5 ms·

Automated Monopoly hasn't figured out that people just don't like Monopoly

32 points by jarin 16y ago

mooism2 16y ago
I agree that Monopoly isn't a particularly good game, but people are still buying it. The point of Automated Monopoly is probably all the free media coverage Monopoly gets as a result.
- zipdog 16y ago
  Maybe not attention but just trying to add a gizmo to sell the same lemon every year. It seems like every six months they bring out a new Monopoly :there was one with sewerage and skyscrapers recently, before that the ATM, and that's not including the 1000 different brandings like Simpsons, Manchester U, etc
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Isn't one of the big problems with Monopoloy that no-one plays it by the actual rules? Since out-bidding for properties seems to aggressive and likely to lead to family fallouts, that part just gets dropped from the game. This makes it more boring and take much longer to finish. I wonder how that works out with an automated version. Does it have rule variants built-in? Though there is a train of thought that it's lack of enjoyment is the best thing about it: http://www.downtimetown.com/2009/06/06/defending-monopoly/ http://www.downtimetown.com/2009/06/06/defending-monopoly/
- brudgers 16y ago
  Played by the rules, Monopoly is a nice guys finish last game. But the payoff is that winning entails total victory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc&feature=relat...
JacobAldridge 16y ago
I really want to disagree that Monopoly = Monotony, but then I realised how long it has been since I played this socially. My beautiful wife and I are equally competitive and have played it maybe 6 times in eight years; I do like playing 8-player Monopoly with myself (you have to ignore the auction rule, lest you compartmentalise your brain too much), but I would never suggest it as a dinner party game. As for Monopoly = Ubiquity, it's probably the first game that comes to mind. But in the past 3 years I've played plenty of others (Cranium, Risk, Balderdash, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble) in social settings and had lots of fun. Batteries not required.
drblast 16y ago
Monopoly is a great game if you play by the rules. Nobody does, however, and then they complain that it's boring and takes too long. It's not, unless you ruin the game with the $500 every time you land on Free Parking rule. A great way to speed things up is to use calculators. Instead of paper money changing hands, we'll typically give each player a pocket calculator to add and subtract from their cash total.
- thret 16y ago
  When you play online, it limits you to X rolls or Y times past GO, and then whoever has the highest net worth wins. It is a much faster game, and it makes betting on it a lot of fun. Of course, the game is solved so it's almost pure gambling unless your opponent doesn't know how to play. Risk was my favourite board game though, ainec.
pzxc 16y ago
"Sure, there are some folks who really love Monopoly—but personally I’ve only known a few that have actually completed an entire game of it." --- WTF? Is this guy from a mathematically inept family or something? I've played Monopoly hundreds of times in my life with dozens of different people, we always completed the games, sometimes with free parking rules sometimes without. I never even imagined that somebody would stop playing without finishing a game, what would the point of that be? What's next, claim that people don't finish games of Risk also?
thailandstartup 16y ago
A decent board game often gives you a difficult choice on each move. In Monopoly, it is nearly always a foregone conclusion, so it is not much different to playing ludo. A really good game will have you anticipating other players moves, negotiating, misdirecting and betraying them, and forming and breaking alliances. It feels like Monopoly could be a better game if only it had better rules. There should definitely be a trading and negotiation phase in there, and some way for players to stop a player who's getting too far ahead. Maybe a decent, well-known, alternate set of rules for Monopoly would make all of those monopoly sets out there less useless.
- dagw 16y ago
  The auction phase that's already in the official rules, but that most people skip, goes a long way towards answering most of your critiques.
  - thailandstartup 16y ago
    It's amusing that people remove this mechanic and manage make the game even duller but my critique is based on playing the game according to the official rules.
cturner 16y ago
The London-based is widespread in the commonwealth (other than Canada), less now than twenty years ago when they begun to emphasise regional versions. When I got to London, I knew correct pronunciation for several of those places where with odd spelling-to-pronounciation. If I designed a new version now, I'd do it just with those places. Leicester Square. Holborn. Beauchamp Street ("Perhaps you were hoping to go to beach'em street, sir"), Pall Mall, Maryleborne Station, Marlborough Street. Those names stick in your mind as navigation points in the early days when you don't know much else. That quirk aside, it's a stupid game. It communicates that wealth is a zero-sum game, and encourages a mindset whereby ideas about wealth are oriented around ownership of real-estate. These are both brain viruses in the anglosphere, although causation is unclear. And it's laborious. A better wealth game is Pit/Billionaire. It's zero-sum, but that reflects the reality of the setting (commodity trading) and has interesting social dynamics. Consider this valid tactic: make a deal with someone not to pass taxman across, and you both aim to stick with that principle over several rounds. Settlers is great because when played between nice people or with children, it can be played as a non-zero sum game that everyone gets something out of. Scotland Yard has a better take on central London geography, and has team dynamics, lateral thinking and requires risk judgements. Flexible on the number of people you have to play. The likes of Monopoly give board games a bad name. There's other awful mainstream board games though - I thought of Ludo.
