Where to begin? In some twisted irony, a game called “Monopoly” cornered the market and got franchised and republished obnoxiously. The game is universally known — a household name all over the world. But it’s become an obsolete design, so it should have stopped dead decades ago. Yet Monopoly sputters onward, running on fumes of brand recognition and nostalgia.
As Monopoly is a symmetric game, all (up to) six players have equal opportunity to win the game from the first roll. With a one in six chance of winning, your best odds are to viciously leverage your opponents and abuse the game mechanics. That sounds like fun actually, so where does it go wrong?
Monopoly? More like “monotony.”
Every engaging experience has people constantly making decisions with meaningful consequences, yet Monopoly has very few. As a roll-and-move, the game essentially plays itself, while players search for opportunities to interact with one another.
Monopoly is a game that begs its players to look for the fun. Perhaps you want to bid up your friends for the property they absolutely require, or propose a trade that’s better than what’s being discussed just to spite someone. Trying to have fun usually ends up being mean-spirited.
With an average playtime of over an hour, with so little to do, the game plays miserably. With frequent run-away victors, you may correctly predict who will win in the first fifteen minutes. It’s immediately apparent that there’s no motivation to keep playing.
This game of negotiation gives few assets to trade.
The name of the game is its objective and luck would have it that negotiation is the way to fulfill it. To be fair, trading is the most exciting aspect, but there’s a strong chance you won’t have things worthy of the trade. Money just ends up in the bank and properties are far more enticing anyway.
When players notice that you’re one card away from completing a color group, they’re better off not giving it to you. No “get out of jail free” card is tip the scales to spark a trade. You can often offer everything you have in exchange for that one property you need and still be turned down. Your best chance is to arrange multiple trades in succession, to get everyone what they want. Unfortunately, arranging multiple trades just adds another uninterested player into the equation.
The negotiation is easily breakable.
When desperate in Monopoly, you can set ultimatums. Demand someone agree with your terms, or else you’ll mortgage the property they want and never give it to them. It’s an evil move, but it works. At any point, with the right properties, you can drag another player down with you or outright tank someone else’s strategy.
Speaking of dragging people down, at any point a player can recognize their low chances of winning and trade everything they have to the player that they want to win. This is called “kingmaking” and is frequently a design loophole in games with free negotiation. Because Monopoly isn’t thematic, metagaming feels appropriate, so kingmaking seems like a legitimate strategy.
Actually, most of the “strategy” in Monopoly is metagaming.
People will point out that some spots on the board are statistically landed on more than others, so it’s strategic to choose those color groups. They’ll say buying up all the houses causes an artificial housing shortage so others won’t be able to upgrade their properties. They’ll say jail in the late game is worth staying in because you wouldn’t have to pay rent.
All these “strategies” are just abuse of game mechanics. None of these were intended design decisions and are just ways that players manipulate the system. Sure, they’re all legitimate tactics to perform, but they do not indicate a sense of strategy in Monopoly.
The verdict is in…
Monopoly was merely accidentally successful and only exists today because it’s recognizable. It’s not fun at its very core, so its legendary status isn’t warranted at all. Monopoly is mostly about luck, and when it’s not, it’s breakable and abusable. This game is old garbage. Therefore, I sentence Monopoly to death.
