New Monopoly Game Design – Does it Deliver or Disappoint?
February 5th, 2010We don’t normally blog about the designs of board games, but since Monopoly is the most famous board game of all time and has somewhat its root in different real estate “properties” we thought we would use it as a perfect way to start the weekend.
This new version of Monopoly is a special 75th anniversary version of the game and includes a number of interesting changes. The board is circular, doesn’t have paper money but debit cards instead, and when you pass go you don’t get a measly $200, but $2,000,000 to account for all the inflation and the change in real estate prices since 1935 when Monopoly was first released.
What do you think of this new design? Do you like the new look or does it disappoint? Post your comments below, @ reply your thoughts on our twitter or post them on our Facebook Fan Page!
Share your thoughts on Facebook
New Monopoly Game
New Monopoly Game
New Monopoly Game Design
New Monopoly Pieces
New Monopoly Board
See your comments below!
-
-
-
-
-
-
Tags: monopoly debit game, new monopoly design, new monopoly game, new monopoly game design, new monopoly pieces
This is… disgusting. Yes, it might look modern and all, but still, it looks horrid compared to the old board.
From a design perspective, I think it’s beautiful. I love that someone has challenged convention and come up with something that works better. Think about it. Is it ergonomic to have to reach the far corner of a square Monopoly board? This is much more efficient.
Although I’m not a big fan of the money being gone. Sure, it’s easier, but easier isn’t always better. Every time I get my change back from a McWorker it becomes painfully clear that no one has been taught how to count back change since about 1972. Interaction with cash is an important element to understanding what money really is.
Do I sound old? I suppose since it’s a game I should quit worrying that the educational aspect has been removed.
Although our current economic situation may have been avoided if a lot more people understood the concept of money.
This is awful.
I agree with Jeff in all his points… except, some of us still remember hot to count change back to a customer, (even when they give us the extra nickel avoid the 95cents in coins.)
Does anyone know if the square Monopoly board will also be available?
I have no problem with the round design…but why does it need to look like it was designed by Stanley Kubrick? Why can’t it have the round design and still have the great colors and iconic labeling of the original game? Why can’t it still have the classic game pieces it’s best known for? Monopoly is probably the most “re-packaged” game in the history of board games.
The problem with Monopoly wasn’t the design, but the incredibly boring gameplay. The outcome of the game becomes obvious after all the properties are bought, but it’s a long drawn out slog from that point to the end. As far as the design goes, it’s okay, but just like all the “special edition” monopoly games, hardly necessary.
@David The square (or rectangle) board will always be available at your local goodwill/salvation army/thrift store of choice. I see Monopoly games available every week at thrift stores. There are a few games that are very common that can almost always be found at these stores and the best part is they usually cost less than $1. Why go to a store and drop $10-30 on a game?
I absolutely hate the new design.It takes all the fun out of what used to be the best game ever.
The board design is weird. The electronic money system is ridiculous, transactions take forever. I’d much rather pass paper around. My sister got a version with it, she took it back the next day.
This bank card system really sucks. the board and tokens look cool, but I don’t like having to swipe my card ever time I want to see how much I have to work with. and when it comes to House rules it dose not lend it self to the wonders of under the table deals. but I will say this, the bank has seen a lot less armed gunmen lately.
as for the board it’s self. my little brother will still go about flipping the sucker the second I land on and buy up park place and or boardwalk.
I think from a design perspective the ne board looks fantastic and modern.
The counters look very sleek and the debit card system is very up to date and may appeal to new users of the game.
Personally – if it aint broke dont try and fix it. The old game worked and part of the enjoyment was phsically getting the money of your competitors and each street in this version seems very narrow you could quite easily forget which one you are in if there are a few players in them. As for the counters I know they look good but come on I want a nice metal car, dog or boot not a thin plastic counter with a picture on it
While I find the new board aesthetically pleasing, I am a traditionalist and would never consider playing on anything but the traditional board.
takes batteries
utter failure
Awful…. just…. ugh, it takes batteries. and paper money is just so more awesome. it looks horrible and the disc shape is….
board games are a thing of yesterday. and they have to look like that. if we want this to be modernized, it’s gonna be a computer game. not a crappy cardboard disc with a piece of 2 cent plastic attached to it.
