Monopoly’s Dirty Secrets: Theft, Erasure and Capitalism | Extra Credits Gaming

You might have heard that the board game Monopoly, you know, the capitalism simulator, was actually invented to warn against capitalism. But did you know that the game as we play it today was shaped by the very forces it tried to warn players against? Well, today we're going to tell you how this anti-capitalist amusement ended up becoming the literal symbol of the system it rejected. And spoiler alert, it was not by chance. Uh, looks like I'm going to jail for that one. Thanks so much to World Anvil for bailing me out of my creative writing problems. To help us pass go and hopefully avoid that jail time, we invited back our good friend Eddie Webb to fill us in on all things Monopoly. And he was excited to do it because not only is he the rare game designer that will defend the design of Monopoly until the end of days, but he's been passionate about the history of Monopoly ever since he was in grade school. So, we're really happy to bring it full circle for him. Anyway, our story starts in 1902 with Elizabeth Magie. She was not only a feminist and outspoken political activist of Georgism, an economic ideology around the distribution of rent, but she was also an engineer, poet, comedian, and

game designer. And because she wanted to educate people on the dangers of out-of-control rent, she created a board game to illustrate the devastating problem with land monopolies called The Landlord's Game. It actually had two sets of rules. In one set, the goal was to create products and work with other players to generate wealth, while the other set of rules was about owning industries and creating, you guessed it, monopolies. The game was successful among her friends, and she received a US patent for it on January 5th, 1904 before forming a company to produce it in 1906, making her one of the first women to not only own a game company, but also the inventor of continuous path and territory control games. Way to go, Lizzie. The game became so popular that some economics professors used it as a teaching tool in their classes. And then these students enjoyed the game so much that they ended up making their own copies, mostly preferring the pro-monopoly rule set. And this variation of the game came to be known as auction Monopoly. But, while all of this old-school game piracy was going on, Magie struggled to keep her company afloat. After a few years of producing the game on her own, she started to shop it around to other game companies, but to no avail. She even tried to sell it

to Parker Brothers, who turned it down because they claimed the game was, quote, too political. So, after Maggie's patent expired, she looked at all of these pirated versions of Auction Monopoly, and then resubmitted a new version of her game based on some of the changes they introduced in order to regain control of these handmade versions. She was awarded a second patent in 1924, hoping to have better luck selling the game to another company with these new tweaks. Meanwhile, a pirated version of the game became popular in the Quaker community of Atlantic City, one with a new board containing the now iconic Atlantic City streets and railroads. This was thanks to Ruth Hoskins, a Quaker teacher at Earlham College, who taught it to some friends from Philadelphia. Then it got passed around the Philly game scene until it was taught to a woman named Esther Darrow, who is the wife of the second major player in our story, Charles, a struggling domestic heater salesman who was hit hard during the Great Depression. Charles Darrow saw the financial potential of this game and started making his own copies by hand, calling it simply Monopoly. He copyrighted his version of the game in 1933, and eventually sold that to Parker Brothers in 1935, claiming the entire

thing was all his own work. Now, we don't know exactly what happened next, but we can probably assume that Maggie was quick to point out that the game that Parker Brothers just bought was very similar to the one she had been pitching them and selling on and off for decades. And finally, after 30 years and a major uphill battle, Maggie sold them the 1924 patent for $500, or about 11 grand in today's money. Parker Brothers also bought up the rights to some of the Landlord games derivatives sold by other board game companies with titles like Big Business and Finance. Then to top it all off, they disposed of all of the copies of those games and actively promoted the narrative that Charles Darrow was the sole creator and inventor of Monopoly. Why, you ask? Well, we're not entirely sure, but certainly creating a monopoly on the narrative of games about, well, creating monopolies was probably part of the strategy to own the space. But it was definitely an early example of the deeply unfortunate trend of erasing women from the history of game design, Removing not only the contributions of Elizabeth Magie, but also Ruth Hoskins and even Esther Darrow. Magie was extremely critical of Parker Brothers in this, even calling them out in a 1936 interview where she

mentioned that she spent more money in making the game than she ever earned from it. After that interview, Parker Brothers agreed to publish two more of her games, but continued to give Darrow sole credit for inventing Monopoly. But let's step aside from that monumental dick move for a moment and talk about how this game evolved into the version we have today because it too is fascinating. For instance, since the game spent its first 30 years passing largely through word of mouth, there were a lot of changes and tweaks made, particularly around how auctions are handled, which directly led to the cultural acceptance of house rules for Monopoly that if you think about it, not a lot of board games have. That's right, no matter how many times grandpa tells you otherwise, there's actually nothing in the official rules about putting money under free parking. Though truthfully, we know that's the best way to play. Ah, you know, I'm right. I want this game to end sometime this year, Eddie. And this legacy of adjusting and tweaking the game continues to this day thanks to the fact that you can no longer patent game rules. People continue to produce knockoff versions of Monopoly. Sometimes political activism crops up in them in pointed parodies like Anti-Monopoly, while a gazillion local versions of Monopoly crop up