- robryan 16y ago
  It's a bit like bestseller books in that the big stores only run with a small and mainstream collection to choose from. Only with board games that collection seems to stay fairly static from year to year.
- retube 16y ago
  > It communicates that wealth is a zero-sum game, and encourages a mindset whereby ideas about wealth are oriented around ownership of real-estate. I think you're probably reading to much into this. It's just a game. I don't think it's particularly promoting anything. > A better wealth game is Pit/Billionaire. It's zero-sum, but that reflects the reality of the setting (commodity trading) How is commodities zero-sum and property not? > The likes of Monopoly give board games a bad name. That's like saying Star Wars gives movies a bad name. It might not have the best script, it might not have the best acting, but it's a movie that has and continues to appeal to young and old alike, that is still watched like a gazillion times a year. Edit: the original star wars trilogy obviously, not the recent triple travesty of video game-esque inanity.
edw519 16y ago
In my family, Games we tend to like: those where everyone is actively playing most of the time: Boggle, Scategories, Pictionary, poker, chess. Games we tend to dislike: those where 1 or 2 people are actively playing and everyone else is doing nothing: Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Dominos.
- robryan 16y ago
  Depends how serious you get with scrabble, in a game against half decent opponents unless your abnormally good at forming words your probably going to need to concentrate when it isn't your turn also to come up with options for your next turn.
  - seabee 16y ago
    if you don't spend time considering your options when it's not your turn, you waste other people's time when it is your turn.
- pessimizer 16y ago
  In my family, the chance element of Monopoly mitigates the fact that it is unbalanced - because it's a different 1 or 2 people every time. I'm not sure how Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble and Dominoes fall into that category for your family... are you usually playing with an imbalanced family? Half young children and half adult or something?
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  My family plays alot of Boggle. I have introduced the game to others, too. It makes a great gift and usually costs less than $10. ...and it only takes 3 minutes to play.
perlgeek 16y ago
I love board games. And I used to play Monopoly too as a kid, then stopped. In retrospect I know why: it has a self-enforcing feedback loop that leads to the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. Thus the outcome of the game is often determined very early, but the game still drags on for long, being not much fun for most players. The same feedback loop can be found in "The Settlers of Catan", though less (the poor don't get poorer, it's just that the rich grow ever faster). I liked it too, but it's not fun for too long. An example where it's done differently is Dominion, where resources for development and resources for winning are distinct, but mixed into the same heap. During your turn you take a fixed number of cards from that heap, so if you have many winning resources, your progress actually slows down. And of course there are also lots of games where the current position doesn't really affect your chances to progress. In the long run I like those (and the ones with negative feedback loops) better than the ones with positive feedback loops.
- mprovo1 16y ago
  We've had this debate about "catchup mechanisms" or negative feedback loops with my boardgames friends countless times. I personally tend to prefer games with a minimal amount of luck rather than a strong negative feedback loop. I dislike settlers of catan as much as as dislike monopoly. As long as luck is under control, I have no problem losing -- because I can understand where I made my mistakes and be better next time :)
  - zipdog 16y ago
    In Settlers the catch-up mechanism is meant to be provided by the other players stopping trade with the leader. In the two-player version this is somewhat explicit (there's a trading cost to be winning)
- follower 16y ago
  > An example where it's done differently is Dominion Dominion is great--I got introduced to it recently, found it online (http://www.brettspielwelt.de/ http://www.brettspielwelt.de/) and now purchased my first base & expansion set. :) Highly recommend checking it out if you haven't seen it already.
wybo 16y ago
Apart from discussing whether Monopoly is a great game (which I think it is not, Funkenschlag, You're Bluffing, Werewolves and Tichu, for example are much better) I do think that automating the transactions, and some of the other more administrative sides of board-games, is a real improvement...
- mooism2 16y ago
  Presumably Apple will bring out a giant iPad at some point, or Microsoft will bring out a cheaper Surface.
robryan 16y ago
Monopoly on the surface looks fun, but even when all the rules are followed there are very few mechanisms in the game where someone can actually use skill to outwit their opponents, far to much luck involved with a little bit of basic principles in the trading and deciding when to put down houses and how many. I've got into it a few times with family but been left frustrated when it seems as if you can play perfectly and still lose regularly.
