that it wasn't trademarked.

[Narrator] With a new name,

Brunot believes he can make it a success

and decides to publish the game himself.

Meanwhile, in England,

Anthony Pratt spends four anxious years waiting

for cardboard rationing to end and his game to be published.

The feeling was, perhaps within a year

to a year and a half, but with an indefinite timetable,

heaven knows how much longer before rationing was lifted.

[Narrator] Finally, in 1949,

Norman Watson figures out a workaround.

Norman packaged up a prototype and sent it off

to Parker Brothers.

While it's still impossible to print a board game

in England, the United States is open for business.

But Parker Brothers is reluctant

to sell a game about murder.

- How you doing? - Hello, Anthony.

- It's good to see you. - You too.

So, this is what's gonna be going out in the US.

"Clue"?

[Norman] It's a bit clearer of what it is.

First, they simplified the name to Clue.

Furthermore, they never called the outcome

of the game a murder, they called it, "the act."

Where's Reverend Green? Why change his name?

A character like Reverend Green,

it wouldn't really jive with American culture

because someone of religion to be a murderer was unheard of.

So they changed him to Mr. Green.

That was sufficient for them to take a deep breath

and put it on the market.

[Narrator] Released in 1949,

Clue's US sales figures immediately surpassed

Parker Brothers' expectations.

During times of challenge, people wanted distraction.

(rising dramatic music)

Whereas when times were good, they welcomed a challenge.

They welcomed a bit of an intellectual pursuit.

And it is in post-war America,

in this period of peace and tranquility,

that we see the rise of mind games.

All of the games that followed really capitalized on this

and showed that America could handle more interesting,

more complex games than you had seen before for the family.

In that first year, 1949, they probably sold 25,000.

Now, 25,000 was eye-opening and caused Norman Watson

to publish Clue immediately.

That meant Watson had to take cardboard away

from other games,

but the American success made him confident

that this was a good decision.

[Narrator] As Clue quickly gains popularity

on both sides of the Atlantic,

James Brunot goes all in on Scrabble.

(phone ringing) (tense music)

[Brunot] Hello?

Brunot manufactured the game at a barn

on his property in Connecticut.

He hired local workers to cut the tiles.

The Scrabble tiles were made from Bavarian maple

from the Black Forest in Germany,

and that was a very specific choice

because it had a really smooth, very specific feel.

Brunot made some really important cosmetic changes.

He gave each of the premium score squares distinctive colors

and created those starbursts around each of the squares,

which added a sort of exploding dynamic.

Well, I'd appreciate it if we could get it into your store.

I mean...

Okay.

[Narrator] But even with these upgrades,

Scrabble fails to dazzle buyers.

Yeah, I'm okay.

For Christmas, maybe.

He wasn't making any money selling Scrabble.

We're talking about a few thousand sets a year

between 1949 and 1951.

Okay.

(phone thuds)

(Brunot sighs)

[Narrator] Meanwhile, Clue's meteoric rise

leads Waddington's Norman Watson

to make a brazen business move.

We want to buy you out.

(dramatic music)

Anthony Pratt was offered 5,000 British pounds

in return for the international rights of Cluedo.

For Pratt and his wife, 5,000 pounds was a godsend.

(Pratt laughs)

5,000 pounds in 1953 would be about $220,000 today.

New father, new child, big paycheck.

Pretty hard to say no to.

You got a deal.

[Watson] Excellent.

In the moment,

it probably looked like a pretty darn good deal

to Anthony Pratt.

He did not know that the game was a runaway hit

and he certainly had no way of knowing what would happen

to it in the future.

And from that point on,

Anthony Pratt was caught in the sidelines,

watching the game soar to even greater heights

during the remainder of his life.

- (glasses clink) - Cheers.

[Narrator] While a naive Pratt loses Clue,

(seagulls calling) (pensive music)

a determined Ed Lowe remains simply empty-handed.

After Ed Lowe popularized Bingo,

he went through a long period of time

without another really notable success.

You can make a million chess sets,

but it's Monopoly that puts your name on the map.

And so he was constantly on the hunt for the game

that he owned, that was associated with his name.

(determined music)

And eventually, he found it in a very unusual place.

(dice clatter)

Yahtzee!

(seagulls calling) (tense music)

[Narrator] By the mid 1950s,

it seems Ed Lowe's decades-long search

for a new game might finally be over.

The story goes that Edwin Lowe was hanging out

with the upper crust and he sees these people

that own a yacht.

(dice rattling)

And they were playing a slightly odd dice game.

(dice rattling)

- Ah, that's it! - That's good.

Thank you, that's good.

What do you call that game you're playing there?

And the couple says,

"We have a delightful game that we have invented."

You have a handful of dice, you roll them,

and whoever has the highest score wins.

Once again, Ed Lowe saw an opportunity

and made an offer, so the story goes,

to these millionaires to purchase the rights

for the game and publish it.

Then you go again.

And so Lowe has found his next big hit,

which the couple had called the yacht game.

(players laugh)

[Narrator] But versions of the yacht game have been played

across the world for decades.

Very similar to Bingo, there were a lot of precursors.

There were games that were very similar,

played with five dice, had the re-roll rule,

had categories of scoring.

They go by many names.

Poker dice, poke, generalia,

yam, crag, balut, and my personal favorite, cheerio.

(dice rattling)

And so this couple goes off into the great unknown,

is never heard of again, and for that matter,

there's no evidence that this story is based on fact.

Whether it's true or not,

the story of how Ed Lowe got the rights absolutely echoes

the story behind Bingo.

All right, let's play.

(dice rattling) Ready?

(dice clatter) Ah! Hey.

