I've always known that Monopoly is simply too horrifically dull a game to have been designed to entertain people, and via Erik Loomis, I finally have the proof. It was dreamt up by Lizzie Magie at the start of the twentieth century, and it came with two rules sets: one where the aim is to have all the money and grind your opponents into the brick dust left over from building your hotels over their childhood homes, and another where the aim is to collectively generate wealth and live in a socialist utopia of your own construction.
No-one bothered playing the second game.
It's a really neat idea. Offer people the chance to work together or screw each other over and watch as they stampede towards the latter option, even at the expense of playing a shitty, shitty game. Monopoly, it turns out, is the game our species deserves. There is little even the most hardened cynic could say that would top that.
No comments:
Post a Comment