Monopoly is doing away with two more pieces of its history, with the announcement that the wheelbarrow and shoe are the latest of Monopoly’s original game pieces to be lost to the couch cushions of history. [More]
board games
Monopoly Fans Vote The Thimble Off The Game Board
By 2.16.17 — Updated: 2.17.17
Although it was once a common sight around many American homes, odds are, unless you’re an avid sewer, the only thimble you’ve come into contact with recently is the Monopoly game piece. Perhaps it was that lack of relevancy that led to the silver token’s demise: Hasbro announced today that the thimble will no longer pass “Go” in the next generation of Monopoly. [More]
Hasbro Putting The Fate Of 8 Monopoly Tokens In Hands Of The Masses
By 1.10.17
Three years ago, we as a nation of board game players voted, and told Hasbro to ditch Monopoly’s classic iron token in favor of a cat. Now, with 50 new contenders — including a hashtag (what the heck?!), bunny slipper, and monster truck –bearing down on them, the fate of the eight current Monopoly tokens is once more hanging in the balance. [More]
Star Wars Monopoly Game Getting Female Character After All
By 1.6.16
Hasbro recently explained that the reason it didn’t include the main character from Star Wars: The Force Awakens in its new Star Wars-themed Monopoly game wasn’t because she was a female, but because it didn’t want to spoil info about her character that was already quite obvious from the trailers. But now that everyone and their goldfish has done their mandatory 135-minute duty and watched the movie, Hasbro is going to add a woman to the Monopoly mix. [More]
FTC Announces First-Ever Settlement Over A Failed Crowdfunded Project
By 6.11.15
Today is an important date in the histories of both consumer protection and crowdfunding: For the first time, the Federal Trade Commission took legal action against someone who used Kickstarter to fund a project that they didn’t produce. That’s the good news. The bad news is that since the man behind the scheme has no money to distribute to backers, the settlement doesn’t actually do anything for people who backed The Doom That Came To Atlantic City. [More]
Creepy Mall Billboard Watches You, Wants To Play Board Games
By 10.9.14
I find life-size video screen ads with images of people really unnerving, and that was before I came to realize that they could be watching me back. Toy company Mattel, out to promote its board games before the holidays, created a cool event that brought random shoppers and an actor in a remote location together…to play board games. [More]
New Monopoly Teaches Kids The Importance Of Xbox, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and EA!
By 7.26.13
The folks at Hasbro have never had a problem letting everything from towns to universities to movies to big-name commercial brands slap their names on licensed versions of Monopoly, but a new version of the classic board game is unabashedly all about learning the value of today’s biggest fast food, retail, tech, and entertainment companies — everything a growing child needs to get ahead! [More]
Vote, Or The Scottie Dog Gets It: Monopoly Contest Will Do Away With One Iconic Token
By 1.9.13
There are many ways to win the game of Monopoly and thus, become champion of the entire world or at least lord it over your three brothers. Any strategy includes scooting around the board with a token you choose to symbolize the defeat of your enemies. Whether you pick the race car, iron, Scottie dog, wheelbarrow, shoe, top hat, thimble, or battleship, you’ve probably got a favorite (old shoe). But soon, perhaps too soon for anyone with even one nostalgic bone in their body, Monopoly is going to get rid of one of those forever. [More]
Can A Pirate Ship Game Teach Kids About Money?
By 8.23.10
Parsons design and technology thesis students came up with a pirate ship board game that has the twin goals of teaching personal finance to kids and not sucking. [More]
'70s "BP Offshore Oil Strike" Board Game Eerily Prescient
By 7.7.10
You’ve seen the box cover on MSNBC and CNN, but now you can actually see the pieces and board of the genuine 1970s “BP Offshore Oil Strike” game. BoardGameGeeks has a full image gallery. [More]
Don't Buy Your Crack With Monopoly Money
By 3.10.10
If there’s one thing every crack dealer hates, it’s being paid in Monopoly money. A 33-year-old man in Wichita, KS, was pulled over by officers last week and found bleeding from the head. He told police he’d just been tricked by his angry crack dealer into coming over to his house, whereupon the dealer pistol whipped his face. According to the police report, the victim told them that “a couple of weeks ago he bought several hundred dollars of crack-cocaine with Monopoly money and now the dealer was ready for pay back.” [More]
The Economist's Credit Crunch Game Makes Subprime Loans Fun Again!
By 12.29.08
We think the idea of “Credit Crunch,” a print-it-yourself board game in this week’s issue of The Economist, is great. We’re not convinced it’s exactly cost-effective to print the board, cards, and money with your own equipment, though—as someone suggests in their comments section, maybe a web-savvy reader should create an online version.
Hasbro And Visa Pervert LIFE Board Game To Train Children In Racking Up Credit Card Debt
By 5.8.07
As if credit card-related debt wasn’t a big enough problem in the U.S., Hasbro and Visa want to fuel the fire. Hasbro is launching a new edition of The Game of Life called Twists and Turns that will replace play money with a Visa-branded card. Matt Collins, Hasbro’s vice president of marketing, said of the switch, “When we started to design a completely new edition of the popular game, we knew it was also time to reflect the way people choose to pay and be paid – and replacing cash with Visa was an obvious choice.”