stuhacking 16y ago
Monopoly is certainly not my idea of a good time. The monotony comes from the number of times you have to see the same board state. It's not even that I don't like long games. In fact, I adore them - as long as they're interesting. I would highly recommend the following over Monopoly: Carcassonne, Medici, Taj Mahal, Tigris and Euphrates, Mensa Connection, The Confrontation, Civilisation, Age of Steam, Dampfross (Railway Rivals), The Lord of the Rings board game.
gersh 16y ago
Monopoly is good game to learn how to negotiate deals. You can work out a deal to exchange properties, or buy someone else's properties.
mynameishere 16y ago
The problem is that it's 99 percent luck. A game of monopoly is fairly straightforward: 1 hour of randomly acquiring properties. 30 seconds of trading between other players. 4 hours of randomly resolving the winner with odds established by the last steps. If you could expand that (fun) 30 seconds of trading to the whole game, it would be a good game.
- zipdog 16y ago
  An hour to acquire? The only properties that matter are closest to Free Parking or on the sides touching Free Parking. In the first few circles of the board, whoever gets a set there (or closest to it) has essentially won.
- hapless 16y ago
  If you play monopoly by the rules written on the box, it only lasts 30-45 minutes, with intense interaction between players. It's much more exciting, but it's also a really miserable game because of its brutal zero-sum nature. (Bear in mind: the game's creator intended it to be unpleasant to play.) "House rules" like free parking, non-compulsory property purchase, non-auction-mortgage etc seem like very small changes, but they really terribly break the game balance. Putting money under free parking is all it takes to turn a 30 minute shouting match into a tedious three hour snooze-fest. In short: Monopoly is never "fun," but it can be very exciting. It's the house rules that seek less painful gameplay that make the game so very, very dull.
- pessimizer 16y ago
  I'm starting to think that maybe why my family enjoys it so much is because we're all constantly dealing, or putting out feelers about deals from the second the first property is purchased, and that when the game is obviously won, people just concede and the game starts up again. Also, a lot of our deals involve more than two people - like person A threatening to sell property X, that person B wants, to person C for a dollar, unless person B sells property Y to A. Or selling somebody a property that completes a monopoly for an amount of money determined purely based on that person not being able to afford to put houses in it quickly. Mortgaging properties before selling them for the same effect. Or two players trading each other into monopolies so they can either eliminate another weak player, or have a chance to compete with a player who got the first monopoly. Spending thousands on a $200 property. Making and breaking gentleman's agreements. Really a great time. When the trading stops with us, it usually means the game is about 20 minutes from being over while the last two battle it out with dice rolling. If that period was 4 hours long, I'd hate the game too.
steveklabnik 16y ago
I freaking _love_ Monopoly. And yes, I've finished many games of it. The reason that nobody ever finishes is that they're far too nice. You're supposed to be destroying everyone, not floating them loans to keep them in the game. Every time I play a 'casual' game, that kind of junk happens, and it's incredibly dumb.
- Sakes 16y ago
  My favorite part about it was the agonizingly slow & painful death of my opponent. (my little brother) Thirty minutes of my brothers despair was totally worth the 1.5 hr build up. I love Monopoly and had a blast playing it as a kid. But then again, I don't play it anymore and I don't know any adults/kids that play it anymore. It's clear that times have changed, and the entertainment expectations are drastically different than they were 100 years ago. Hasbro does not need gimmicks to make monopoly fun, they need to make monopoly fun for this generation. You can spend $60 on a video game with great graphics that sucks, or $10 on a game, that might have lower production value, that will keep you entertained for hours. At the end of the day fun is fun. They need to offer kids what this video game generation is truly looking for, which is instant gratification.
  - ams6110 16y ago
    I have some good memories of playing monopoly with the family as a kid of about 10. I think it appeals to a kid that age; much younger and they don't really have the attention span or maturity to understand what is going on, and much older and it's just boring. As an adult, I find it to be a pretty tedious game, but like me, my son went through a period of about a year where he really enjoyed playing it.
andymitchell 16y ago
I believe the fun-factor - or lack thereof :) - might have something to do with the fact that Monopoly's origins are supposedly as a warning of the perils of capitalism. While the story is disappearing into time, and is perhaps an over-egged story of folk woman vs. corporate greed; there is a marked similarity between Elizabeth Maggie's "The Landlord Game" and what became Monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlords_Game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlords_Game (it appears an apostrophe is parsed out... it should be The_Landlord's_Game). Its intent was to demonstrate how monopolies grow, and how once they exist they are hard to overcome. I.e. not fun. Which might explain something about Monopoly today :) There's more at http://www.antimonopoly.com/original_boardgame.html http://www.antimonopoly.com/original_boardgame.html
jasonlotito 16y ago
