Peter Adkison

Peter D. Adkison is an American game designer and businessman best known as the founder of Wizards of the Coast. He served as the company's chief executive officer from 1993 to 2001. Adkison is the current owner of Gen Con, a major yearly game convention in the Midwest.

During Adkison's tenure, Wizards of the Coast rose to the status of a major publisher in the hobby game industry. Wizards achieved success with its creation of Magic: the Gathering, which started the collectible card game genre. It also distributed the Pokémon trading cards, and later acquired TSR, publisher of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, releasing a successful new edition.

In 1999, Adkison sold Wizards of the Coast to Hasbro, remaining with the company until January 2001. His friend, Terry Campbell, suggested the idea of starting a game company to Adkison and his friends using the name "Wizards of the Coast", taken from a guild of which one of their player characters was a member.

In the early 1980s, Adkison self-published a wargame to be used with fantasy role-playing games titled Castles & Conquest, utilizing the "Wizards of the Coast" name as a brand.

Career Adkison received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Walla Walla College in 1985. From 1985 to 1991, he worked as a systems analyst for Boeing. However, Hasbro folded up the rights for D&D computer games into Hasbro Interactive and then sold them to Infogrames, leaving Wizards unable to publish D&D computer games; Adkison therefore submitted his resignation, which became effective December 31, 2000. In May 2002, Adkison purchased Gen Con from Hasbro, which he had been attending since 1992.

As of 2005, Adkison is the CEO of Hidden City Games, publishers of the Bella Sara collectible card game for girls. As of 2013, he has started a production company known as Hostile Work Environment LLC.

Accolades In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Peter Adkison as one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons "at least in the realm of adventure gaming".