Design wise it might be all right, for newcomers it might be all right, but it sure breaks the nostalgia, and it’s just too not monopoly.
HEY You dang kids, “Get off my Lawn !!” … derned kids today with their moneyless round battery powered games… bahhh.
if i dont get a flying car, then Monopoly should still look like mother-fucking monopoly, not a frisbee…
Personally I like the idea of the reinvention of the design but the lack of actual money irks me. Like many, when someone wants to buy or trade a piece of real estate in my home, a somewhat cloak and dagger type exchange is made of goods, services, and cold hard cash. I may buy this version for the board design, but you can bet your butt I’m gonna be swiping the cash out of my old game and not even bothering to buy batteries for the cheap electronics.
I don’t mind the new design, except some of the conventions (“rocket zone” ?!?!?) are silly. The new versions of Monopoly with the credit card system are incredibly stupid. The transactions take *longer* with the cards than with paper money. And it’s far easier to screw up. We’re all used to playing with the old denominations in the original game that suddenly “one million” and “3.4 million” don’t make much sense to us anymore. I’d rather play with paper money.
I also preferred the old die-cast metal pieces.
Look, Monopoly was very much a game of its time, and harkens back to a very specific time during the 20th century. The game didn’t need to be updated in this way for a number of reasons. In this case, I think staying true to the classic art style would have been best. As some have said, the problem with Monopoly wasn’t its art design (which is top-notch) but the endgame. It’s an old-fashioned game at heart. Slapping a new coat of (admittedly pretty) paint on it kind of defeats the purpose, in my opinion.
Yes, I am not thrilled at the new design. However, I understand the thoughts behind the decision. The new board, prices, and money-changing reflect a new millenium. I miss the die-cast pieces. I wonder if the new ‘dog’ will be represented by a purse-perfect chihuahua. God help us.
The one thing I really don’t like about the new design is the ‘categorizing’ of the what used to be the different sides of the board into ‘classes’. Yes, the price-value has always increased from Baltic Avenue all the way up to Boardwalk. In the pictures above, the low-end properties are labeled as the ‘Walking Zone’ while the high-end properties are in the ‘Rocket Zone.’ I assume the other two zones will be ‘Running’ and ‘Sprinting’ or something to that effect. This stops teaching real estate & commerce and begins teaching class discrimination.
I don’t want a board game trying to teach my kids who they are better than. Or who is better than them.
I kind of dislike the new board. Sure, it looks sleek, modern and circular, but the original board style is nostalgic, and what is more nostalgic than playing a board game in this electronic age? Honestly, yesterday I played Clue with a 40+ year-old board, and it was AWESOME. The pieces were made out of wood, and the pictures on the cards looked like something out of Rapture (Bioshock reference. Look it up!).
On a side note, I’m not a huge fan of credit/debit cards, so the electronic aspect fails to excite me.
i put it on my record player and then i realized it was my childhood favorite game that just got raped =(
Wow, after this they’ll go back to Classic Monopoly and make billions.
Can’t see anything wrong with it.
Personally I already have an old version of Monopoly – I assume all those who like said old versions also have one? Great. So why do you care?
I just want to remind everyone that this is not a new design. This is in fact a very old design. The first Monopoly board was round.
This is a joke, right? An early April fool’s? This looks like some sort of retro-futuristic design from the 1970s. The Monopoly people can’t be seriously considering this.
And the electronic aspect is just stupid.
@ Everyone – Keep in mind this is simply a new variant. You’ll still find ‘Monopoly Classic’ in your favourite Toy Store. It will just be a harder find, unless you’re smart enough to shop online.
I like the board style, its space friendly. The removal of chance/community cards and cash will make clean up alot easier.
People are griefing over the loss of the cash as they ‘can no longer teach their children the value of money’ – does this mean they prefer their kids carrying large amounts of cash in their pockest as opposed to debit cards with protected pins? The retort is weak, but so is the argument. Kids learn the value of money from weekly chores that earn allowances, not from a game that immediatly gives you a couple of 500$ bills for nothing at all.
The design is modern, and the removal of the metal pieces is a little disapointing as are the changes in the properties. Had the scheme of the game remained the same I can see this game taking off, but unfortunately this new layout seems to be a big dissapointment.
In summary – the new design and electronics are not worth the trade for the loss of the game pieces and the original property titles.