Obligatory board game link: http://boardgamegeek.com http://boardgamegeek.com For those that don't know.
- patio11 16y ago
  If you like board games, this site will change your life.
  - GFischer 16y ago
    It's a great resource, but for the casual player, there's plenty of room for improvement (startup opportunity? :) ). I wanted to find some kind of summary for each game - I bought Puerto Rico as it is one of the top rated games there, and it was far too boring for my playgroup (mostly casual and looking for shortish games).
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    This reminds me, my copy of Twilight Imperium is waiting at my local game store... http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-third-edition http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-t... Now _there_'s a board game.
brudgers 16y ago
Monopoly is like poker. It's a winner take all game with a simple set of rules where luck of the draw helps, but people reading skills, the ability to calculate odds, and manage your cash greatly increase one's chances of winning. The theme of real-estate development is a good match for the way in which it balances ruthlessness and cooperation. I recently played a few games of U-Build Monopoly which despite its abundance of board gimmicks is a great improvement because of the abundance of complex strategic options at every turn and the flexibility of sound short game options. http://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-18361-U-Build-Monopoly/dp/B0036RKHE8 http://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-18361-U-Build-Monopoly/dp/B0036...
scotty79 16y ago
> A well-designed game has rules simple enough for everyone to follow without arguments, keeps everyone engaged to the end, and encourages positive rather than negative social interaction. Such games exist. Could anyone name a few?
- Flemlord 16y ago
  Werewolf is my favorite party game. Arguably it doesn't keep everybody fully engaged because one person drops out each turn, but usually everybody keeps watching the action until the game is over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29
  - zipdog 16y ago
    I found that after a few games the group works out who is good at lying and just lynches them first no matter what - it's too risky having a good liar alive. Otherwise it's a great game.
- zipdog 16y ago
  Pandemic - co-operative yet challenging board game about trying to cure disease on a Risk-like board Scribblish - it's like pictionary but it doesn't matter how badly you draw and everyone is always involved Carcassonne (if the 'farmers' rule confuses anyone, don't use it) - slight chance of negative interaction.
  - stuhacking 16y ago
    We all love farmers in our group - fighting to join up those fields to try and swing the game in the final few tile placements is really fun. :-)
  - gloob 16y ago
    As an aside, if negative interactions concern you, it's probably a good idea to keep away from Diplomacy. There have been fist fights in my group of friends over that game.
deleted 16y ago
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pessimizer 16y ago
I'm sick of people trying to promote the boardgame scene by bashing one of the games that I've watched people enjoy the shit out of, and is the perennial whipping boy around some nerdy quarters. The main barriers keeping modern games like Carcassone and Settlers from general appeal are the medieval trappings like knights, kings, castles, and dragons, and when those are missing, spaceships. At least, that's major barrier I have to overcome when I pull out one of the things. I have better luck getting people to play Acquire, even though bookkeeping is a barrier. >Approach your average American and say you enjoy board games. I guarantee you, nine times out of ten, you’ll get a response something like: “You mean like Monopoly?” (And the other ten percent will challenge you to a game of Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne.) He's got this wrong by at least two orders of magnitude. I can find 1000 people who LOVE Monopoly before one that has even heard of Carcassone. It's a Mensa/BoardGameGeek delusion that people are as disgusted with games of chance as they are. People LOVE dice. Remember, people LOVE casinos. People may not love being dominated during an entire game, but people sure love dominating for an entire game, and if you play enough games, you get your turn. And contrary to popular Mensa/BGG belief, more people have completed a dozen games of Monopoly than have ever seen the front of a Settlers box.
jellicle 16y ago
Monopoly is a terrible game, but the fact that it keeps selling is a testament to the power of branding and sales channels. The average game store in the U.S. is a Toyrsus. Toysrus carries dozens of board games from exactly two different companies: Hasbro and Mattel. Toyrsus carries basically zero board games from any other companies. Hasbro and Mattel have figured out that if you offer parents the same games they knew as a kid, they'll buy them; and if you offer games with the same characters as TV shows, the kids will want them. And so that is what is in the stores. There are a tremendous number of good board games in the world. These are not offered for sale at Toysrus, and therefore do not have any significant sales in the USA. The existence of Monopoly and the fact that this crummy game continues to be offered for sale is a demonstration of the power of monopoly in the board games industry.
- orenmazor 16y ago
  my sister managed to find a copy of settlers of catan in a toys'r'us in Ottawa, Canada. we were both extremely shocked by that, as were the employees at the store itself.
chopsueyar 16y ago
What are the better board games?
herval 16y ago
I'm sorry... What's wrong with Monopoly?

