Bob was recognised with the tongue-in-cheek International Designer and Inventor of Toys award at this year’s UK Toy Inventors’ Dinner
University Games President Bob Moog was awarded the prestigious I.D.I.O.T. Award at this year’s UK Toy Inventors’ Dinner.
The presentation of the I.D.I.O.T. Award began in 1988 and stands for International Designer and Inventor of Toys. Each year, a single I.D.I.O.T award is presented as a tribute to an individual in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the toy industry.
The prestigious award was presented to Bob by Mike Moody of Seven Towns, who said: “The I.D.I.O.T. Award celebrates extraordinary contributions made by inventors of our toy and game industry, and equally, the contributions of those within the toy companies who work so hard promoting our ideas and support our invention community.
“Our recipient this evening has been an entrepreneurial pioneer. Over the years, he’s produced a remarkable range of successful games and built a company with a stellar reputation,” he added.” And importantly, he’s supported us – the inventors and our ideas – by being a familiar face at our dinner for very many years. In fact, too many years! He’s one of our longest standing overseas members. He’s taken risks on our concepts, created many of his own, enjoyed his share of winners and losers like most of us, and yet has always remained enthusiastic for the next new idea.”
As Bob reflected on the award he said: “Most of the time people think of me as a businessman building University Games. It was fabulous to have the coolest people in the global board game world honour me for creativity and game design. We are committed the game inventing community and always will be.”
During Bob’s acceptance speech he talked about starting out as a games inventor. The first thing he wanted to create was a Murder Mystery Party Game, and 41 years on, the University Games’ Murder Mystery Party Range forms a lucrative piece of the global portfolio.
“I’d never been in the toy industry,” Bob said. “I didn’t know anything about really running a business, and we went and tried to sell a Murder Mystery Party – none of the companies were interested in it, and I didn’t have the persistence to keep inventing and selling, but I really wanted to take this to market, so I started a company. A company that didn’t just develop games but will also sell product to retail. The goal was to sell the product to retail to get enough money to support me while I invented games, but it turned out to be the opposite. We ended up building a business that is now much more known for our marketing and our sales than it is for the games I invent!”
