Library of Economics and Liberty masthead logo
 
Search EconLog
Recent Entries
Browse Archives
by date
by author
by category
Subscribe
About EconLog
Frequently Asked Questions
EconLog FAQ
Econlib Resources
About Econlib
Contact Econlib
Quote of the Day
Birthdays & Commemorations
Frequently Asked Questions
Get Econlib Newsletter
Subscribe to EconLog
XML (Full articles)
RDF (Excerpts)
Feedburner (One-click subscriptions)
More
FAQ (Instructions and more options)
Return to top
Articles EconLog EconTalk Books Encyclopedia Guides Search

Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons and the father of the thousands of role-playing games it spawned, has died. And while I think he made a bundle off of his ideas, he only got a small fraction of the value he created. After all, you can only copyright specific ideas, not an entire genre - even if without your work, the genre would not exist.

So this is a great time to let non-financial incentives compensate for positive externalities. Let's have a moment of gratitude for the great Gary Gygax. To the victorious dead!

HT: Eric Crampton, my former grad student whose enthusiasm sparked my last D&D campaign (using a house version of Gygax's 1st edition rules!).

CATEGORIES: Economics and Culture


COMMENTS (7 to date)
jb writes:

Gary's supreme contribution - that one could pretend to fight, with rules to express how that fight play out paved the way for virtually everything computer-game related ever since. And it helped create a frame of reference for working with rules and processes that, for me, turned into a very good living as a computer geek.

Mr. Gygax, I salute you!

Posted March 5, 2008 2:53 PM
randy writes:

glad to see you post on this. what a giant he was. i hadn't even thought about how his creation touched on the numberless computer games which are based on the types of rules gygax developed in D&D. incredible. and sad.

Posted March 5, 2008 3:38 PM
David writes:

I know this is an economics blog, but this is so nerdy it actually hurts.

Posted March 5, 2008 5:59 PM
Eric Crampton writes:

We'll here soon be running a 1st edition campaign in memory. First edition D&D though, not AD&D, so I won't be able to resurrect Dougal, the lovable sage-assassin of charisma 3...

Posted March 5, 2008 7:18 PM
Ferruccio Fortini writes:

You say "you can only copyright specific ideas": actually, that's incorrect -- you can only copyright expressions, not ideas (some kinds of ideas may be covered by patents, a very different kind of "intellectual property" from copyrights). I guess I'm being pedantic, but there's a lot of confusion in the general public around various kinds of "intellectual property" concepts and laws, and I think it's better to correct erroneous terminology and concepts when they're expressed.

Posted March 5, 2008 11:06 PM
Ted writes:

I appreciate this post. This guy has such a massive following, that the responses to his death are spread across massively diverse circles. I play D&D, and I don't plan on stopping any time soon. Thanks, Mr. Gygax.

Posted March 6, 2008 9:50 AM
Michael Sullivan writes:

I haven't played D&D in 20+ years, but I recently started playing World of Warcraft which turns out to be essentially D&D's computer graphics great-great-great-grandchild, as I was amused to discover soon after I tried it.

Posted March 6, 2008 2:34 PM
Comments for this entry have been closed
Return to top
Copyright © 2006-2009
Liberty Fund, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Blogging software: Powered by Movable Type 4.2.1.
Pictures courtesy of the authors.
All opinions expressed on EconLog reflect those of the author or individual commenters, and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of the Library of Economics and Liberty (Econlib) website or its owner, Liberty Fund, Inc.

Liberty Fund logo, amagi symbol
The cuneiform inscription in the Liberty Fund logo is the earliest-known written appearance of the word "freedom" (amagi), or "liberty." It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.
spacer gif