32 points by jarin 16y ago

I agree that Monopoly isn't a particularly good game, but people are still buying it. The point of Automated Monopoly is probably all the free media coverage Monopoly gets as a result.

zipdog 16y ago
Maybe not attention but just trying to add a gizmo to sell the same lemon every year. It seems like every six months they bring out a new Monopoly :there was one with sewerage and skyscrapers recently, before that the ATM, and that's not including the 1000 different brandings like Simpsons, Manchester U, etc

ZeroGravitas 16y ago

Isn't one of the big problems with Monopoloy that no-one plays it by the actual rules? Since out-bidding for properties seems to aggressive and likely to lead to family fallouts, that part just gets dropped from the game. This makes it more boring and take much longer to finish. I wonder how that works out with an automated version. Does it have rule variants built-in? Though there is a train of thought that it's lack of enjoyment is the best thing about it: http://www.downtimetown.com/2009/06/06/defending-monopoly/ http://www.downtimetown.com/2009/06/06/defending-monopoly/

brudgers 16y ago
Played by the rules, Monopoly is a nice guys finish last game. But the payoff is that winning entails total victory. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc&feature=relat...

JacobAldridge 16y ago

I really want to disagree that Monopoly = Monotony, but then I realised how long it has been since I played this socially. My beautiful wife and I are equally competitive and have played it maybe 6 times in eight years; I do like playing 8-player Monopoly with myself (you have to ignore the auction rule, lest you compartmentalise your brain too much), but I would never suggest it as a dinner party game. As for Monopoly = Ubiquity, it's probably the first game that comes to mind. But in the past 3 years I've played plenty of others (Cranium, Risk, Balderdash, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble) in social settings and had lots of fun. Batteries not required.

drblast 16y ago

Monopoly is a great game if you play by the rules. Nobody does, however, and then they complain that it's boring and takes too long. It's not, unless you ruin the game with the $500 every time you land on Free Parking rule. A great way to speed things up is to use calculators. Instead of paper money changing hands, we'll typically give each player a pocket calculator to add and subtract from their cash total.

thret 16y ago
When you play online, it limits you to X rolls or Y times past GO, and then whoever has the highest net worth wins. It is a much faster game, and it makes betting on it a lot of fun. Of course, the game is solved so it's almost pure gambling unless your opponent doesn't know how to play. Risk was my favourite board game though, ainec.

pzxc 16y ago

"Sure, there are some folks who really love Monopoly—but personally I’ve only known a few that have actually completed an entire game of it." --- WTF? Is this guy from a mathematically inept family or something? I've played Monopoly hundreds of times in my life with dozens of different people, we always completed the games, sometimes with free parking rules sometimes without. I never even imagined that somebody would stop playing without finishing a game, what would the point of that be? What's next, claim that people don't finish games of Risk also?

thailandstartup 16y ago

A decent board game often gives you a difficult choice on each move. In Monopoly, it is nearly always a foregone conclusion, so it is not much different to playing ludo. A really good game will have you anticipating other players moves, negotiating, misdirecting and betraying them, and forming and breaking alliances. It feels like Monopoly could be a better game if only it had better rules. There should definitely be a trading and negotiation phase in there, and some way for players to stop a player who's getting too far ahead. Maybe a decent, well-known, alternate set of rules for Monopoly would make all of those monopoly sets out there less useless.

dagw 16y ago
The auction phase that's already in the official rules, but that most people skip, goes a long way towards answering most of your critiques.
- thailandstartup 16y ago
  It's amusing that people remove this mechanic and manage make the game even duller but my critique is based on playing the game according to the official rules.

cturner 16y ago

The London-based is widespread in the commonwealth (other than Canada), less now than twenty years ago when they begun to emphasise regional versions. When I got to London, I knew correct pronunciation for several of those places where with odd spelling-to-pronounciation. If I designed a new version now, I'd do it just with those places. Leicester Square. Holborn. Beauchamp Street ("Perhaps you were hoping to go to beach'em street, sir"), Pall Mall, Maryleborne Station, Marlborough Street. Those names stick in your mind as navigation points in the early days when you don't know much else. That quirk aside, it's a stupid game. It communicates that wealth is a zero-sum game, and encourages a mindset whereby ideas about wealth are oriented around ownership of real-estate. These are both brain viruses in the anglosphere, although causation is unclear. And it's laborious. A better wealth game is Pit/Billionaire. It's zero-sum, but that reflects the reality of the setting (commodity trading) and has interesting social dynamics. Consider this valid tactic: make a deal with someone not to pass taxman across, and you both aim to stick with that principle over several rounds. Settlers is great because when played between nice people or with children, it can be played as a non-zero sum game that everyone gets something out of. Scotland Yard has a better take on central London geography, and has team dynamics, lateral thinking and requires risk judgements. Flexible on the number of people you have to play. The likes of Monopoly give board games a bad name. There's other awful mainstream board games though - I thought of Ludo.

