#1
Posted: 9/14/06 at 12:53pm
As a collector of Monopoly games, I am definately putting this on my list of must haves - but totally understand the branding of a tradition issue creating an uproar.
The familiar tokens from the Monopoly board game are getting a modern -- and, some might say, mercenary -- makeover.
An updated edition of the venerable game, scheduled to be introduced today, will include tokens styled after name-brand products. Five of the eight tokens in the new Monopoly Here and Now edition will be branded, offering players the chance to be represented by miniature versions of a Toyota Prius hybrid car, an order of McDonald's french fries, a New Balance running shoe, a cup of Starbucks coffee or a Motorola Razr cell phone.
Those who consider playing games too serious to be commercialized need not fret. Hasbro, the maker of Monopoly, says toy stores, discount stores and other retail outlets will continue to sell the original edition of the game, based on the classic version brought out by Parker Bros. in 1935, alongside the new edition.
The 11 tokens in the classic version -- including the battleship, cannon, iron, shoe, thimble and top hat -- will remain unchanged.
The branded tokens are part of a reinvention of Monopoly that Hasbro executives hope will offer modernized references to which people can better relate than the elements of the game that date to the Great Depression.
For instance, rather than collecting $200 each time a player passes Go, in the new edition the player collects $2 million. The four railroads on the Monopoly board -- B&O, Pennsylvania, Reading and Short Line -- will be supplanted by the country's four busiest airports: Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, New York's Kennedy, Los Angeles and Chicago's O'Hare.
And the properties of Atlantic City that compose the game board will make way for real estate from Boston and Washington to Las Vegas and Hollywood.
"So much of American pop culture today is represented by products that people use every day," Mark Blecher, senior vice president for marketing at the Hasbro Games unit of Hasbro, said in a telephone interview Monday. "We thought, let's try to get iconography that's much more relevant to people today."
Monopoly changes
The familiar tokens from the Monopoly board game are getting a modern -- and, some might say, mercenary -- makeover.
An updated edition of the venerable game, scheduled to be introduced today, will include tokens styled after name-brand products. Five of the eight tokens in the new Monopoly Here and Now edition will be branded, offering players the chance to be represented by miniature versions of a Toyota Prius hybrid car, an order of McDonald's french fries, a New Balance running shoe, a cup of Starbucks coffee or a Motorola Razr cell phone.
Those who consider playing games too serious to be commercialized need not fret. Hasbro, the maker of Monopoly, says toy stores, discount stores and other retail outlets will continue to sell the original edition of the game, based on the classic version brought out by Parker Bros. in 1935, alongside the new edition.
The 11 tokens in the classic version -- including the battleship, cannon, iron, shoe, thimble and top hat -- will remain unchanged.
The branded tokens are part of a reinvention of Monopoly that Hasbro executives hope will offer modernized references to which people can better relate than the elements of the game that date to the Great Depression.
For instance, rather than collecting $200 each time a player passes Go, in the new edition the player collects $2 million. The four railroads on the Monopoly board -- B&O, Pennsylvania, Reading and Short Line -- will be supplanted by the country's four busiest airports: Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson, New York's Kennedy, Los Angeles and Chicago's O'Hare.
And the properties of Atlantic City that compose the game board will make way for real estate from Boston and Washington to Las Vegas and Hollywood.
"So much of American pop culture today is represented by products that people use every day," Mark Blecher, senior vice president for marketing at the Hasbro Games unit of Hasbro, said in a telephone interview Monday. "We thought, let's try to get iconography that's much more relevant to people today."
Monopoly changes
"Oh Link...your pork is ready..." - Edna Turnblad
