Games reflecting their times
The history of Monopoly is an interesting one. Its origins are mildly controversial, having begun as a folk game that was popular on the East Coast and even connected with the Quaker community. Then it became a bit of a political statement, its “dressing” and its theme becoming something of an ironic commentary on moneygrubbing landlords. Then it was allegedly plagiarized or co-opted by big business. Then it became a cause celebre in the hippie days, the subject of heavily ironic major lawsuits against monopolistic practices. Finally, it became a “skinnable” board game, where you can now get it flavored with everything from your local town’s streets to Scooby Doo.
Now, it’s a game with a credit card instead of cash.
The lesson here is that a game’s culture defines its games, and that a game also defines its culture. The two pressures are intimately intertwined. Just as Ultimate Frisbee, surfing, polo, lacrosse, hockey, and go are definitional for certain parts of society, so do towns make accommodations for the sports of choice, shifting around the flows of traffic, the locations of businesses, and even the financial viability of the city.
Now we see a huge element of our culture — the business deal, in the form of a deal cut between Parker Bros. and Visa — meeting another huge part of our culture — the way in which we have moved to a cashless society — and it’s impacting a game that is a hundred years old. The managing of cash is clearly the most obnoxious part of Monopoly, so from a convenience point of view this seems a good thing.
And yet… many of the folk rules for Monopoly have involved things like placing money under Free Parking (not something in the official rules). They have involved special deals and contracts negotiated between players — things like futures options on land, free passes on rent, part shares in other people’s properties, and so on. As we mechanize the game, will we leave scope for these elements? (Particularly if, as in my case, those elements are the only thing that even make the game playable anymore?)
If Monopoly is to really reflect the credit-driven world, it needs to support overdrafts, and carrying a balance versus paying off promptly, and usurious compound interest. Instead, it’ll probably be a model showing the best aspects of the cards with none of the warts.
And that, too, will be reflective of our culture.
28 Responses to “Games reflecting their times”
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Actually, it’s a debit card, so there’s no credit being simulated or advanced that I can see. The cards just make things easier than dealing with the paper money I’d imagine.
–matt
Well, a debit card is much like a credit card without the warts, too. š I very very rarely use my credit cards — I stick to the debit card all the time.
Actually, my problem with the card is not that it lacks support for back-room dealing, but rather that I think that money-counting is a good mental exercise for kids. Oh, sure, I have defective arithmetic circuits in my head, so I was invariably doomed, no matter how much funny money I counted, but it’s surely good for somebody.
I predict that some eager Makeziner will have plans for a substantially more sophisticated and flexible card scanner doodad available to the public within, oh, the year, probably. š
Raph wrote:
Me too. I rarely carry cash. When I carry cash, I’m buying Mexican food. š
Tess wrote:
You don’t think using the card in Monopoly promotes fiscal responsibility? Perhaps the game now needs balance sheets, ledgers…
Has plastic ever promoted fiscal responsibility?
Tess wrote:
Has plastic ever been used in Monopoly? š
Personally, I think one of the most powerful motivators in Monopoly will be sorely absent in this version. In fact, it’s why I’ve never enjoyed computerized versions of Monopoly… The game will simply be lacking something without physical stacks of “cash” to lovingly count and stroke when you’re winning, or heaps of 1- and 5- dollar notes to pay your rent in, sulkily, when you’re losing…
I wonder how Monopoly would fare as an online RMT-driven game… Players would use real money to compete and whoever wins gets the cash. Yet another gambling outlet?
I have to agree with Tachevert, there was always something so tactile about handling the money, counting it, stacking it, making change, etc. Also gone from the game now will be an immediate visual cue of how your competition is doing financially. On the seedier side of things, it seems like it will now be easier for the banker to cheat, or at least make an uncaught mistake. I imagine follow-on versions will have a little network of PDA-style “terminals” where everyone can keep an eye on everyone else. Or perhaps an “intelligent” board that automatically does the calculations.
Much more interesting than the Monopoly change, to me anyway, is what Raph said about “even making the game playable” for an seasoned veteran of the relatively simple game of real estate.
This electronic device comes with rules built in. These are not left for intepretation by the player, but rather by the designer. As you can see this has a lot in common with PC games and MMOs. Systems that force players to do something when over time they may become bored and want to do something else.
I guess with single player and player-hosted multiplayer games, mods allow us to switch it up if we’re extremely interested in doing so. But in the MMO world, we’re stuck with what the devs give us… unless we want to get into emulation š
LOL… many of these comments about the emotive function of Monopoly money is giving me flashbacks to my childhood: learning to count bills and make proper change at age 7 so I could keep up with my four elder siblings and my parents… laughing at my dad’s wad of $100 bills in his hand… us tucking our bills under the edge of the board in an attempt to conceal our assets from one another and keep ’em guessing… good stuff, good stuff.
You’re never stuck with what you’re given. House rules, or folk rules, or user-created content, must simply fit within the given framework. Players create their own systems within MMORPGs all the time, be it as simple as a point value assigned to loot drops to encourage fair distribution, or a player-run contest with in-game prizes.
The new Monopoly even allows or encourages new house rules that would have been unwieldy with the previous addition, just as it discourages older house rules.
Some new house rules for debit-enhanced Monopoly:
When anyone rolls doubles three times in a row, after they go to jail, shuffle and deal out randomly all of the debit cards.
