Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons (abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) published by Gary Gygax and David Arneson in January 1974. It was first published by Gygax's company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), and subsequently spawned the RPG industry. D&D is by far the best-known and best selling RPG, with an estimated 20 million players, many translations and over US$1 billion in book and equipment sales (as of 2004).
After TSR floundered in 1996, Wizards of the Coast acquired the company in 1997, including all rights to D&D. Two years later, Wizards was purchased by Hasbro. Owing partially to heavy marketing, products branded Dungeons & Dragons made up over fifty percent of the RPG products sold in 2002.
