Sid Sackson (February 4, 1920 in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

– November 6, 2002) was an American

board game A board game is a type of tabletop game that involves small objects () that are placed and moved in particular ways on a specially designed patterned game board, potentially including other components, e.g. dice. The earliest known uses of the ...

designer and collector, best known as the creator of the business game ''

Acquire ''Acquire'' is a board game published by 3M in 1964 that involves multi-player mergers and acquisitions. It was one of the most popular games in the 3M Bookshelf games series published in the 1960s, and the only one still published in the Uni ...

''.

Career

Sackson's most popular creation is probably the business game ''

''. Other games he designed include '' Can't Stop'' and ''

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'' (''Domination''), which won the prestigious German

Spiel des Jahres The Spiel des Jahres (, 'Game of the Year') is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence an ...

game design award in 1981. Other notable works include his books, especially ''

A Gamut of Games A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes''. It is similar in shape to the Ancient ...

'' and '' Card Games Around the World''; both titles include a large array of rules for games both new and old, and Sackson himself invented a number of the games covered by these works. For several years in the mid-1970s, Sid Sackson wrote a monthly column for ''

Strategy & Tactics ''Strategy & Tactics'' (''S&T'') is a wargaming magazine now published by Decision Games, notable for publishing a new wargame in each issue. Beginnings ''Strategy & Tactics'' was first published in January 1967 under its original editor, Chri ...

'' magazine called “Sackson on Games” in which he reviewed games (other than wargames). Sackson's book collection was arranged in groups of five books so he would know if a book was missing and which one it was. Sackson collected games throughout his life; at the time of his death, his collection was estimated at over 18,000 titles. Many of those were unique, sent to him by hopeful game developers who wanted Sackson's advice. At one point in his life, Sackson turned down an offer to bring his collection elsewhere for permanent safekeeping; the games were sold at a series of

auction An auction is usually a process of Trade, buying and selling Good (economics), goods or Service (economics), services by offering them up for Bidding, bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from th ...

s after his death, breaking up the collection. Sackson's personal papers are stored at

The Strong The Strong is an interactive, collections-based educational institution in Rochester, New York, United States, devoted to the study and exploration of play. It carries out this mission through six programmatic arms called "Play Partners": * Th ...

in Rochester, New York.

Honors

Sackson was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design's Hall of Fame, along with ''Acquire'', in 2011.Origins Awards Hall of Fame for Sackson
/ref> He was honored as a "famous game designer" by being featured as the king of diamonds in

Flying Buffalo Flying Buffalo Inc. (FBI) is a game company with a line of role playing games, card games, and other gaming materials. The company's founder, Rick Loomis, began game publishing with '' Nuclear Destruction'', a play-by-mail game which started th ...

's 2011 Famous Game Designers Playing Card Deck.

Games

Some of Sackson's notable games include: *''

'' *''

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'' *'' Bowling Solitaire'' *'' BuyWord'' *'' Can't Stop'' *'' Fields of Action'' *''

'' *'' Haggle'' *'' I'm the Boss!'' *''

Network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

'' *'' Patterns II'' *''

Poke Poke may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Poke (Ender's Game), Poke (''Ender's Game''), a fictional character * Poke (game), a two-player card game * Poke, a fictional bar owner in the television series ''Treme (season 2), Treme'' * The ...

Works

* Sackson, Sid, ''Card Games Around the World'', * Sackson, Sid, ''A Gamut of Games'', * Sackson, Sid, ''Beyond Tic-Tac-Toe,'' ISBN 0-394-83136-5, Pantheon Books, 1975 * Sackson, Sid, ''Beyond Solitaire'', ISBN 0-394-83304-X, Pantheon Books, 1976 * Sackson, Sid, ''Beyond Competition,'' ISBN 0-394-83605-7, Pantheon Books, 1977

References

External links