Fuck Monopoly

[Tadanori Oyama]

This was posted on Irregular Webcomic and I thought it was too damn awesome not to share.

Monopoly is the most stupid, stupid, stupid game ever invented.

It should go curl up and die in a corner and rid the world of its presence. Parker Brothers/Hasbro have caused more harm to the world of family entertainment and fun than pretty much any other thing in the entire history of the world.

It's a stupid, idiotic, brainless, un-fun, stupid, ridiculous, tedious, boring, stupid game. All copies of it should be burnt. The guy who invented it should be brought back to life just so he can be shot.

The idiot marketing brainless idiots who keep promoting the stupid game and making endless "editions" that are just the same stupid tired old formula wrapped in shiny wastes of packaging are responsible for causing untold damage to countless minds across the entire planet. And wasting millions of hours of people's time with this completely pointless and ridiculous excuse for something that's apparently meant to be fun, but is actually a form of psychological torture. They should all be dragged out and ... treated really badly until they realise the error of their evil, evil, evil ways.

These people are torturing thousands, if not millions, of people across the planet, turning their brains into jelly, wasting their time, promising them an entertaining experience and delivering, time and again, nothing but pain and misery and suffering and boredom.

Why can't we do something about this crime against humanity? These evil, evil, nasty, evil people cannot be allowed to get away with this stupid bloody torture of innocent people. I want to burn down their houses, kill their dogs, smash their cars, and force them to play Monopoly for the rest of the lives they are unworthy to continue.

Stupid fricking excuse for a game. It gives the word "game" a bad name. There are kids out there whose parents or other family members have given them a Monopoly set, and whose path to the true horror has just begun. Those poor children. Can't something be done about the poor children??

Monopoly should be declared an inhuman form of punishment and banned by an international treaty, and those who promote and purvey it tried as the criminals against humanity they are.

There are very, very few things in this world that I hate. I'm a very mild-mannered person for the most part. But I hate, hate, hate, detest, loathe, despise, hate, hate, hate this fricking stupid bloody game.

Do want to ruin your family? Do you? Do you want to try to have a fun afternoon of togetherness and entertainment, that devolves into mindless stupidity and tedium, tempered with nastiness, back-biting, bitching, invective, people getting upset, people getting angry at one another, and people getting bored out of their skulls just trying to finish this bloody stupid ridiculous fricking game??? Do you want something that will turn a nice day of family togetherness into the most painful thing since having wisdom teeth extracted without anaesthetic?

No? Well then for god's sake, do not even think about Monopoly.

The game is evil. I'm sure Satan himself invented it and is sitting back laughing at how much misery it causes. If there's a Monopoly set in your house now, go call a priest and have an exorcism performed. Burn the wretched thing.

Do not expose your kids to Monopoly. You will ruin their lives. And the lives of their families when they grow up and have kids. Break the vicious cycle now. Do not inflict this evil on future generations.

What's that? Tell you how I really feel? You want me stop holding back and to tell you how I really feel??

I can't, because the English language does not have the words to describe how much deeper and more intense is my loathing and hatred for this evil stupid thing than I have been able to express so far.

And don't make excuses like, "Oh, if you play by the proper rules, it's a good game." It isn't. I agree that putting money on "Free Parking" and not using the auction rules makes the game worse, but it was already terrible to begin with. Simply removing the common house rules does nothing to alleviate the fundamental problems of the game that make it so broken and pointless to begin with.

Monopoly does not survive in the present day because it's a good game. There are tons of much better games out there. Games that have been designed with principles of play and good game design, that have been developed over the decades since Monopoly was released. Monopoly may have been state-of-the-art when it was invented, but games have evolved a lot since then. Pretty much any modern game with a modicum of thought behind it has better gameplay, player interaction, decision-making, game balance, theme integration, playing time, pace of action, and basic down-to-earth fun than Monopoly.

The reason Monopoly maintains dominant market status is purely due to marketing and inertia. Hasbro continues to market it like the cash cow it is, not because it's a good game, but because it's a cash cow. And parents buy it for their kids because when they go looking for a game they see a few unrecognisable titles on the shelves and they see dozens of boxes of Monopoly, and they go, "Hey! I know that! I'll get that!" They forget how miserable an experience it is to actually sit down and play the game. Retailers stock it because it sells, and it sells because retailers keep stocking it.

Department stores and generic toy stores don't bother stocking many game titles, so they pick the biggest sellers and most recognised names - which usually means games that were designed 50 or more years ago. To find modern games - better designed games, since yes, we have learnt a lot about how to design a fun game in 50 years - you need to go to specialty game stores that stock your roleplaying games and stuff. These are stores that most people never go into, and if they do, they look around bewildered at the 300 game titles they've never heard of, give up on trying to pick something new, and ask where the Monopoly sets are.

I've literally seen this happen in a game store. And I've seen the owner, eager to serve a new customer, go from bright and keen to help, to dejected and slumped a second later.

