The world’s most successful real
estate agents buy and sell properties with reckless abandon, endeavoring to
develop whole streets with houses and hotels, bankrupting their competition
while trying to stay out of jail. It may
sound like real life but we’re talking about Monopoly, the most popular board game
ever. In fact, since it’s creation more
than 100 years ago, 280 million sets have been sold and more than 1 billion
people play in 111 countries. Here are
some other fun facts about our first childhood lesson with buying and selling
property:
Monopoly was first conceived
in the early 1900’s by Elizabeth Magie, who called it The Landlord’s Game and
patented its design in 1904.
The Landlord's Game was
first designed to illustrate a couple of advanced economic theories, Ricardo's
Law of Economic rent and the Georgist concept of a single tax on land
value.
The object was to show that
rents enriched property owners and impoverished tenants
It was the first game that
had a continuous path around the board without start or finish, and also the
first to have ownership of space on the board (with consequences to any player
who lands there, even if the first player wasn’t present.)
Magie first submitted the
game to Parker Brothers in 1910, which George Parker declined to publish
because he thought it was too complex, took to long, and too political.
Never the less, the game
grew in popularity as a teaching tool, used at Wharton, Smith College, the
University of Toronto, Columbia, Princeton, and MIT.
England released its own version
of The Landlord’s Game in 1913 by the Newbie Game Company, called Brier Fox and
Brier Rabbit.
By 1933, a board game had
been created much like the version of Monopoly sold by Parker Brothers and its
related companies through the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st.
The purpose of the game is
"to become the wealthiest player through buying, renting and selling of
property,"
There are 40 spaces on the
board. The official location of these
real life properties is Atlantic City, New Jersey. An early edition had properties from Chicago,
like the Loop and Lakeshore Drive.
International editions have different locations, like London for the
Commonwealth edition. Some
By the 1970’s there were
Monopoly tournaments all over the world.
In 1989 a Monopoly spin-off
video game was released.
The original patent on The
Landlord's Game expired in 1921, after which the game became known simply as
Monopoly.
Patented as The Fascinating
Game of Finance (later shortened to Finance) that had 4 railroads – one per
side, chance, community chest,
Ruth Hoskins learned the
game 1945 took it back to Atlantic City and taught Quakers
Reinstate the original rule
that property was a set price not auction price
The game’s original
character was called Rich Uncle Pennybags.
A man named Charles Darrow
had learned a similar homemade game from a friend who learned it in college,
and developed the game further and tried to claim it as his own. He took it to Milton Bradley and tried to
sell, setting off 30 years of controversy and lawsuits around Monopoly. Even as late as the1970’s, it was widely
believed that Darrow was the original creator.
The Landlord’s Game,
Inflation, and Finance were some early names or versions of Monopoly.
The game that resembles our
modern version of Monopoly was first marketed on a large scale by Parker
Brothers in 1935.
At first the game had a time
limit, forcing players to roll the dice, take their turn, and make decisions
quickly.
Monopoly caught on overseas
very quickly, with international editions played in the UK, France, and
Germany.
The German edition in the
1930’s featured properties in Berlin, but was denounced, allegedly by Joseph
Goebbels to the Hitler Youth due to the game's "Jewish-speculative
character," though it’s believed he actually didn’t want to disclose real streets
and properties where Nazi party members lived.
Escape maps, compasses and
files were inserted into MONOPOLY game boards smuggled into POW camps inside
Germany during World War II. Real money for escapees was slipped into the packs
of MONOPOLY money
By 1938 the game had reached
Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, Chile, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, and
Austria.
By World War II the game had
reached huge popularity in the United States, with 800,000 games selling per
year. During the war years, production
of the game was suspended as materials and factories were reserved for items
essential to the warm but after 1945, sales jumped to 1 million a year.
In the 1960s, "Monopoly
happenings" and parties popped up.
They had marathon sessions, games played on massive outdoor boards, on
the ceiling of a University of Michigan dorm room, and even underwater!
The longest MONOPOLY game in
history lasted for 70 straight days.
There was a Monopoly prime
time game show in 1990 with host Mike Reilly and announcer Charlie O’Donnell.
The most expensive version
of the game was produced by a famous San Francisco jeweler named Sidney Mobell,
a $2 million game with a 23-carat gold board and diamond-studded dice!
The game went mostly without
innovation in the modern era, but in 1998 Hasbro held a campaign to add a new
token to the game. The public voted with
phone calls, on a website, or at FAO Schwartz stores for a biplane, a piggy
bank, or a sack of money. The sack of
money won with 51% of the vote.
In 1999, Hasbro rebranded
the Rich Uncle Pennybags mascot as “Mr. Monopoly.”
Monopoly has had special
Star Wars, Pokémon, sports teams, and Millenium editions.
Hasbro released The
Electronic Banking Edition in 2006, allowing the use of VISA-branded debit
cards and a debit card reader instead of the classic paper bills.
There have been plenty of
Monopoly parodies but none as controversial as Ghetoopoly, released in 2003 by
David Change. His game has liquor
stores, massage parlors, a peep show, pawn shops, Police shakedowns and
carjackings.
The Mega Edition expanded to
include fifty-two spaces, skyscrapers erected after hotels, train depots, the
$1,000 bill, and bus tickets.
The first European Monopoly
Championship was held in Reykjavík, Iceland, the same site as the 1972 World
Chess Championship
The Monopoly name has also
been made into instant-win lottery tickets, clothing, a line of model cars,
slot machines, bathroom accessories, and collectible game tokens
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