robryan 16y ago
It's a bit like bestseller books in that the big stores only run with a small and mainstream collection to choose from. Only with board games that collection seems to stay fairly static from year to year.
retube 16y ago
> It communicates that wealth is a zero-sum game, and encourages a mindset whereby ideas about wealth are oriented around ownership of real-estate. I think you're probably reading to much into this. It's just a game. I don't think it's particularly promoting anything. > A better wealth game is Pit/Billionaire. It's zero-sum, but that reflects the reality of the setting (commodity trading) How is commodities zero-sum and property not? > The likes of Monopoly give board games a bad name. That's like saying Star Wars gives movies a bad name. It might not have the best script, it might not have the best acting, but it's a movie that has and continues to appeal to young and old alike, that is still watched like a gazillion times a year. Edit: the original star wars trilogy obviously, not the recent triple travesty of video game-esque inanity.

edw519 16y ago

In my family, Games we tend to like: those where everyone is actively playing most of the time: Boggle, Scategories, Pictionary, poker, chess. Games we tend to dislike: those where 1 or 2 people are actively playing and everyone else is doing nothing: Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Dominos.

robryan 16y ago
Depends how serious you get with scrabble, in a game against half decent opponents unless your abnormally good at forming words your probably going to need to concentrate when it isn't your turn also to come up with options for your next turn.
- seabee 16y ago
  if you don't spend time considering your options when it's not your turn, you waste other people's time when it is your turn.
pessimizer 16y ago
In my family, the chance element of Monopoly mitigates the fact that it is unbalanced - because it's a different 1 or 2 people every time. I'm not sure how Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble and Dominoes fall into that category for your family... are you usually playing with an imbalanced family? Half young children and half adult or something?
chopsueyar 16y ago
My family plays alot of Boggle. I have introduced the game to others, too. It makes a great gift and usually costs less than $10. ...and it only takes 3 minutes to play.

perlgeek 16y ago

I love board games. And I used to play Monopoly too as a kid, then stopped. In retrospect I know why: it has a self-enforcing feedback loop that leads to the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. Thus the outcome of the game is often determined very early, but the game still drags on for long, being not much fun for most players. The same feedback loop can be found in "The Settlers of Catan", though less (the poor don't get poorer, it's just that the rich grow ever faster). I liked it too, but it's not fun for too long. An example where it's done differently is Dominion, where resources for development and resources for winning are distinct, but mixed into the same heap. During your turn you take a fixed number of cards from that heap, so if you have many winning resources, your progress actually slows down. And of course there are also lots of games where the current position doesn't really affect your chances to progress. In the long run I like those (and the ones with negative feedback loops) better than the ones with positive feedback loops.

mprovo1 16y ago
We've had this debate about "catchup mechanisms" or negative feedback loops with my boardgames friends countless times. I personally tend to prefer games with a minimal amount of luck rather than a strong negative feedback loop. I dislike settlers of catan as much as as dislike monopoly. As long as luck is under control, I have no problem losing -- because I can understand where I made my mistakes and be better next time :)
- zipdog 16y ago
  In Settlers the catch-up mechanism is meant to be provided by the other players stopping trade with the leader. In the two-player version this is somewhat explicit (there's a trading cost to be winning)
follower 16y ago
> An example where it's done differently is Dominion Dominion is great--I got introduced to it recently, found it online (http://www.brettspielwelt.de/ http://www.brettspielwelt.de/) and now purchased my first base & expansion set. :) Highly recommend checking it out if you haven't seen it already.

wybo 16y ago

Apart from discussing whether Monopoly is a great game (which I think it is not, Funkenschlag, You're Bluffing, Werewolves and Tichu, for example are much better) I do think that automating the transactions, and some of the other more administrative sides of board-games, is a real improvement...

mooism2 16y ago
Presumably Apple will bring out a giant iPad at some point, or Microsoft will bring out a cheaper Surface.

robryan 16y ago

Monopoly on the surface looks fun, but even when all the rules are followed there are very few mechanisms in the game where someone can actually use skill to outwit their opponents, far to much luck involved with a little bit of basic principles in the trading and deciding when to put down houses and how many. I've got into it a few times with family but been left frustrated when it seems as if you can play perfectly and still lose regularly.