Look, sure, if you get a group of people who genuinely like Monopoly and set them going, they might actually have a good time. But you get a typical family together and set them playing Monopoly, the typical outcome consists of: complaining about bad dice rolls, someone getting upset because they're obviously losing, someone getting bored, someone accusing someone of cheating, arguments about rules, someone losing interest but having to keep playing because "you can't quit now!", somebody getting bankrupted and going into a sulk, everyone who's been knocked out sitting around complaining or going off and doing something else, and eventually one player obviously going to lose and the other obviously going to win, but the actual victory takes another hour or more to play out to the bitter end. By the time it's over, the family has been fractured, half of them are off doing something else, and someone's had their feelings hurt. Believe it or not, this is not indicative of a well designed game!

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. Why are they not mainstream? Why do parents everywhere not play them with their kids?

Because Monopoly is marketed so aggressively, and because so many people are poisoned against the idea that games can actually be fun by their experiences with Monopoly.

[Murph]

I think the problem with Monopoly is its almost a century old in terms of game design.   Granted, just because something is old doesn't mean its bad, as some of the classics deserve to be.  Zman games is doing some really great things in terms of game design, and almost none of them use dice.  Cooperative games seem to be the next big thing in board game design

[Kroack]

Does this guy actually say anything bad about mono itself? He blames its evil on how the sore losers around him react.

[Boyos]

Sounds to me like his family is just a buch of D-bags, clearly soar ass losers, and shouldent be playing games with each other anyways.

[Tadanori Oyama]

Frankly I'm surprised to see so much support for Monopoly. I agree with the dude: it's not a great game.

[Mckma]

I just thought it was kind of funny (and I only read about every other paragraph), because he never really seemed to say anything actually about why the game was bad.  I'm not a huge fan, but I don't loathe it...

[Murph]

Mechanical reasons why Monoploy is a bad game
Minimal player interaction.
Gaining ground makes it easier to gain more ground.  Its like if in football they lessened the length of the field for your side only when you scored a touchdown
While some skill is involved, ultimately it revolves around chance.
Theres one way to win.  No alternative win conditions or multiple paths to victory.
Jail is a bad mechanic.  Any mechanic that lets a player lose a turn with no input from the player is a bad mechanic.


Yes I care about board game mechanics, what do you do thats so great

[Kroack]

Mechanical reasons why Monoploy is a bad game
Minimal player interaction.
Gaining ground makes it easier to gain more ground.  Its like if in football they lessened the length of the field for your side only when you scored a touchdown
While some skill is involved, ultimately it revolves around chance.
Theres one way to win.  No alternative win conditions or multiple paths to victory.
Jail is a bad mechanic.  Any mechanic that lets a player lose a turn with no input from the player is a bad mechanic.


Yes I care about board game mechanics, what do you do thats so great

Frankly I'm surprised to see so much support for Monopoly. I agree with the dude: it's not a great game.

Why so much hating on mono?



Why?

[Tadanori Oyama]

I just thought it was kind of funny (and I only read about every other paragraph), because he never really seemed to say anything actually about why the game was bad.  I'm not a huge fan, but I don't loathe it...

That was the man reason I posted it. Just seemed so random.

[nbneil]

I'm not particularly a fan of Monopoly by any means, but I now feel the way this guy does about Monopoly about the guy himself.  His rant isn't even an effective rant because he doesn't point out any actual flaws or reasons why he hates it, other than he hates it because he hates it.  I've written a lot of rants and it's only worth it if you point our real flaws or harp on really unimportant things and make a huge deal about them.  What a fucking idiot.  By the way, I have more evidence in a small paragraph why I hate this guy than he did in an entire page about Monopoly.  I win, he loses . . . at life.

[Boyos]

Mechanical reasons why Monoploy is a bad game

I differ and heres why.

Minimal player interaction.

There is plenty of Interaction, exchanging money, Biding on propertys threw auction, Trading, the whole game is built around interaction with the players on the board.

Gaining ground makes it easier to gain more ground.  Its like if in football they lessened the length of the field for your side only when you scored a touchdown
While some skill is involved, ultimately it revolves around chance.

What type of game doesnt that happen in? If I get 3 guys in my home base on trouble and you have 1, Im more likly to get my last guy in there befor your 1, if you land on the big latter in shoots and latter first turn and I dont get on a latter for 3 turns your way ahead of me. Most games if somone starts to take a lead they can hold onto it more easy then a person who plays passivly.

Theres one way to win.  No alternative win conditions or multiple paths to victory.

True enough, but again most games only have one way to win, board games atleast.

Jail is a bad mechanic.  Any mechanic that lets a player lose a turn with no input from the player is a bad mechanic.

how dont you have any imput? you either draw a card that sends you there, or you roll 3 doubles in a row, then you can roll doubles to get out or pay 50 bucks, or if your not doing so well just stay in there for 3 rounds and hope people land on your shit and make bank.

Yes I care about board game mechanics, what do you do thats so great

I too care, im supprised you dont feel the same way.

[clockworkjoe]

mad about monopoly

[Murph]

For reference, lets use these.  http://richard_wilding.tripod.com/monorules.htm
Generally, I don't think anyone plays strait monopoly, but the variations are wide.

Mechanical reasons why Monoploy is a bad game

I differ and heres why.

