Is the future Mayfair or is it time to Go to Jail? (Monopoly)

Member Name: youvebeengored

Product:	Monopoly
Date:	04/02/02 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great, Fun 4 all

Disadvantages: Too many Versions

Monopoly - the family board game which is brought out every Christmas for a bit of fun. The sense of achievment which I got when defeating my parents by £millions always made me feel great, and i could play for England at this game. But why Play for England when u can play for Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Man.Utd. and Disney? Well ask yourself has the makers of this classical game lost the plot and sent themselves to jail. the number of versions now avaliable is overwhelming and this has lead to an over marketing of a classic game. Even PC versions seem to have lost its sense of fun.


Today, it's the best-selling board game in the world, licensed or sold in 80 countries and produced in 26 languages including Croatian.

It was 1934, the height of the Depression, when Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, showed a game he called Monopoly 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.

With help from a friend who was a printer, Mr. Darrow sold 5,000 handmade sets of the game to a Philadelphia department store. People loved it! But as demand grew, he couldn't keep up with all the orders and came back to talk to Parker Brothers again. The rest, as they say, is history! Its first year, 1935, the Monopoly game was the best-selling game in America. And over its 65-year history, an estimated 500 million people have played!

Over 200 million games have been sold worldwide. More than five billion little green houses have been "built" since 1935.
A set made by my friends at Alfred Dunhill, with gold houses and silver hotels, sold for $25,000.The longest game in history lasted 70 straight days.The longest game in a bathtub lasted 99 hours! These are just a
few of the many record breaking facts about this game.

The Classic game was the greatest of them all and I dont think that 'Versions' of the game should have been created. Although this would have been done to create profits, the original format seems to have lost its plot. However the history of the game will probally win over the general public who has purchased this game for over 70 years.

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