The rise and fall of the company behind ‘Reader Rabbit’ and other games (2018)(theoutline.com)
theoutline.com
The rise and fall of the company behind ‘Reader Rabbit’ and other games (2018)
https://theoutline.com/post/6293/reader-rabbit-history-the-learning-company-zoombinis-carmen-sandiego?zd=1&zi=bzhzqye6
42 comments
Any investor backed or publicly held company is going to sell out to the highest bidder without regard to the future of the company or the employees.
Not directed at you, but I never understood why this is always a revelation on a site run by venture capital firm.
Not directed at you, but I never understood why this is always a revelation on a site run by venture capital firm.
You're right, but rarely does management encourage a "we're just here for the money" kind of employee attitude. More like "we're all a team, let's do great things together"...until we sell the team and bolt. Should adults know better? Yes. But, it's still essentially lying, trying to get people to feel loyalty to an organization (so that they will worker long hours, etc.) while not feeling any loyalty to it yourself.
But, by now, the pattern is long since clear, yes. But it's so out of whack with how the rest of human interactions work, that it is perpetually surprising to most people. It's more or less institutionalized psychopathy.
But, by now, the pattern is long since clear, yes. But it's so out of whack with how the rest of human interactions work, that it is perpetually surprising to most people. It's more or less institutionalized psychopathy.
Unless you work at Netflix. They make their relationship with you very clear.
https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664
https://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664
Cause its populated with bright-eyed / naive engineers.
Right. That's what I was back in the '90s.
It's not actually all bad though. At least in the educational software business of the time, there were various companies run by people who were trying to do more than personally enrich themselves. It's on a continuum... some were trying to do a lot more than just enrich themselves. Some were willing to do a little. For some, it was strictly about grabbing the most money, whether it was a short-term or longer-term play. Of course, no one running a company can simply not consider the money. And economic realities can force the hand of anyone.
It's not actually all bad though. At least in the educational software business of the time, there were various companies run by people who were trying to do more than personally enrich themselves. It's on a continuum... some were trying to do a lot more than just enrich themselves. Some were willing to do a little. For some, it was strictly about grabbing the most money, whether it was a short-term or longer-term play. Of course, no one running a company can simply not consider the money. And economic realities can force the hand of anyone.
The more cautionary tale is don’t lose focus of your goals. If you can grow slowly, without outside investment and just have a “lifestyle” business, you can to some extent decide your own fate.
Having watched Shark Tank for a long time, I always wondered if Kevin O'Leary just played a ruthless shark on the show or if he really was one. The article seems to confirm he is definitely the latter: "He was the soulless businessperson who just came in and bought a bunch of companies and scaled them back and laid off all the good people.”
Moreover, he manages to sell TLC for $3.5 billion to Mattel, which is forced to sell it for just $27 million 18 months later. Of course, that was a poor decision by Mattel's then CEO, considering she was warned not to do the deal: "TLC was a “house of cards.” The business was boosting its revenue by purchasing new companies, but the significant acquisition costs weren’t reflected in their top-line earnings."
Interesting that another shark on the show - Mark Cuban - also became a billionaire by selling his company to Yahoo at its peak, and Yahoo then essentially shutting it down.
Moreover, he manages to sell TLC for $3.5 billion to Mattel, which is forced to sell it for just $27 million 18 months later. Of course, that was a poor decision by Mattel's then CEO, considering she was warned not to do the deal: "TLC was a “house of cards.” The business was boosting its revenue by purchasing new companies, but the significant acquisition costs weren’t reflected in their top-line earnings."
Interesting that another shark on the show - Mark Cuban - also became a billionaire by selling his company to Yahoo at its peak, and Yahoo then essentially shutting it down.
The article has a paragraph basically claiming the internet / apps would have killed those companies anyway and I think I agree. Perhaps a more visionary businessman could have found a way to develop the IP in a transition but ultimately they were kind of doomed like most games companies are. It's a brutal industry.
Or that a lot of “successful” businesspeople are swindlers.
Just goes to show that business vision (and a good dose of chutzpah) goes a long way when making money
A Mattel deal is doable, just make sure it's within reasonable values so that you don't get sued
A Mattel deal is doable, just make sure it's within reasonable values so that you don't get sued
> At its peak in 1998, O’Leary sold TLC to Mattel for an astounding $3.5 billion — 4.5 times The Learning Company’s annual revenue.
This is a weird footnote because 4.5x price to sales is not that crazy above the market average of ~1.5 at the time of this acquisition. It would make sense for a growth industry in the midst of the Dot Com boom in 98. It's certainly not crazy today, where companies trade at many times that (Pinterest trades at a 18x multiplier).
Great article by the way. I loved Rocky's Boots.
This is a weird footnote because 4.5x price to sales is not that crazy above the market average of ~1.5 at the time of this acquisition. It would make sense for a growth industry in the midst of the Dot Com boom in 98. It's certainly not crazy today, where companies trade at many times that (Pinterest trades at a 18x multiplier).
