From $20K to Game Industry Icon: Bob Moog’s Journey Building University Games
The Mike Litton Experience
Mike Litton
5.0 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 June 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this powerful episode of The Mike Litton Experience, we sit down with Bob Moog, co-founder of University Games, to uncover how he turned just $20,000 and a bold vision into one of the most influential companies in the board game industry.
Bob shares real-world lessons on leadership, innovation, and ethical entrepreneurship, drawing from his 40+ years of experience. Learn how he’s:
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Built a global company with hundreds of titles like Smartass and Am I the Asshole?
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Created a company culture rooted in empathy and strategic thinking
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Used small, intentional decisions (like box design!) to make a massive retail impact
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Is now launching both a documentary film and the first board game and puzzle museum in the U.S.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, creative, or lifelong learner — this conversation will inspire you to rethink what’s possible with a little vision, purpose, and a lot of action.
Explore More from Bob Moog & University Games:
Visit: https://ugames.com
Buy Games: https://areyougame.com
Also Available On: Amazon, Walmart, Target
Subscribe to The Mike Litton Experience for more exclusive interviews with world-class entrepreneurs, creatives, and thought leaders.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Right. So they'll answer no just so they can see what the results are. Right. It's like they can't help |
| 0:07.0 | themselves. You know what I mean? And that's what this is. This is cool. And what we do, there's some |
| 0:12.0 | things in the gameplay of it. The reason we don't have people give their personal answer is because in |
| 0:17.9 | testing that, we found that it became very contentious. I mean, we have a rule |
| 0:22.5 | at our company not to fire anyone between Thanksgiving and New Year's. And it's just, there's a lot |
| 0:30.8 | of reasons for it, but the basic reason is, and you get to do this when you, when you've been |
| 0:35.4 | running a company for 40 years, I don't feel good about it. |
| 0:37.7 | I don't enjoy my vacation. |
| 0:39.7 | We went to factories in China and we worked on getting them to have better conditions for their workers. |
| 0:47.4 | And even if we only changed three factories, that's a contribution. |
| 0:52.9 | A lot of lives, man. |
| 0:54.1 | That's a lot of lives. |
| 0:55.3 | We had a game called based on Dick Tracy, the Dick Tracy movie with Warren Beatty and |
| 1:00.4 | Madonna, and it didn't sell as well as we wanted. |
| 1:04.0 | And so we've decided that what I want to do is create the first board game and puzzle |
| 1:13.2 | museum in the United States. |
| 1:14.9 | There are some museums that have parts of them that have board games, but there's nothing |
| 1:19.6 | fully dedicated. |
| 1:21.2 | And if I can pull this off, it'll be a great contribution, you know, for kids and people |
| 1:27.4 | to go and understand more how |
| 1:29.6 | vibrant the board game industry is right now. |
| 1:33.3 | Did you know there's a technology that's actually an app on your phone that uses sound |
... |
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