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In-Game Advertising Comes to Board Games
Grooves writes "Monopoly is getting rid of paper money in favor of credit cards. From the article: 'The new card, which resembles a debit card, is inserted into a small plastic reader/writer that can display and update the balance on the card. Traditional money is gone altogether, though purists can still purchase the original version.' Does this mean the end of complex Monopoly games where I charge grandma interest to borrow money?"
Now how will I cheat?
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
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What? People still play this horrible game? It's a nightmare form a game design perspective! The winner of the game is decided so early on in play, 80% of the time spent playing the game is virtually pointless because everyone can tell who is going to win (unless he/she makes an incredibly dumb trade or someone cheats).
At least if they're going to upgrade the game aesthetics, why not change the name to "Microsoft: The Game"?
*runs and hides*
Take a ride on the Reading: $25
A house on Atlantic Avenue: $150
The look on your brother's face when he lands on Park Place with four houses: priceless.
At least it not paypal -- you could be winning the game and have your funds frozen for suspect activity.
Will the bank will also keep 2.5% per transaction like in the real world?
Crack the card reader!!! Simply program it to send the fractional pennies left over from every transaction into a seperate account linked to yours. No one will every notice their money is gone!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
They make a paper money version? I wish someone had told me sooner.
I've been playing the "Monopoly: Yap Edition" from Micronesia. Keeping track of and moving hundreds of giant stone discs is not as fun as it sounds. Passing Go! is usually seen as physical punishment, not a reward. Toes get stubbed. Basically, after about 15 minutes, everyone gets too exhausted to keep going.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Monopoly the boardgame + American Express = new tagline:
"Don't leave home."
IF they are going to update they economics of the game, they should go all out..... You can buy Park Place with a 7 turn interest only ARM, inflate the profits using mark-to-market accounting and dump all the loses to a dummy corp setup under the Thimble. Genius!
I can't imagine that this game will be popular, even with a computer-literate set. For one thing, ideas like this credit-based Monopoly ignore the very real fact that a symbol is not the same as the thing symbolized, either conceptually or in emotional terms.
Now, I'm a woman, so my perspective may not be shared by the estrogen-challenged among us, but for me part of the satisfaction of board games (as well as of many other hobbies) is the opportunity to interact with and manipulate real objects-- to see a stack of money grow, move around a little iron doggie, build wooden roads in Settlers, construct fields of color in Blockus, etc. It's not especially smart, I know, but it is a very visceral and very real component of my enjoyment of the game. For children, exploration of the objects involved may constitute most or all of the pleasure they take in gameplay, and rightly so, since that kind of play is needed to build spatial relations and motor skills.
Even for adults, though, I can't help feeling as though interactions with concrete physical objects are necessary to keep in touch with our environment and maintain a sense of control and comfort in our world. We evolved from monkeys, after all-- manipulating objects is what we do best. Abstract thinking is useful and necessary, too, of course, but I can't help feeling as though the ongoing virtualization of everyday life is going to result in increased stress and poor decision-making for our recently-ex-hunter/gatherer selves.
That said, I do hope the social scientists mount some comparative studies of virtual-Monopoly vs. real-Monopoly gameplay. What a great opportunity to examine the psychology of credit!
I'm really not that keen on the "updates" that have been made to Monopoly, or even the "localized" editions. I guess that in the U.K., purchasing property named for places in London makes a lot more sense than keeping the Atlantic City, NJ names, but as an American, I've never been to Atlantic City, either, and I've always wondered if Mediterranean Ave. was the dump the game portrays it to be.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."