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You Can Tell Monopoly is an Old Game (europe.pub)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 70 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (7 children)

It was originally designed to convince people that capitalist greed and acting as a landlord is morally abhorrent and the whole system should be replaced with socialism. The idea was, and I am not joking or exaggerating at all, to play the monopoly you know, and realize that it's the worst game. Then, you play it with slightly different rules that change how land ownership and rent works, and you realize that literally everyone can win, and everyone plays cooperatively.

Then, capitalists saw it, stole the idea, and the original inventor didn't have sufficient money to fight for her exclusive rights, so now we have only the capitalist, rent-seeking shit show of a game that Parker brothers stole.

It's not "monopoly". It's The Landlord's Game.

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  • [–] 7 points 9 hours ago (1 child)

    I wanted to read up on that, because I've never heard it before. And apparently her original patent for landlords game ran out in 1921, and her second patent mostly covered the single tax theory playstyle, which didn't get incorporated into monopoly, because the new patent couldn't include things from the old one.

    So while they definitely took her game, and mutilated the concept to promote the thing it was advocating against, they didn't necessarily steal it and abuse the fact that she couldn't afford to fight back (At least from what I've seen, please correct me if I'm wrong)

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  • [–] 8 points 9 hours ago*

    But if she had had the money for a proper patent lawyer, she could have filed a patent for a sufficiently-changed or better-specified version that would have protected it. Even in cases of patent law, many corporations have managed to hold onto their patents with death grips despite their expiry (Nintendo comes to mind).

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  • [–] 8 points 14 hours ago

    Then, capitalists saw it, stole the idea, and the original inventor didn't have sufficient money to fight for her exclusive rights,

    And this is why IP law only protects the rich. They're the only people who can afford to sue for it.

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  • [–] 17 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

    Problem was that the second part of the game was terrible at being a game whereas the part we know now as Monopoly was, compared to its contemporary board games, quite good.

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  • [–] 11 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

    But still needs house rules to make it fun to play with friends. Playing from the rulebook is miserable. Side note: it really broke my immersion in A Quiet Place that the kids were quietly playing monopoly together. That's how I knew it was a work of fiction lol

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  • [–] 5 points 12 hours ago* (1 child)

    One popular opinion is that it is more fun with the actual rules, it is just difficult to follow the rules, especially the auctions. My computer had monopoly programmed into it when I was growing up and it was a lot of fun playing single player by the actual rules.

    The free parking pot I'm kind of ok with, even though it makes the game longer it introduces a little randomness. Otherwise monopoly snowballs pretty fast.

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