We Want Board Walk!
Epic fail.
This isn’t Monopoly. Well, okay, it IS Monopoly, but it doesn’t FEEL like Monopoly. I agree with the above comments about how it may be appealing to new players, but seriously, the newbies are going to start playing with the rest of us traditionalists who much prefer the old style square-board, cash-based, cloak-and-dagger wheeling and dealing politics than the modernized circle-board, electronic-money, take-all-the-fun-out-of-it Monopoly.
Although I’m not sold on the round gameboard and the addition of “inflation”, I like the idea of keeping track of your money electronically as opposed to using that paper money that eventually wears out and falls apart. Especially the $100 bills, amirite?
But this isn’t a new concept. The Game of Life has already had a makeover with a new, smaller board with a different path design, and a similar “debit card” electronic money system. I’ve played the new Game of Life and I have to say, I found it just as enjoyable as the original version. Even though a few things were changed, it was still recognizable as the Game of Life. The core gameplay did not change.
This new Monopoly, aside from the new from the new features and layout, I’m sure plays the same way as the old version. But you know, I’m equally as sure that Hasbro won’t stop making the old version either for people who want the joy of driving their thimble around the board. Look how many re-inventions of UNO there are. I owe two, Classic UNO and UNO Extreme, and I enjoy playing both.
How come only one company owns the rights to monopoly?
So, this is supposed to appeal to kids who’d rather play WoW? Because it don’t appeal to us 40 somethings.
This is so incredibly idiotic of a game design, Monopoly was ruined enough with the first edition with the credit cards, why change it all? This isn’t even Monopoly anymore, the only thing that looks and acts the same, is getting all the other peoples money. This is really annyoing, as we now have other, better, and cooler games to play, and I’d rather get myself an old edition of the game with these changes.
There are positive sides to the changes, but the modern style change, and the credit cards are also a good thing, only not under the Monopoly name.
this is horrible they have made the game into complete trash
NO NO NO NO NO.
Looks wise, the new board design is excellent!
- Shape -
A circular design is more efficient, so no more stretching (think about how many times you’ve asked a friend to “move me to free parking please” on the old board)
People who complain that the square is better, the square and circle achieve the exact same effect i.e. makes the pieces go round and round a board and when you think about a design that make things go round and round, a circle is the perfect choice. Snakes and ladders won’t work with a circle design, chess won’t work with a circle design, Monopoly sure as hell can work with a circular design.
The circle design also kind of simulates how much faster and frantic modern economical life has become.
What do they say again… money makes the world go ‘ROUND’, not ’square’…
- Color -
There is a excellent use of color on the board. All four corners are still highly recognizable thanks to their striking and colorful logo’s, allowing a circular board design to still have it’s designated ‘corners’. The black seperation lines form a strong contras to the white making them easily visible. The coloured building placement blocks are nice and vivid (though I feel the cyan could be bumped up a few notches). Also the grey text on the board is very easy on the eyes.
The jumbling mess of pitch black text on a yellow background of the old board sometimes gave me eyestrain. People will argue that black and yellow together makes a highly visible combo, great for seeing on what street you land on… and it’s true, they do make a good visible combo, but sometimes in the extent of someone shining a neon green light in your face. You’re going to notice it, but wouldn’t want to stare at it too long…
- Pieces –
A tiny little Bugatti Veyron would be awesome! Instead of a dog, a chihuahua in a handbag… 0.0 okay, let’s not go THAT far…
I love what they did with the buildings. The semi-transparent look blends in with modern society’s ‘glass jungle’ effect.
But I do feel let down with the player pieces…
Sure, they follow the same design as the boards, but converting the old 3D pieces to 2D pictures on stands is a big no-no.
One of the core things people remember about the game is the endless arguments of who get’s to be the car. The feeling of holding that little 3D car in your fingers… FEELING that it’s a car, pretending to drift around the ‘jail’ corner… that made up for a good 1/4 of where the fun from monopoly came. The new player pieces…. meh…
They could fix this easily though, without sacrificing the art-style. Just cast them in 3D again, but with the same transparent plastic look as with the buildings. Can you imagine the ‘modern’ version of the old 3D pieces?
-Money-
From what I hear, the swipe card idea, though good on paper, pretty much sucks in reality. I really feel soory for them in this regard, because to update Monopoly to a modern setting, swiping cards is what it’s all about. A real pity that.
