First off, sorry, I hate it.

I would imagine that the chances of you having NOT played Monopoly are slim. I also imagine you’ve played it far more than once. Monopoly could be viewed as one of the grandfathers of boardgames, with 275+ million copies sold worldwide. It is the definitive evergreen game; whereas most games enjoy (at best) a brief heyday before disappearing beneath the tide of new titles that spring up every day. 

But as someone who designs and hosts games and gaming events, I loathe it with a passion. I look down the full and considerable length of my nose at it as the absolute bottom of the board game barrel. I’ll say why later. But before that, I want to acknowledge that, statistically, I must be wrong on some level. There is clearly a brilliance to Monopoly that has eluded me. 

Where someone hates the most popular form of a medium they love, what is most likely happening is plain old snobbery. The music aficionado that refuses to sing along to Don’t Look Back in Anger. The theatre goer that couldn’t possibly inflict another farce upon themselves. Or the French Expat of 30 years that wouldn’t be seen dead at the Palace of Versailles. Games are my bag, baby. I love designing them, playing them, talking about them and discussing them. I did all of Gloomhaven over about 150 hours and will probably do it again. So it’s no surprise that the kingpin entry-level board game is beneath me. 

But if I am to critique myself, it’s my failing, not Monopoly’s. A wise man once said to me, that it’s far easier to find fault than to recognise excellence. And in fact an article by Magic the Gathering’s Richard Garfield highlighted this thinking distortion to me. Garfield flags the advantages of Monopoly, many of which I had overlooked. Likely I’ve picked up on obvious flaws in the design and extrapolated toward a controversial viewpoint that cements me as a deeply interesting member of the gaming community chest. So let’s pass go and give it a considered review. 

Monopoly, a once round the board overview

Monopoly was popularised  in 1935 by a certain Charles Darrow. Darrow was a down on his luck inventor who had lived through the great depression in America – an experience that ‘inspired’ Monopoly. He learnt way ahead of time that I am not the only person to have doubts about the game, as many of the publishers that Charles first approached turned him down. After some persistence, he made headway with the Parker Brothers.

As with all games, Darrow’s design inherited from an existing game, in this case the oh so similar ‘Landlord’s Game’ published in 1903. This was written by the female designer and activist Lizzie Maggie. Curiously, while the Monopoly we know appears as a celebration of capitalism and land ownership, the original Landlord’s Game was intended to highlight the harm of expansive land ownership. 

The game is still vastly popular today, being the 3rd highest selling board game of all time in some countries. Its tremendous reach and appeal is shown in the runaway success of several spin off games and apps including Scopely’s Monopoly Go! which is reputed to have made the company over $2 billion in revenue. 

Monopoly as a board game tends toward a particular context, which is family get-togethers. It does not belong to the hardcore gamer, the tournament player, the pub-player or the travel time-waster. It is the archetypal ‘Come on grandma/grandad, let’s play a game’ game. It needs the post-dinner dinner table area as one would find in a home. It has rules and a story that will alienate no-one and it works with a nuclear+ family size. Marshall McLuhan said that the medium is the message, and this should be borne in mind as we consider the game, for many of the game’s benefits come out of how well it fits the circumstances in which it’s played. 

So let’s work out if my criticisms are just a bank error in Monopoly’s favour, or if it should go straight to jail. Let’s work through its characteristics from worst to best. 

The cons

• The opening contains no interesting choices. Game designer Sid Meier described games as “a series of interesting choices”. But in randomly stumbling around the board, the only choice you have is to buy or not buy. And buying is always the right decision. Making it uninteresting. Later in the game this does alleviate, with decisions about which deals to make with other players, and where to focus your building strategy. But to begin with, you’re looking at luck and not much else. 

• You can be knocked out. Modern game design considers all players having a hope of winning right up to the final whistle as a bedrock of a good game. But in Monopoly, you can go bankrupt in the midpoint of the game (or later) and have absolutely nothing more to do. Coupled with the next point, this can lead to a hugely unenjoyable experience for a player.  

• It can go on FOREVER. And it just can. If two players end up with significant portfolios, they can just sit there taking chunks out of each other’s vast cash reserves indefinitely. Games should be built with a limiting structure, which Monopoly lacks. This leads to a potentially exhausting, invasive and quite exclusive affair. It’s not uncommon for two members of a household to end up locked in a Monopoly jail cell, while the rest of the family go about their lives feeling increasingly grateful for having lost. 

