Thanks for nothing Milton Bradley (or whoever you are)!!! OK, here’s a quiz question — What doesn’t belong: St. Charles, Pacific, Baltic and Wacker Drive. Or here’s another — what doesn’t belong: Ventnor, Oriental, Rodeo Drive and Illinois.
If you score less than 100% it can only mean that you have never played Monopoly. And if you have never played Monopoly then it can only mean that you are not an American or maybe you are a sweet potato disguised as a human.
Don’t get me wrong… I have nothing against the game of Monopoly. I have truly enjoyed the game. I had my favorite properties: the Railroads and the Orange Block — St. James, Tennessee & New York. The latter represented great value, affordable buying price and great return on quickly developed housing.
I enjoyed playing the game as a kid, when I was in college, after college and then with my kids. It’s that type of game… you can play it, and play it, and play it. Young or old… wasn’t that a selling point? Scrabble was a good game, too… but was dependent on evolving vocabulary skills.
I loved Monopoly’s “house rules”… whether you put money as a reward for landing on Free Parking, or if you picked up and extra “C” note for landing on Go, was it permissible to hide your money, were player to player loans allowed… the essentials of the game remained the same; but there were little quirky differences depending on whose home you played in… it was all good.
But lets face it… it was a game built on acquisition, greed and sending your opposition into the poor house. Great American values!!
Then why should we be surprised when the Company that produced the game (or the Company that acquired the Company that produced the game, etc., etc.) should exhibit a similar degree of greed, avarice and exploitation?
No longer do we only feature the addresses of Atlantic City, NJ… we now have a “Chicago” version and a “Los Angeles” version. And because the abstract of game is so simple, we can have a “Star Wars” version, or a “Shakespeare” Version… or a “Muncie, Indiana” version forGodsakes!!
And then if that was not enough… we can make a game box fashioned from the cedars of Lebanon, cast game pieces from recycled minie ball lead recovered from the Antietam Battlefield, laminate the deed cards in gilt, use handcrafted ivory dice made by the Queen’s Own Gamemaster… and then charge $1000 for the game.
So… we take a good game… we devalue it by coming up with mock versions to satisfy the gift giving need of folks from any city with a population over 50,000. And because we have rendered the most significant board game of the 20th Century to “Egg McMuffin” status, we have to artificially create a “special edition” version by making its least important ingredients, important.
Is it really a more special game because the deed for Marvin Gardens is gilt edged?
I don’t think so.
But then again, who am I?
Just a simple citizen who likes to hide his $500 bills under the board.