changing the Atlantic City streets to those of various cities and countries. Heck, even back in the day, I designed a custom Monopoly game board and pieces for my friend Steph's birthday off a silly fictional Saturday morning cartoon universe she and I created together called Dragon Cop-opoly, further proving it's an infinitely reskinable game. Of course, Parker Brothers and later Hasbro after acquiring the company really wanted to get in on this action themselves. They've produced a kids version called Monopoly Junior, an electronic version called Electronic Banking Edition, a mega edition with even more spaces, and IP specific versions for everything from Star Wars to Transformers. They've made their own political parody games like Monopoly for Millennials and Monopoly Socialism. Great moves there, guys. And even made add-on packs to the game adding more content to the free parking and get out of jail spaces, is of like physical DLC. So, maybe grandpa was right and you should let him be the car next time. It's even grown beyond board games. There was a Monopoly game show, Monopoly slot machines, lottery tickets, calculators, clothing, and even bathroom accessories. And then, of course, who could forget the eternal hellscape that was the Monopoly promotions for

McDonald's? A truly terrible game that I actually want to do another episode about, but I digress. Oh, and then, of course, the Monopoly movie was just announced. Man, Eddie, I'm getting tired just reading this. Oh, one more? Great. Honoring the game's tradition of knock-offs, we have Monopoly Go, which has been, you know, inspired by Pokémon Go, and a staggering $500 million spent in promoting the game. For context, that's more than the production costs of 2 1/2 Elden Rings, so they probably want you to play it for some reason. So, in a way, we shouldn't be surprised that Monopoly has come to represent capitalism. In fact, Eddie and I would both argue it does an excellent job of emulating the lingering dread of being unable to fight against capitalism unless you are really lucky. The history of the game is littered with people who bought, traded, and lied to make the most money possible, turning a learning tool about the horrors of uncontrolled rent into a brand that makes billions of dollars a year. But, it's important to remember that it all started with a woman who wanted to use games to teach us all about the necessity of rent control, which, I don't know if you've been outside lately, but is a very important lesson today, as well. But, you know, all this talk got me thinking, what about other board games? The

history there has to be fascinating, too, right? You bet your sweet spinner it is. So, if you want to learn about how board games themselves came to be, and how Parker Brothers literally changed the game, you, my friend, are in luck. And not just because you came in second in that beauty pageant. Congratulations, by the way. Because we actually did a whole episode on the history of board games over on our Extra History channel that is live right now. The link to that is in the description or on screen after the upcoming credits. But, perhaps before learning about gaming history, you might want to learn the secrets to better managing your own games and creative endeavors. Well, then, you are in luck, friendo, because World Anvil has got you covered. World Anvil is the ultimate software solution for tabletop gamers, novelists, narrative designers, and anyone else who loves creative world building. With World Anvil, you get a world building suite, an RPG campaign manager, and novel writing and publishing software all-in-one. AKA, just all the tools you need to focus on the fun parts of world building. For instance, as a game master myself, I love their digital GM screen, interactive maps, and tools when planning my highly home brewed Curse of Strahd D&D campaign. But, they also

support Pathfinder and 45 plus other RPGs as well. And World Anvil helps me keep all of my campaign notes just one click away in wiki-like articles for times like when oh, I don't know, totally hypothetically here, my PCs unexpectedly teleport to Castle Ravenloft to heist an ancient dragon skull. But, I couldn't stay mad for long because World Anvil let me pivot my session super fast without missing a beat. And not to worry, they'll get to that TV case soon. Or say you're writing a novel. Well, World Anvil's features like family trees, mind mapping, and plot templates based on proven storytelling methods are just invaluable. And with publishing and monetization tools, it's truly a one-stop solution. Heck, Writer's Digest even lists them as one of the best websites for writers. So, if you want an easy way to create, store, and organize all of your awesome ideas fast, you can actually try World Anvil right now absolutely free. But, for a limited time, you can receive 51% off any of their premium memberships by heading to worldanvil.com and using the code EXTRA CREDITS. Seriously, we love these folks and we know you will, too. So, please let them know that we sent you. So, click here to harness the power of World

Anvil for your own creativity. And when you're done, check out our history of board games episode here. Wait, you're telling me you didn't know that Angela Valenciana, Arclight Games, Dominic Valenciana, Hunter Z, Easy Coin, Joseph Flame, and Kuya Koi were the best legendary patrons? Well, now you do.