stuhacking 16y ago

Monopoly is certainly not my idea of a good time. The monotony comes from the number of times you have to see the same board state. It's not even that I don't like long games. In fact, I adore them - as long as they're interesting. I would highly recommend the following over Monopoly: Carcassonne, Medici, Taj Mahal, Tigris and Euphrates, Mensa Connection, The Confrontation, Civilisation, Age of Steam, Dampfross (Railway Rivals), The Lord of the Rings board game.

gersh 16y ago

Monopoly is good game to learn how to negotiate deals. You can work out a deal to exchange properties, or buy someone else's properties.

mynameishere 16y ago

The problem is that it's 99 percent luck. A game of monopoly is fairly straightforward: 1 hour of randomly acquiring properties. 30 seconds of trading between other players. 4 hours of randomly resolving the winner with odds established by the last steps. If you could expand that (fun) 30 seconds of trading to the whole game, it would be a good game.

zipdog 16y ago
An hour to acquire? The only properties that matter are closest to Free Parking or on the sides touching Free Parking. In the first few circles of the board, whoever gets a set there (or closest to it) has essentially won.
hapless 16y ago
If you play monopoly by the rules written on the box, it only lasts 30-45 minutes, with intense interaction between players. It's much more exciting, but it's also a really miserable game because of its brutal zero-sum nature. (Bear in mind: the game's creator intended it to be unpleasant to play.) "House rules" like free parking, non-compulsory property purchase, non-auction-mortgage etc seem like very small changes, but they really terribly break the game balance. Putting money under free parking is all it takes to turn a 30 minute shouting match into a tedious three hour snooze-fest. In short: Monopoly is never "fun," but it can be very exciting. It's the house rules that seek less painful gameplay that make the game so very, very dull.
pessimizer 16y ago
I'm starting to think that maybe why my family enjoys it so much is because we're all constantly dealing, or putting out feelers about deals from the second the first property is purchased, and that when the game is obviously won, people just concede and the game starts up again. Also, a lot of our deals involve more than two people - like person A threatening to sell property X, that person B wants, to person C for a dollar, unless person B sells property Y to A. Or selling somebody a property that completes a monopoly for an amount of money determined purely based on that person not being able to afford to put houses in it quickly. Mortgaging properties before selling them for the same effect. Or two players trading each other into monopolies so they can either eliminate another weak player, or have a chance to compete with a player who got the first monopoly. Spending thousands on a $200 property. Making and breaking gentleman's agreements. Really a great time. When the trading stops with us, it usually means the game is about 20 minutes from being over while the last two battle it out with dice rolling. If that period was 4 hours long, I'd hate the game too.

steveklabnik 16y ago

I freaking _love_ Monopoly. And yes, I've finished many games of it. The reason that nobody ever finishes is that they're far too nice. You're supposed to be destroying everyone, not floating them loans to keep them in the game. Every time I play a 'casual' game, that kind of junk happens, and it's incredibly dumb.

Sakes 16y ago
My favorite part about it was the agonizingly slow & painful death of my opponent. (my little brother) Thirty minutes of my brothers despair was totally worth the 1.5 hr build up. I love Monopoly and had a blast playing it as a kid. But then again, I don't play it anymore and I don't know any adults/kids that play it anymore. It's clear that times have changed, and the entertainment expectations are drastically different than they were 100 years ago. Hasbro does not need gimmicks to make monopoly fun, they need to make monopoly fun for this generation. You can spend $60 on a video game with great graphics that sucks, or $10 on a game, that might have lower production value, that will keep you entertained for hours. At the end of the day fun is fun. They need to offer kids what this video game generation is truly looking for, which is instant gratification.
- ams6110 16y ago
  I have some good memories of playing monopoly with the family as a kid of about 10. I think it appeals to a kid that age; much younger and they don't really have the attention span or maturity to understand what is going on, and much older and it's just boring. As an adult, I find it to be a pretty tedious game, but like me, my son went through a period of about a year where he really enjoyed playing it.

andymitchell 16y ago

I believe the fun-factor - or lack thereof :) - might have something to do with the fact that Monopoly's origins are supposedly as a warning of the perils of capitalism. While the story is disappearing into time, and is perhaps an over-egged story of folk woman vs. corporate greed; there is a marked similarity between Elizabeth Maggie's "The Landlord Game" and what became Monopoly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlords_Game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlords_Game (it appears an apostrophe is parsed out... it should be The_Landlord's_Game). Its intent was to demonstrate how monopolies grow, and how once they exist they are hard to overcome. I.e. not fun. Which might explain something about Monopoly today :) There's more at http://www.antimonopoly.com/original_boardgame.html http://www.antimonopoly.com/original_boardgame.html

jasonlotito 16y ago

Obligatory board game link: http://boardgamegeek.com http://boardgamegeek.com For those that don't know.