When a player is eliminated, their debit card is placed on Free Parking and goes to the next player to land on it. Now, that player can assign purchased properties to either card, and split other income and debts evenly. To eliminate them, you have to separately bankrupt both accounts. For a fee, anyone can purchase a second card, representing a holding company or “offshore assets” that are protected from seizure. No more than two cards per player.
For players with both cash and credit Monopoly: you may mortgage your debit card, receiving $500 cash and anything currently on it. Turn it over. Any income except from passing Go goes into your card and can’t be accessed. To bring your debit account out of hock, you must pay $1000 cash.
two things:
1. If I cant play the banker and be in charge of stacks of cash I poo poo it.
2. Since Im an electronic banker can I unilaterally impliment a ATM fee per transaction cost, or threaten not to allow players access to thier money, further can I origionate loans? What about instituting fees based on low balances? hmmmmm hey forget those stacks of cash, afterall…..
Playing is for noobs, banking is for vets!
I’m not really sure I believe this is a game reflecting the times so much as just another example of a marketing department thinking that if they change the tires they can call it a new car.
I would only really buy it as an example of the changing times if they were to do away with the ‘paper money’ version, but they aren’t. All this is is an excuse to try and slip three dollars of electronics into a product so they can charge twenty dollars more.
Viewing the addition of a debit card as some sort of statement about our changing economic habits is about the equivalent of viewing the release of Talking Electronic Battleship as some sort of statement about the importance of technological superiority in modern combat.
That’s not to say that it isn’t interesting to see the addition of a debit card version of Monopoly, but I don’t think I’d try to read anything really deep about our changing society into it.
Evan wrote:
Lately, I’ve been hearing accountants discuss their dreams of a cashless economy. Perhaps this edition of Monopoly is an abstraction of that reality instead of an abstraction of the present day?
I don’t even know how to change my tires. I delegate. :p
That’s better in principle than selling rocks as pets.
Monopoly Online. What will you be? If you class as a hat, will you subclass as a fedora? A top hat? A baseball cap? Put thousands of other players out of business with ruthless tactics. Get out of jail free, mostly by stealing out of the community chest. And don’t forget to pass Go! when you log in.
More seriously,
The lesson here is that a gameās culture defines its games, and that a game also defines its culture.
That just drips of Sapir-Whorf.
In the context of the post as a whole, I am also reminded of Chris Crawford’s March of Abstraction.
Oh, I totally agree about the folk customs and the need to leave cash in the game. My brother and I always use to play with “damages”. That is, if you rolled the dice and accidently dinged the other kid’s property, moving his buildings/hotels/token, you had to pay a “damage”.
Of course, there was a lot of deliberately provocative dice-rolling that went on to see just how close you could skirt danger by rolling but not quite touching that little house. Then long arguments would ensure as to whether in fact the dice really was touching *a teensy bit*. I can’t imagine playing without that sort of little add-on and all the other little things you made up to do to make Monotony more fun while it’s raining at the cabin.
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Sounds like the gaming version of Hobson’s Choice….player’s can do whatever they want as long as it fits within the framework created by the developers.
And building upon that comment of
Should the framework be designed with the intent of being more open than closed? I tend to think so. When we’re dealing with programming it is a bit different than having objects and a board. We tend to enforce rules with code, and if not enforced by code players will tend to say that it is “fair game” even if it is clearly a game-breaking exploit. But still, should we make the effort to make it as much like a board and objects as possible?
Give them tools and a guideline, then allow the players to decide what the rules are and how to play. Would be a neat experiment, but I suspect some will tell me that we already have games like this. And I suppose that I don’t play them because without a firm set of rules it is too difficult to tell who is “winning”, and winning is a pretty big deal to a lot of gamers š
Oh my I’ve gone and confused my opinions on MMO design again š
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Is there anything advertisers can’t buy these days? How long before the Free Parking space includes a logo for Avis Rent-a-Car?
I think I’m slipping backward in gaming, and I don’t really mind… a couple months ago, some friends and I dropped all our MMOs and started up Pen & Paper gaming again. My wife and I have also recently developed a fondness for board games which turned into a huge purchase of Hasbro’s new Library Editions of games that come in really nice wooden boxes that look great on the book shelf.
Gross. Shame on ’em. I’m with Tachevert all the way.
I use my Credit Card all the time. I recently signed up for some new Super Duper, All Rewards All The Time card. When a friend asked me what the interest rate on it was, I said, “I dunno; I pay it off every month.” I hadn’t even thought to look.
I think Iām slipping backward in gaming
There is no “backwards”. There is only a different direction.
Like a Marine “retreat”.
Tholal wrote:
ROI? š
We have a lot of games like this, and we play them all the time: Charades, Twenty Questions, the Blank Card Game. They’re not going to be produced by Milton Bradley, though, because there’s nothing much to sell. There are also plenty of “generic game piece” sets being sold as “X games in one!”, with a handful of general rulesets.
The difference between playing a made-up game and playing Monopoly with house rules is just that one of the two is, arguably, Monopoly. Some people like Monopoly better than Charades, and vice versa. Some very much enjoy both. For my part, I like to participate in someone else’s game as fully as possible, with no rules alterations; if I’m going to make stuff up, I feel I may as well make my own game.