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| Monopoly | ||||||||||||||||
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| In the course of a Monopoly game, the players make their way around a board such as this one. At the edge of this board are the money and title deeds they compete for. | ||||||||||||||||
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Monopoly is one of the best-selling commercial board games in the world. As the name suggests, the conditions for winning are based on the acquisition of wealth through a stylised version of economic activity involving the purchase, rental and trading of real estate using play money, as players take turn to move around the board based on the roll of the dice. The game is named after the economic concept of monopoly, the domination of a market by a single seller.
Since the invention of the original version in 1904, it is estimated that more than 500 million people have played the game, making it the most played board game in the world [1].
Monopoly was first marketed on a broad scale by Parker Brothers on November 5, 1935 with international licensing rights given to Waddington Games of the United Kingdom (both of which are now part of Hasbro). Waddington's version (with locations from London) was first produced in 1936.
Although Monopoly is frequently said to have been invented by Charles DarrowCharles Darrow is widely considered to be the inventor of the board game Monopoly, although he may in fact have used an idea by Lizzie Magie, a supporter of political economist Henry George. in 1935, its origins actually go back to 1904, when the Georgist Lizzie MagieLizzie Magie was a follower of Henry George who invented the first version of the board game Monopoly in 1904., (that is, a supporter of political economist Henry GeorgeHenry George ( September 2, 1839 October 29, 1897) was an American political economist, and the most influential proponent of the " Single Tax" on land. His Life Born in Philadelphia, George went to sea at age 16 before eventually settling in California.), patented a game called "The Landlord's Game" with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people can find it hard to understand why this happens and what might be done about it and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate.
This original game was enjoyable but although patented it was not taken up by a manufacturer until 1910Events January events January 13 The first live musical radio program. Lee De Forest broadcasts a live performance of Enrico Caruso from the Metropolitan Opera. January 26 ? Seine floods in Paris. February events February 8 The Boy Scouts of America is in when it was published in the US by the Economic Game Company of New York. In the UK it was published in 19131913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. click on link for calendar) Events January-March January 30 House of Lords rejects Irish Home Rule Bill February 1 New York City's Grand Central Station opens as the world's largest train station. February 3 Th by the Newbie Game Company of London under the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit. Despite the title change, it was recognizably the same game.
Apart from commercial distribution, it spread by word of mouth and was played in slightly variant home-made versions over the years by Quakers, Georgists, university students and others who became aware of it. As it spread, its rules were changed, most notably in dropping the second phase of the game during which a Land tax was introduced to replace the other taxes, and the shortened game became known as "Auction Monopoly". It was often localized; the original fanciful property names being replaced by street names from the cities where the players lived. By the late 1920s it was known as just plain "Monopoly" and was played very much as it is now. One version of the game, commonly played in the Philadelphia area, had Atlantic City street names; this game was taught to Charles Darrow, who then sold it as his personal invention to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers subsequently decided to pay off Magie, and others who had copyrighted commercial variants of the game, in order to have legitimate, undisputed rights to the game, and promoted Darrow as its sole inventor. Decades later, when they attempted to suppress publication of a game called Anti-Monopoly, designed by Ralph Ansbach, the trademark suit went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1983, and the court found in favor of Ansbach because Darrow did not actually invent the game.
The original Monopoly game was localized for the cities or areas in which it was played and Parker Brothers has continued this practice. Their version of Monopoly has been produced for international markets, with the place names being localized for cities including London and Paris, and for countries including the Netherlands and Germany, among others.
In recent years, different manufacturers of the game have created dozens of versions in which the names of the properties and other elements of the game are replaced by others with some theme. There are versions about national parks, Star Trek, Star Wars, Disney, various particular cities (such as Las Vegas) and villages (such as "Calumetopoly" for Calumet, Michigan), states, NASCAR, and many others.
In July of 2000, in a major marketing effort, Hasbro renamed the mascot Rich Uncle Pennybags to "Mr. Monopoly", felt by some to be a more bland name.