Great article by the way. I loved Rocky's Boots.
I am too old to have had educational videogames as a child so I have always wondered if they actually were "educational." Do people who played these games as a kid feel as if they actually learned something from them?
(Of course we can learn things from any game but I'm just wondering if people feel educational games were more educational than, say, Civilization)
(Of course we can learn things from any game but I'm just wondering if people feel educational games were more educational than, say, Civilization)
I grew up with Civilization, and the first one really was educational! Especially because the copy protection was “answer this question about what it says about this technology on this page of your manual in order to play.” We owned the game, but we had either lost the manual or it was too much trouble to fish it out of the box. I had the text of the technology tree memorized, knew what all the ancient wonders were (although not their history), and got pretty good at tactics/strategy. It’s a shame, really, that the later Civ games did not have the same level of educational value baked in.
Yes, Rocky's Boots taught me the basics of computing. I think having an intuitive grasp of logic gates at a young age made it easier to learn to code.
I also think that I learned a lot from games that weren't explicitly intended to be educational, like planning and independent problem-solving skills.
I also think that I learned a lot from games that weren't explicitly intended to be educational, like planning and independent problem-solving skills.
I certainly learned a wealth of trivia from the Carmen Sandiego games on the Apple II. I don't know that it specifically enriched my education, but I enjoy knowing trivia.
"Rocky's Boots" was great fun and stealthily teaches fundamental logical concepts. I never got to play "Robot Odyssey" (the sequel) as a kid, but playing it as an adult was fun and I could totally see how it would boost logical / computational thinking.
"Rocky's Boots" was great fun and stealthily teaches fundamental logical concepts. I never got to play "Robot Odyssey" (the sequel) as a kid, but playing it as an adult was fun and I could totally see how it would boost logical / computational thinking.
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Absolutely. If nothing else, they gave me a hunger to build things of my own. I started programming by writing games in Macromedia Flash (years before the Adobe acquisition), mostly by copying concepts I saw in these educational games.
You can probably guess from the conflation of entertainment with education in the article:
> Buckleitner, who has been reviewing educational games since 1984, assured me of their quality. “They were good!” he said. “They had animation, music… for the first time you had actors speaking, kind of like comic books. They teach higher order thinking, so they fit well with school curricula.” That I never thought about it means they were doing their job.
Personally, I never felt I learned much from TLC games as a kid (although I enjoyed some games), and what I did learn I could've learned as well or better reading books or doing regular exercises.
In general, educational and brain-training games don't work, likewise, handing out laptops, and the better the experiment you run, the smaller the effects are. (This is true of education experiments in general, where effects are typically near zero.) Just because something is entertaining doesn't mean it's educational, and just because something is educational, doesn't mean it's more educational than what a kid would otherwise be doing, or educational about useful things.
> Buckleitner, who has been reviewing educational games since 1984, assured me of their quality. “They were good!” he said. “They had animation, music… for the first time you had actors speaking, kind of like comic books. They teach higher order thinking, so they fit well with school curricula.” That I never thought about it means they were doing their job.
Personally, I never felt I learned much from TLC games as a kid (although I enjoyed some games), and what I did learn I could've learned as well or better reading books or doing regular exercises.
In general, educational and brain-training games don't work, likewise, handing out laptops, and the better the experiment you run, the smaller the effects are. (This is true of education experiments in general, where effects are typically near zero.) Just because something is entertaining doesn't mean it's educational, and just because something is educational, doesn't mean it's more educational than what a kid would otherwise be doing, or educational about useful things.
> Personally, I never felt I learned much from TLC games as a kid (although I enjoyed some games), and what I did learn I could've learned as well or better reading books or doing regular exercises.
But would you have read those books or done those exercises as willingly as you played the games? That's valuable enough on its own.
But would you have read those books or done those exercises as willingly as you played the games? That's valuable enough on its own.
That's a very weak justification for what were very expensive computers and software.
Not exactly an education game, but Shadow President is why I know my world political geography much better than most.
Various games taught me more about the rough timeline of (especially) ancient history than school ever did. Crusader Kings II let me follow the unstated meat of the plot of Hamlet intuitively, in a way that I'd guess the vast majority of modern people without some equivalent experience or very specific education could not.
Mavis Beacon taught me to type correctly. Early Web free-for-all chatrooms and FPS in-game messaging taught me to type fast.
Various games taught me more about the rough timeline of (especially) ancient history than school ever did. Crusader Kings II let me follow the unstated meat of the plot of Hamlet intuitively, in a way that I'd guess the vast majority of modern people without some equivalent experience or very specific education could not.
Mavis Beacon taught me to type correctly. Early Web free-for-all chatrooms and FPS in-game messaging taught me to type fast.
It took me a lifetime to realize Reader Rabbit is a play on Peter Rabbit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rabbit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Rabbit
I grew up playing number munchers, but we had reader rabbit as well. Since I already knew how to read at that time, we just referred to reader rabbit as "Evan's game" (my littlest brother). It seems, in my memory, like the computer was a source of wonder. The games were strangely austere and left a lot more room for my imagination to take over (kinda like the difference between reading a book and watching a movie). Miss those days!
