Hasbro made a Monopoly: Socialism board game

[alahmnat]

It’s exactly as insightful and accurate as you might expect a game produced by a gigantic mega-corporation with a vested interest in mocking the concept to be.

That is to say, it’s just unfathomably condescending, insipid, and cruel. It’s the “racist libertarian uncle at Thanksgiving” of educational board game design. It’s a “Boomer laughing at Millennials and their avocado toast” meme transformed into cardboard and plastic and sold for $50.

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164233656799506433

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164235875678638080

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164237173459161089

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164239341557899267

To sum up another bunch of tweets in the thread, there’s also a “community fund”, which is essentially designed to collapse under the weight of the game’s own ludicrous mechanical requirements. Taxes are paid out of the fund into a private bank (why?). Wage increases are also paid from the community fund into the private bank (as opposed to into players’ hands… again, why?). The only way to refill the fund is for wealthy players to choose to put money in it, which is… not how socialism works? You can also collectively vote to take money from someone, but instead of redistributing the confiscated funds, they’re simply removed from the game.

Also Democracy is for losers too, apparently?

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1164251782635249664

Monopoly itself is, of course, the game originally designed to teach people about the horrible actions of literally-rent-seeking capitalists, taken by capitalists and turned into an unironically pro-capitalist game of wealth hoarding and pain-infliction that absolutely nobody enjoys playing anyway, so this is all of a piece, I guess.

[Gyrofrog]

FWIW, Hasbro doesn’t have a Monopoly on this.

Class Struggle (board game)

[anon61221983]

@Gyrofrog

a Monopoly on this

[anon63137394]

The secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game’s leftwing origins

*Monopoly was stolen from socialist land-reformers and perverted | Boing Boing

[TobinL]

Can’t suck any worse than the actual game.
Seriously as posted by @anon63137394 above. The game is supposed to be unfun.

[jerwin]

I’ve played both Class Struggle and this game

Anti-Monopoly

Though not in many many years and I have a poor memory for such things.

[tsath]

Came here for this. Leaving satisfied.
Somewhere in the basement of my parents’ house I have a copy of this game.

[LDoBe]

Sounds to me like the community fund system is setup like the american government, and every time the republicans agree to legislation, we get money transferred from the government directly to a private corporate interest. Usually for not doing anything particularly worthwhile.

Sounds less like they’re trying to replicate socialism and instead are doing a good job of replicating late-stage capitalism, but calling it socialism.

It’s like they have a fatal allergic reaction to self awareness.

[navarro]

i, too have played both. i was taken by “class struggle’s” rough simplicity inititally and bought my own copy of it. over time i have come to appreciate “anti-monopoly” more by virtue of it’s easier applicability to modern politics.

[nungesser]

You know, when I first saw the cover, I momentarily thought that maybe, just maybe, this might be clever; the cooperation-handshake in the SOCIALISM name gave me fleeting hope. But the “red scare oligarch taking all your money” art and the fact that it’s the most crappy, boomer board game ever led me to assume the worst, and I’m glad this guy took one for the team to confirm my suspicions.

[DonatellaNobody]

Can’t be much worse than this:

'Monopoly for Millennials' reminds players that 'adulting is hard'

[LurksNoMore]

Looks like the target audience for this is angry old Republicans who want to piss off their adult liberal kids at family gatherings.

[LDoBe]

I dunno. Seems more to me like they’d be making their adult liberal kids laugh derisively at their parents being uneducated dumbasses.

[LurksNoMore]

What they intend to happen, and what actually happens, aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Also, this seems like a good way to ensure you will be seeing an absolute minimum of your grandchildren, too.

[DonatellaNobody]

Why would I want to give them grandchildren when I could be out having experiences (not /s) like eating avocado toast? /s

[Bluemayskye]

we played the hell out of Solarquest when I was a kid. Spreading capitalism throughout the solar system! Wow, that’s darker than I remember. Most of the fun in these games was figuring out how not to hate each other when someone completely screws you over by winning at capitalism.