[Narrator] But this time around, Lowe is much more savvy.

So just like Bingo, he needed a catchy name.

Unlike Bingo, he needed to retain the rights.

Instead of calling it the yacht game,

he would call it Yahtzee.

(dice clatter) (players exclaim)

By changing it to Yahtzee, he's able to own that trademark.

So I give you these scorecards.

This is just a prototype.

And even though the game was, in truth,

remarkably similar to games that came before it,

it was his game.

[Lowe] So you write your score down and end your turn.

Anyone can make a game with five dice.

No one else can make a game called Yahtzee.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] Lowe also adds a cup

and cleverly, replenishable scorecards.

The Yahtzee scorecard was the one thing

that consumers really couldn't make themselves.

So that was another revenue stream for E.S. Lowe.

[Narrator] But the real stroke of genius

comes from the big moment when all five dice

land on the same number.

You have to yell the word Yahtzee when you get a Yahtzee,

because he saw how powerful that was in Bingo.

It's energetic, and excitind, and triumphant,

and an absolutely magical moment

that makes people wanna play again and again.

[Scott] He is so proud of it that he puts his face

on the front of the box.

[Narrator] Unfortunately, it doesn't help sell the game.

The launch of Yahtzee was abysmal

and a big part of it was, it is hard to describe.

Yahtzee, as straightforward as we may look at it today,

was somewhat complex for the time that it was coming out.

Lowe is like, "I know this game is gonna be huge,

but I've gotta find a better way to spread the word

and let people know."

(sheep bleating) (tense music)

[Narrator] Meanwhile, on his sheep farm,

James Brunot has spent four years struggling

to sell Scrabble.

[Stefan] Brunot is getting orders

for about 200 boards a week.

[Worker] Look at this.

[Narrator] Then, something unexpected happens.

[Brunot] Macy's?

(intense music)

More?

He and his wife go off to Kentucky

for his sheep business.

And when he gets home, he was expecting another 200 orders.

[James] Oh, my God.

Suddenly, Scrabble gets thousands

and thousands of orders.

What happened?

(Brunot sighs)

(tense music)

[Narrator] After three years of failure...

[Brunot] Macy's?

[Narrator] Scrabble's sudden explosion

in popularity is a complete mystery to James Brunot.

Macy's putting in this big order

changed the course of the game.

The most plausible theory is that the chairman of Macy's,

Jack Straus, had played Scrabble on vacation on Long Island,

came back to New York and ordered his sales force

to order Scrabble.

Oh, my God. (chuckles)

This was one of the biggest department stores in America.

So when Macy's put in a big order, everybody followed.

[Narrator] In 1952, Scrabble hits Macy's shelves

across the country.

Scrabble immediately exploded.

There was a big profile of James Brunot in Life Magazine.

It was in newspapers, on television.

Celebrities were playing Scrabble.

In 1953, the game sold more than a million copies.

By 1954, it sold almost 4 million.

The American games industry had never seen

anything like that before.

[Narrator] After years of receiving small royalty checks

from Brunot, Butts is shocked when he receives his next one.

Now, picture that.

You've created this game in the heart of the depression.

It didn't sell. You forget about it.

Occasionally, you get a little check.

You open an envelope and it's 81 grand!

That's actually a million dollars in today's money.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] As Scrabble takes its rightful place

at the top of the board games market,

Yahtzee still hasn't taken off,

but Lowe refuses to give up.

He quickly understood that in order to sell this game,

he had to get the dice in the hands of people.

That's when Lowe ended up throwing Yahtzee parties.

He would provide the games and get people to play.

By encouraging Yahtzee parties,

Lowe was able to introduce more and more people

to an entirely new kind of game.

He felt that if you played Yahtzee,

then you would like it and tell your friends.

So he stuck to his guns

and kept promoting it, and kept promoting it.

And he was smart to bet on a game like Yahtzee.

(tense music)

Where's the rest?

[Narrator] After three years...

You sold them all?

[Narrator] Lowe's perseverance finally pays off.

The floodgates open on Yahtzee sales.

Yahtzee, once he figured out how to market it,

became, for its time,

the largest selling game in America at 9 million units,

which is more than double what Monopoly

and Scrabble were at their peak.

Bingo. (chuckles)

[Narrator] Yahtzee, Clue, and Scrabble opened the door

for decades of board game innovation.

You have to look at this period as absolutely crucial

to what the industry is today.

A whole new space opened up that was revolutionary.

Board games just continued evolving,

and let people show their prowess intellectually.

[Narrator] After 1953, Alfred Butts comfortably retires,

while Scrabble becomes one of the first

competitive board games,

selling 150 million sets in 29 different languages

across 121 countries.

Alfred Butts created the word game.

It spawned a culture of competitive players

that rivals chess and belongs

in the pantheon of board games.

[Narrator] Though Anthony Pratt lives out the rest

of his life in obscurity, Clue's legacy is anything but,

selling over 150 million units in 40 different countries

and inspiring endless variations.

Clue really changed what a game could be.

It's a great injustice

that Anthony Pratt isn't remembered for Clue.

Pratt's reputation is mounting today

because for the first time,

people are venerating him as the inventor

of one of the most ingenious games of all time.

[Narrator] And with Yahtzee as his crown jewel,

Ed Lowe cements his place in toy history,

selling his empire to Milton Bradley

for $23 million in 1972,

nearly 170 million today.

Three very different games,

three very different inventors,

but all have left a lasting mark on play

that resonates today.

The rise of the mind game gave way

to an unbelievable genre.

And whether you go to an escape room

or are playing a video game with a long story,

you are immersed in a game that was all played up here.

(dramatic music)