Minimal player interaction.

There is plenty of Interaction, exchanging money, Biding on propertys threw auction, Trading, the whole game is built around interaction with the players on the board.

I will concede there is more player interaction than I realized.  When I played, we never auctioned the property didn't buy

Gaining ground makes it easier to gain more ground.  Its like if in football they lessened the length of the field for your side only when you scored a touchdown
While some skill is involved, ultimately it revolves around chance.

What type of game doesnt that happen in? If I get 3 guys in my home base on trouble and you have 1, Im more likly to get my last guy in there befor your 1, if you land on the big latter in shoots and latter first turn and I dont get on a latter for 3 turns your way ahead of me. Most games if somone starts to take a lead they can hold onto it more easy then a person who plays passivly.

In Monopoly, the victory points, and the resource you have to spend to get victory points, is the same.  A player who starts winning by buying property now has the means of taking victory points from the other players while increasing his ability to take further take victory points from other players (by buying more property, developing etc).  Think of it this way, have you ever had a close game of monoploy, or did it end with a single huge monolith of a player, or two huge monolith players slugging it out

Theres one way to win.  No alternative win conditions or multiple paths to victory.

True enough, but again most games only have one way to win, board games atleast.

Disagree strongly.  Theres pretty much one strategy in Monopoly (acquire shit).  For example Ticket to Ride has several viable strategies for winning (most tickets, just build the most train, build the longest contiguous train, cockblock other players, etc).  Chrononaughts has three specific win conditions that don't have anything to do with each other.

Jail is a bad mechanic.  Any mechanic that lets a player lose a turn with no input from the player is a bad mechanic.

how dont you have any imput? you either draw a card that sends you there, or you roll 3 doubles in a row, then you can roll doubles to get out or pay 50 bucks, or if your not doing so well just stay in there for 3 rounds and hope people land on your shit and make bank.

Theres no decision on the player's part that leads them to go to jail.  The path is entirely random

Yes I care about board game mechanics, what do you do thats so great

I too care, im supprised you dont feel the same way.


*hi five*

[Boyos]

For reference, lets use these.  http://richard_wilding.tripod.com/monorules.htm
Generally, I don't think anyone plays strait monopoly, but the variations are wide.

Mechanical reasons why Monoploy is a bad game

I differ and heres why.

Minimal player interaction.

There is plenty of Interaction, exchanging money, Biding on propertys threw auction, Trading, the whole game is built around interaction with the players on the board.

I will concede there is more player interaction than I realized.  When I played, we never auctioned the property didn't buy

Gaining ground makes it easier to gain more ground.  Its like if in football they lessened the length of the field for your side only when you scored a touchdown
While some skill is involved, ultimately it revolves around chance.

What type of game doesnt that happen in? If I get 3 guys in my home base on trouble and you have 1, Im more likly to get my last guy in there befor your 1, if you land on the big latter in shoots and latter first turn and I dont get on a latter for 3 turns your way ahead of me. Most games if somone starts to take a lead they can hold onto it more easy then a person who plays passivly.

In Monopoly, the victory points, and the resource you have to spend to get victory points, is the same.  A player who starts winning by buying property now has the means of taking victory points from the other players while increasing his ability to take further take victory points from other players (by buying more property, developing etc).  Think of it this way, have you ever had a close game of monoploy, or did it end with a single huge monolith of a player, or two huge monolith players slugging it out

I Have had close games, normaly your right where  person with the most propertys has the biggest chance of winning, but you never know one good set of developed property can cripple a person who controlls most of the board. Normaly if played with family you play it on the board so maybe 2-4 players max, on the x-box I usuly play with max players and makes it more challenging.

Theres one way to win.  No alternative win conditions or multiple paths to victory.

True enough, but again most games only have one way to win, board games atleast.

Disagree strongly.  Theres pretty much one strategy in Monopoly (acquire shit).  For example Ticket to Ride has several viable strategies for winning (most tickets, just build the most train, build the longest contiguous train, cockblock other players, etc).  Chrononaughts has three specific win conditions that don't have anything to do with each other.

I have never played ticket to ride but have heard it is an amazing game, I should change mine to most classic games theres usuly one way to win.

Jail is a bad mechanic.  Any mechanic that lets a player lose a turn with no input from the player is a bad mechanic.

how dont you have any imput? you either draw a card that sends you there, or you roll 3 doubles in a row, then you can roll doubles to get out or pay 50 bucks, or if your not doing so well just stay in there for 3 rounds and hope people land on your shit and make bank.

Theres no decision on the player's part that leads them to go to jail.  The path is entirely random

true enough but, how would you make it more fair? if somone gets caught cheeting they go to jail? well that sucks if you have a ceeter anyways. Its just a part of a game, it would be hard to change the mecahnic of jail to be fair. but at the same time look at candy land if you land on a spot with a gum drop or choclet puddle you lose your turn theres no choice there, most losing turns in games are random.

Yes I care about board game mechanics, what do you do thats so great

I too care, im supprised you dont feel the same way.


*hi five*

*high five back*

[ethan_dawe]

Fouth edition monopoly is the best.