The pros

• Everyone knows the story. All but the most abstract of games (Snap, Tetris) have a narrative. The narrative serves to make the actions evocative, and, when cleverly paired with the mechanics, makes the game easy to understand. Monopoly’s narrative is so universal that hardly a soul would fail to empathise with it. Making and keeping money. There are further themes of property management and Central London – neither of which struggle to spark recognition in most potential players. 

• The rules are relatively simple. In order to be able to play, you need to roll dice, move, and then hand over money to buy things. If you can go a step further and catch people landing on your rental spaces, then great, you’ll do well. If you can’t, no problem, you can still play. This, coupled with the game’s easy to understand story, makes it hugely accessible. 

• It’s popular. As a game’s sales increase beyond a certain (extraordinarily high) critical threshold, it becomes part of our collective understanding. By virtue of being such an early board game, Monopoly got a stranglehold on our common game lore, further entrenching it as a game that most people will be able to play. 

• It contains touchy feely paper money. This is an obvious move, but a brilliant one. If you have a set of Monopoly in your house, go and take out all the 500s and just hold them. Fan them out if you like. You’ll quickly feel the rush that we associate with hard cash. Perhaps this will fade as we move into a world of cards and phone-based transactions. But for now, the accumulation of real-feeling physical money is a powerful draw of Monopoly. 

• It is one of the first games in which you get to build. Expanding an empire is such a foundational reward mechanic in so many games (Zynga based nearly their whole canon around this). Monopoly was one of the first games to enable you to do this. Seeing the houses and hotels (shall we add the capstone of the air bnbs?) springing up on your turf is an enjoyable aspect of the game. 

• It is a game in which you are rewarded for paying attention during other people’s turns. To this day most turn based games come with the issue that you can afford to disengage somewhat when it is not your go. Monopoly pushes you to follow the actions of your competitors by making you call out when they have landed on a space in which you are collecting rent. This also has the added benefit of giving you a chance to ‘catch out’ your fellow player. Which can be wonderfully entertaining when that fellow player is your little sister who can normally do no wrong. 

• It’s issue of knocking out players has a strange benefit in the family setting. You can bomb out of Monopoly relatively easily. Monopoly is a game that is normally driven by a killer player or two, but most engage purely for the chance to socialise. By allowing players the option of not buying much, not noticing when rent is due and getting knocked out early, it also allows them a chance to tuck into the leftover turkey and mulled wine; leaving the killers of the family to desperately claw atop each other.  

In conclusion

I’m gonna give Monopoly a cowardly and easy three out of five stars.

I do feel the game has become propelled by the relatively clear and naive market that it was first let loose within. Some of the weaker design flaws wouldn’t be considered acceptable by today’s game design standards. 

To sound ever so slightly superior, part of Monopoly’s success comes out of winning over less-committed gamers by giving them the illusion of choice. Landing on Mayfair and weighing up whether or not to shell out that £400 is a tense call for the newcomer. But a tedious no-brainer for someone who understands the game. This is not bad design, as pointed out by the designer and thinker Jess Schell. It’s more that it skews the game toward casual gamers, rather than hardcore gamers, who will move onto games which they feel reward them making canny decisions. 

But the game has some sleeper and killer design gems within it, and a narrative that talks directly to a powerful existential need within all of us. What’s more, the game has settled into its perfect audience and context over the years as one of the kingpins of family gaming. 

The bottom line is that just because I, as a hardcore gamer, am not the target audience, doesn’t mean that Monopoly is not an interesting game. It’s just that it’s a game that’s not interested in me. 

References 

1. Garfield, R. (2011). “Characteristics of Games”. In K. A. Appelcline (Ed.), Kobold Guide to Board Game Design (pp. 73-82). Kirkland, WA: Kobold Press.
2. Schell, J. (2008). The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
3.  Horton, J. Matthew. “Monopoly History – How old is my Monopoly game?”. Monopoly History. worldofmonopoly.com. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
4. Meier, Sid. “The Art of Game Design: An Interview with Sid Meier.” Game Developer Magazine, vol. 20, no. 4, 2013, pp. 22-25.
5. 8 tips to win at monopoly https://holbornassets.com/blog/finance/8-tips-to-win-almost-every-game-of-monopoly-this-christmas/ 
6. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
7. Bartle, R. (1996). Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs. Journal of MUD Research, 1(1), 1-19.
8. Seven Valuable Life Lessons you Can Learn by Playing Monopoly: https://retail-focus.co.uk/seven-vital-life-lessons-you-can-learn-by-playing-monopoly/