Tenth anniversary of GDW’s demise

I remember hearing the news about GDW finally shutting its doors on February 29, 1996. I just can’t remember how I found out since I wasn’t gaming then. Probably one of my friends because I don’t think I read about it. 
 
Back then I was rather thrilled to hear the news. It was definitely a very sweet, sweet revenge upon Frank Chadwick and Dave Nielsen while petty. They thought they knew what the world wanted when it came to roleplaying games. Too bad they never really played one on a regular basis. Might explain why their rules, mechanics and atmosphere were uninteresting thus resulting in boring games. The other problem was that Frank continued to siphon off money from the few profitable roleplaying games into his poor-selling wargames. Lester even showed him the writing on the wall in 1992 of how computer-driven versions of these games were the future. 
 
Sadly, Frank’s decision-making process and management style were very poor. There was always one person who had his ear and that person could do no wrong, until this person was discredited and eventually fired by Frank. His other ugly habit was all the shit he’d talk about his former employees such as his favorite phrase of “such and such never really did anything here.” Truth be told, people like Lester Smith, Tim Brown and Julia Martin probably kept GDW alive longer than Frank could comprehend. Plus the efforts of Steve Bryant in the art department were crucial in my opinion. After Lester bailed for TSR, Frank decided that Dave was his boy which put the bullseyes on me and Steve for sure. I can only wonder if Frank finally discovered the severity of Dave’s alcoholism. 
 
They say that living well is the best revenge and over the last ten years. Well I’ve exceeded the minimal standard these days: I own my car, I own a house, I have a cool wife, I live in a city with much better weather and my income is three times what GDW ever paid me. But it’s not the material things I feel vindicated about, it’s how I proved his parting words wrong. When he fired me, he made some inaccurate comment about me not being a team player. HA! I have a string of good evaluations from my time with Apple and several awards from PowerComputing. I think Frank’s real issue is that he didn’t want to hear the truth. He only latched on to what he wanted to believe and before GDW closed its doors, he earned the nickname of Homer in the game business (explains the above graphic).