Also, another part where it fails is the awkward prices things cost. On the board I see a 1.7 mil and so on, this just makes it harder for old fans, since they have to re-learn the new currency. Maybe they could have kept it something like ‘200 grand’ instead of ‘200 dollars’. Although still wayyyy too cheap for the modern world, it would still be much easier to get the hang of.
-Wording-
From what I can tell, they modified a bit of the wording which, like above, is a given to decribe what the modern economical world is like, but could leave old fans in the dark again.
All in all I feel the updated look is great, but is let down by design choices that made the orginal so fun.
Not against the board, though it goes horribly against tradition, but at the very least they could have left us the classic metal tokens
The furthest I’ll play from the original is the deluxe edition. This just seems so wrong.
@Muffinmedic
I saw another picture of the game board. The other zones are Cycle Zone and Car Zone, which really aren’t much better.
I prefer Trivial Pursuit, tbh,
Argh! What have you done with monopoly!
I think it looks great (although I too prefer the old pewter pieces), but the thing is, it’s still just Monopoly. There are much, much better board games to play: Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Dominion…I could go on!
What really bugs me is that when this game reinvents itself as it does with depressing regularity (although the game mechanics never really improve) it’s newsworthy, and Monopoly ends up with all this free advertising. But when the new game Agricola knocked Puerto rico off the http://www.BoardGameGeek.com game rankings top-slot, it wasn’t mentioned.
No.
i like the ideal of the round board, however we play with so many house rules that the kids did not like playing this version at all and we ended up taking it back. However the life game that got re-vamped that we lie to play and I am sure that is what the makers of Monopoly were hoping to copy from
I like the new look.
As one poster stated, you can find the classic version in any thrift store; nobody is buying it new anymore. They had to change it around to keep sales up.
The discussion sounds like a toned-down version of a Facebook layout protest. Sure, you’ll state publicly that you hate it, but you’ll buy it anyway. And then it’ll change again, and you’ll state publicly that you hate it again, and you’ll buy it anyway again. Because you’re still a Monopoly fan.
Well technically the board was originally circle when it was first made but I think this modern re-design is atrocious. Honestly who the hell cares if the board has changed its numbers do to inflation? Just give me my $200 dollars and I can be on my merry way to run the gauntlet of Hotels and motels and pray I don’t end up in a Hooverville.
While the circular design might be an improvement, the rest basically ruins the game.
The entire enjoyment of the game was to take and lose actual money, I just can’t see it being the same enjoyment when you take some electronic digits from a friend instead of the satisfaction that comes from having him/her pass all their hundreds across the board to you- it just wouldn’t be the same.
And the new colour scheme is crap, every other boardgame has a colourful design that just makes it look like fun to play, this white bland board doesn’t even remotely resemble something for a fun atmosphere. And batteries?!?! NO boardgame should ever need batteries to play-end of discussion.
Basically, I wouldn’t even PLAY this game let a lone actually buy it.
This would be fine for anyone who hasn’t ever seen or played ‘old’ Monopoly. If you own the old one or know someone who does, this one is new but not improved so there’s no reason to run out and buy the batteries-required version.
For decades, Monopoly was a must-have board game. The generation who would accept this Monopoly 2.0 are also the generation who couldn’t be pulled away from their laptop long enough to play a board game, no matter how they dress it up with electronics. A lot of pointless tinkering, in my opinion.
I wouldn’t consider giving this thing a second glance. It’s no worse than any of the other ‘themed’ Monopoly gimmicks, but I don’t own any of those either.
i like the board design but like blaine said without the paper money you dont get the satisfaction of feeling mean to the other people, the circle motion is nice its more efficient to stack and such but a board game with batterys!? thats crazy talk! *sigh* i prolly will get this but rip the top out and take my old school money out and play it that way so its still somewhat nostalgic and i get the nice feeling….prolly bring the old stuff back like boardwalk, edit a few things to make it seem like the older version and sell it on craigslist or ebay
We now have several variants of Monopoly, and always still call the properties by their old British names, and struggle with different kinds of cash. It’s just too ingrained!
The classic monopoly mascot is gone…
Did anyone else notice that all of the Properties are British street names, and that this redesign may only be in the UK?