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London Turned into Giant Board Game

Posted by samzenpus on from the detroit-chutes-and-ladders dept.

webponce writes "Hasbro have fitted out 18 London cabs with GPS tracking devices, and hooked them up to a real time, real life game of monopoly. You get to choose which cab driver you want to 'play' with, and then pick which properties around London you want to put your houses and hotels, hit go, sit back and wait for the other cab drivers to land on your square and make you rent. You get 24 hours of your cab running around London, and you have to see how much money you can make in a day (my bet, put your property on Wimbledon this week ;)"

14 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. but... by torrents · · Score: 5, Funny

    real life counterstrike would be better... guess you'd have to go to iraq for that though...

    --
    Get your torrents...
    1. Re:but... by ISaidItOmega · · Score: 5, Funny
      You're missing the biggest problem of all:

      The US soldiers would probably give up their positions once the Iraqis heard them shouting "FUX0RING N00BS!!!11" or "thiS GUYS USING a WaLLHACK!!"

      ....fucking Iraqis and their wallhacks..

    2. Re:but... by rho · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They might have such devices, but it's not so that generals in remote locations can direct a battle. The Army spends a lot of time and money training their soldiers and officers to be independent thinkers and to react intelligently to new situations, but grounded on solid foundations of tactics and mission objectives. Directing blips on a screen is more likely to be harmful than useful. There's a lot that simple locations cannot tell you about what's going on on the ground.

      --
      Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
  2. Monopoly for CEOs by michaeldot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Steve Jobs is also playing and he's landed on Regent Street.

  3. i'm "playing" this now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    basically you set it up, it ticks for 24hrs, then at the end it tells you how much money you made. im on about 300m last i checked, the game ends at 24hrs and you start again.

    it isn't fun.

    1. Re:i'm "playing" this now by spongeboy · · Score: 5, Funny

      yeah, but it did help me come second in a beauty contest.

    2. Re:i'm "playing" this now by pcmanjon · · Score: 5, Informative

      I happen to be friends with one of the guys who works at Hasbro; and he's told me it isn't GPS controlled as they claim.

      This is just marketing to make it appealing and feel "real."

      He's told me that although he didn't do any of the programming work for the cab stuff, he has done some apache configuration and stuff for the server.

      He tells me that they used a "deamon" like program coded in C to sned the current location to an SQL database, and the webserver handles it from there.

      It makes sense that they would make it all fake to save money, having GPS's and stuff for real cabs just seems like too much work.

  4. crank cabbie callouts? by jamesh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not sure if the cab system differs in London compared to where I live, but I'd predict a large increase in abandoned calls from locations people have bought a lot of property on.

  5. Go directly... by Bifurcati · · Score: 5, Funny
    In other news, thousands of Brits have been trying to hack the game so that Margaret Thatcher, and indeed any other of her party, land on the "Go Directly to Jail" square.

    Democrats flew President Bush over (on the pretense of buying him a pet sheep) for a similar trick, but Bush simply changed the constitution so that while he didn't have to go to jail, he did get to collect $200, and without having to pass Go, either. He then rewrote to board to read "Go directly to Guatanamo Bay. And stay there."

    --

    Physicist, consultant, science communicator
  6. Re:No Wimbeldon by indianajones428 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I guess they aren't using the standard British Monopoly setup, because there is a Wimbeldon. IIRC, it's about where St. James Place usually is on the American board.

    On the "Monopoly Live" board, the streets are (sorry for any spelling errors):

    -Portobello Road Market, Camden Market
    -Hammersmith Apollo, Wembley Arena, GMTV
    -The Oval, Wimbeldon, Wembley Statium
    -Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Tate Museum
    -London Eye, Hyde Park, Trafalgar Square
    -Tottenham Court Road, Covent Garden, Regent Street
    -Notting Hill, Soho, Kings Road
    -Canary Wharf, The City

    The railway stations are now airports, and are in order: London City Airport, Stansted Airport, Gatwick Airport, and Heathrow Airport

    Utilities are Telecoms and The Sun

    There is still Chance and Community Chest, but you have to text message for those, so your guess is as good as mine (anyone in England willing to tell the rest of us what they are like?).

    --
    When a thing has been said, and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it. --Anatole France
  7. Mornington Crescent, anyone? by Anomalous+Communard · · Score: 5, Informative

    London's been a board game for ages.

  8. Re:Huh? by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's actually more fun for the passengers.

    Cab: Where do you want to go?
    Passenger: Regent Street
    Cab: You sure you really want to go there? I hear they've got some hotels on that street.
    Passenger: Yeah I'm sure.
    Cab: Alright. ....10 minutes later a police-man pulls them over....

    Cab: What's the problem officer?
    Policeman: This one of them monopoly cabs?
    Cab: Yup.
    Policeman: Can you and your passenger get out of the vehicle, this street has been designated the go to jail street.
    Cab: Aaah shit.
    Passenger: Don't worry, I've got a get out of jail free card.

  9. Re:No Wimbeldon by Muttley · · Score: 4, Informative

    Growing up in Australia I always thought the UK edition of the game was the 'true' version of monopoly, but the game was in fact invented in America, and so the original version, and the version used in all monopoly world championships, is the American version of the game.

    --
    M.
  10. Re:Does this mean... by mmkkbb · · Score: 4, Informative

    It was 1934, the height of the Depression, when Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, showed what he called the MONOPOLY game to the executives at Parker Brothers. Can you believe it, they rejected the game due to "52 design errors"! But Mr. Darrow wasn't daunted. Like many other Americans, he was unemployed at the time, and the game's exciting promise of fame and fortune inspired him to produce it on his own.

    http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/pl/page.history/dn/ default.cfm

    --
    -mkb