My school had games from MECC like number munchers and word munchers rather than reader rabbit, but I see their fate was also being acquired by SoftKey in 95.
My school had Dave.
Not directly related to the content, but: This is the second text in a short time I see where there are animated separation lines between the paragraphs.
Is this some new trend? And am I the only one who finds this exceptionally irritating?
Is this some new trend? And am I the only one who finds this exceptionally irritating?
It's an SVG animation, which is kinda interesting, but it's annoying as hell, like you say.
Perhaps the web dev is a geocities throwback.
Perhaps the web dev is a geocities throwback.
It might just be the second article you've read on The Outline, this is a distinctive part of their house style.
> For his part, Buckleitner thinks this is too neat of an explanation.
'too neat an explanation'. 'neat' is an adjective, so there's no call for 'of' here. It's bad enough when people get this wrong in speech ...
'too neat an explanation'. 'neat' is an adjective, so there's no call for 'of' here. It's bad enough when people get this wrong in speech ...
The dictionary.com quotation proves my point. TFA is neither spoken nor informal English, it's trying to be broadsheet-quality written journalism. In that sort of context, using dodgy colloquialisms sounds real dumb like.
The Logical Adventure of the Zoombinis and Reader Rabbit are so nostalgic parts of my childhood. I so vividly remember trying to teach myself boolean logic at age 7 or 8 because of the "boolies".
Turns out those games are actually on Steam!
Turns out those games are actually on Steam!
I, too, grew up on the first-ever Zoombinis game. I actually recently played through it again almost 15+ years later. Everything from the sound effects to the visuals is seared somewhere deep in my neural wetware like a permanent ROM chip. Funnily enough, some of the puzzles still confused me! I guess my colorblindness certainly hasn't been magically cured over time...
Thanks so much to OP for linking this article.
Thanks so much to OP for linking this article.
Ooh, I remember Zoombinis! Our teacher loaded it up on the classroom computer used to use it as a way to keep kids busy once they finished their math assignments. This, of course, led to everyone rushing to finish their work and crowding around to watch whoever managed to be the first to do so and kept them from bothering the teacher when she was helping the kids who needed more help.
I have much nostalgia for the Super Solver series, and the games Ancient Empires and Operation Neptune.
What are the new edu game powerhouses? Minecraft comes to mind. Does it share the same age demographic as Zoombinis or Reader Rabbit?
I’m looking for educational software; it’s difficult to find anything comparable to what existed when I was growing up.
I’d definitely pay $10’s for games comparable in quality to turtle, number munchers, the one with the cups and the fluids where you had to measure out exact volumes, etc.
This industry reminds me of what happened to atari: the ecosystem got flooded with $1 garbage, and the quality developers got pushed out.
The game industry recovered due to a technology transition combined with a business model innovation (more powerful consoles with severe licensing restrictions to keep quality up).
It is a shame that recovery hasn’t happened for educational software.
I’d definitely pay $10’s for games comparable in quality to turtle, number munchers, the one with the cups and the fluids where you had to measure out exact volumes, etc.
This industry reminds me of what happened to atari: the ecosystem got flooded with $1 garbage, and the quality developers got pushed out.
The game industry recovered due to a technology transition combined with a business model innovation (more powerful consoles with severe licensing restrictions to keep quality up).
It is a shame that recovery hasn’t happened for educational software.
Kerbal Space Program probably qualifies.
Every Minecraft guide is trapped in a YouTube video made by someone who sounds like a teenager or younger, so the answer is probably yes.
I believe Minecraft is something parents play with their children, but that's anecdotal.
I have had younger coworkers tell me that they got started programming using Minecraft.
At first I thought they were just stupid (I was naive... “don’t they know their catalog will run dry if they aren’t refilling it with new titles?!?”).
Then with growing horror I realized they knew perfectly well, that their company sales numbers were shooting up while their costs were going down.
I thought the payoff would be to milk revenue from the back catalog for a few years until even that was no longer worth the effort.
But then there was the huge sale to Mattel. They’d found someone with billions of dollars to spend without the slightest idea how the business worked (or any business?). I still don’t know why it didn’t matter that the growth was due only to acquisitions and the cost cutting was due to halting new development (like losing weight by amputating your legs). I guess Mattel had a “Barbie” mindset where the popular properties keep producing steady revenue for decades? Still even something like Barbie gets constant updates.
One insight I have:
There’s no way the execs at Brøderbund and all those other companies didn’t understand what was going to happen when they sold themselves to “TLC” after they saw what happened to it. Those execs knew perfectly well they were selling out their employees and the future of the company. There were fat bonuses for the execs and sometimes smaller ones for managers when these deals went down so these people would profit personally while understanding what was going to happen to the future of their company and the people who worked for them.