patio11 16y ago
If you like board games, this site will change your life.
- GFischer 16y ago
  It's a great resource, but for the casual player, there's plenty of room for improvement (startup opportunity? :) ). I wanted to find some kind of summary for each game - I bought Puerto Rico as it is one of the top rated games there, and it was far too boring for my playgroup (mostly casual and looking for shortish games).
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  This reminds me, my copy of Twilight Imperium is waiting at my local game store... http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-third-edition http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12493/twilight-imperium-t... Now _there_'s a board game.

brudgers 16y ago

Monopoly is like poker. It's a winner take all game with a simple set of rules where luck of the draw helps, but people reading skills, the ability to calculate odds, and manage your cash greatly increase one's chances of winning. The theme of real-estate development is a good match for the way in which it balances ruthlessness and cooperation. I recently played a few games of U-Build Monopoly which despite its abundance of board gimmicks is a great improvement because of the abundance of complex strategic options at every turn and the flexibility of sound short game options. http://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-18361-U-Build-Monopoly/dp/B0036RKHE8 http://www.amazon.com/Hasbro-18361-U-Build-Monopoly/dp/B0036...

scotty79 16y ago

> A well-designed game has rules simple enough for everyone to follow without arguments, keeps everyone engaged to the end, and encourages positive rather than negative social interaction. Such games exist. Could anyone name a few?

Flemlord 16y ago
Werewolf is my favorite party game. Arguably it doesn't keep everybody fully engaged because one person drops out each turn, but usually everybody keeps watching the action until the game is over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_%28party_game%29
- zipdog 16y ago
  I found that after a few games the group works out who is good at lying and just lynches them first no matter what - it's too risky having a good liar alive. Otherwise it's a great game.
zipdog 16y ago
Pandemic - co-operative yet challenging board game about trying to cure disease on a Risk-like board Scribblish - it's like pictionary but it doesn't matter how badly you draw and everyone is always involved Carcassonne (if the 'farmers' rule confuses anyone, don't use it) - slight chance of negative interaction.
- stuhacking 16y ago
  We all love farmers in our group - fighting to join up those fields to try and swing the game in the final few tile placements is really fun. :-)
- gloob 16y ago
  As an aside, if negative interactions concern you, it's probably a good idea to keep away from Diplomacy. There have been fist fights in my group of friends over that game.

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pessimizer 16y ago

I'm sick of people trying to promote the boardgame scene by bashing one of the games that I've watched people enjoy the shit out of, and is the perennial whipping boy around some nerdy quarters. The main barriers keeping modern games like Carcassone and Settlers from general appeal are the medieval trappings like knights, kings, castles, and dragons, and when those are missing, spaceships. At least, that's major barrier I have to overcome when I pull out one of the things. I have better luck getting people to play Acquire, even though bookkeeping is a barrier. >Approach your average American and say you enjoy board games. I guarantee you, nine times out of ten, you’ll get a response something like: “You mean like Monopoly?” (And the other ten percent will challenge you to a game of Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne.) He's got this wrong by at least two orders of magnitude. I can find 1000 people who LOVE Monopoly before one that has even heard of Carcassone. It's a Mensa/BoardGameGeek delusion that people are as disgusted with games of chance as they are. People LOVE dice. Remember, people LOVE casinos. People may not love being dominated during an entire game, but people sure love dominating for an entire game, and if you play enough games, you get your turn. And contrary to popular Mensa/BGG belief, more people have completed a dozen games of Monopoly than have ever seen the front of a Settlers box.

jellicle 16y ago

Monopoly is a terrible game, but the fact that it keeps selling is a testament to the power of branding and sales channels. The average game store in the U.S. is a Toyrsus. Toysrus carries dozens of board games from exactly two different companies: Hasbro and Mattel. Toyrsus carries basically zero board games from any other companies. Hasbro and Mattel have figured out that if you offer parents the same games they knew as a kid, they'll buy them; and if you offer games with the same characters as TV shows, the kids will want them. And so that is what is in the stores. There are a tremendous number of good board games in the world. These are not offered for sale at Toysrus, and therefore do not have any significant sales in the USA. The existence of Monopoly and the fact that this crummy game continues to be offered for sale is a demonstration of the power of monopoly in the board games industry.

orenmazor 16y ago
my sister managed to find a copy of settlers of catan in a toys'r'us in Ottawa, Canada. we were both extremely shocked by that, as were the employees at the store itself.

chopsueyar 16y ago

What are the better board games?

herval 16y ago

I'm sorry... What's wrong with Monopoly?