When I was just about old enough to drink, my friends and I were extremely social. Every night, we would hang out at someone’s place, and play videogames and eat chicken wings until approximately 1-4 AM. This was a side effect of our ages and vocations, and the fact that there was nothing we were interested in doing during the day. Who cares if you are too exhausted to pay attention to a boring lecture or your minimum wage job? You can look forward to the nightlife, baby! Even if “the nightlife” mostly just involved playing Marvel vs. Capcom 2…
But the problem with hanging out literally every night is that you can only do so many activities at just about midnight. Yes, Denny’s is open. Yes, you can play videogames. But the whole point is that we were barely out of our teenage years, so the budget for more games and Moons over My Hammies could only stretch so far. And using our imaginations? Right out! We needed more toys to play with to while away the hours. This occasionally led to us turning to “old” toys…
“Let’s play the quickest game of Monopoly ever!” was a phrase that became infamous within my social circle.
Look, the plan was simple: everyone 100% knows that Monopoly is a horrible boardgame. Or, if it is not objectively horrible, it is a long, slog of a game where you are circling the board over and over again like a stubborn turd. And speaking of stubborn turds, it is also a game that is often decided by an early accident of luck at “birth”. Who landed on Boardwalk first? Who was able to become the King of Marvin Gardens before the rest of the gang? There. That’s the winner. Do we need to run over Free Parking a thousand times before we get to that predictable finale? Yes, we have all not played Monopoly for some time, and that poor Gamecube is chugging thanks to all the hours we put into Super Smash Bros Melee, but is this our only option? To play a bad game with slightly modified rules that will make it go faster? Is a slap in the face desirable just because it is shorter than water torture?
Well, fun fact, “the quickest game of Monopoly ever” was not, in fact, the quickest game of Monopoly ever. It took all night. It lasted well into the wee hours of the morning, and saw a number of people “get out of here” before the actual finale. And the kicker? I do not even remember who won! All I recall is that it took forever, and, as a result, “the quickest game of Monopoly ever!” became a meme within my friend circle for the worst possible choice one could make for entertainment. “Well everybody, we could stick our genitals in boiling acid, or we could play the quickest game of Monopoly ever.” “I’ll take the acid, please!”
Now it has been practically decades since that event. Some of my friends from that period have long ago moved to parts unknown, some are still down the street. Given I am at least tangential-social-media friends with everyone from that era to this day, you can imagine my elation when I saw this on my feed:
Monopoly Longest Game Ever
And You Thought the Original Took Forever!
It was apparently released a few years ago, but I can confirm that this recent post was the first anyone I knew had heard of it. And it was available on Amazon! For a scant couple of bucks, I could buy it now and Prime Deliver it to all my old friends from the quickest game of Monopoly ever days. They would get it! How could they ever forget!? It was the ideal gag gift that would bring a smile to everyone’s face.
And it was just before I started entering my credit card information that I realized I was a damned mark.
Not so long ago, this blog examined the concept of Disney’s Gargoyles. The basic thesis was thus: even though you personally may be a fan of some piece of media and not know anyone else that shares your interest, it is likely there are literally thousands of other analogous fans out there. This may not be true of a secret language you made up with your neighbor when you were five (hi, Jimmy!), but for any given videogame, television show, or movie, there is no doubt that your fandom contains hundreds of people. And “hundreds of people” might not sound like as many people that watch The Big Game or whatever, but consider that 76% of towns in the United States have a population of less than 5,000. I know people on BlueSky that have more followers than that! And they mostly post about obscure snacks! The edible kind! You better believe that if some show or property was broadcast nationwide, it has a bigger fandom than entire cities.
But today we are looking at the dark side of this phenomenon: corporations know you think your experiences are unique, and want to market your own life back to you.
The boardgame Monopoly has been published nationwide since 1935. To put that in perspective, the first poor child to play Monopoly at the age of 10 would be a spry 90 as of the publication date of this article. Suffice to say, if you are reading this videogame blog, it is likely that not only have you played Monopoly, but so did your parents, and your grandparents before them. Additionally, Monopoly has existed in its boardgame form consistently, and also on nearly every game console since 1985. To shamelessly steal a list from Wikipedia, we have: Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, BlackBerry, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Game.com, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo Switch, Luna, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation Portable, iOS, Pocket PC/Windows Mobile, Genesis, Macintosh, Master System, Stadia, Super NES, Microsoft Windows, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and ZX Spectrum. A literal A-Z of videogame systems! Couple this all with years of promotions through McDonald’s and alike, and it would be very hard to find someone in this country that had not played Monopoly in some fashion.
And what has been the result of this nonsense? Well, you have been able to buy Monopoly variants going back decades. The most common changes are Monopoly boards themed after different franchises or cities (the official Monopoly board of Twin Falls, Idaho: The Song!), but sometimes you trip over something that has gone completely off the rails, like Bibleopoly. I have that one! I bought it “ironically” when I was 12 and hanging around Amish Country. I needed to know how they would marry the teachings of Christianity to friggen’ Monopoly, and the answer was they didn’t! It was just a cheap cash-in on anyone that wanted a quasi-religious boardgame to play with their friends and family. And I am going to go ahead and guess that every church basement of a certain vintage has a copy of Bibleopoly.
Oh God there are eight different retailers selling Bibleopoly online right now! And that should not surprise me, as I not only own Bibleopoly, but also Monopoly: Beast Wars: Transformers, because I am a gigantic idiot.
Why do I do this to myself!? Dinobot didn’t sacrifice himself for this!
Sorry, had to take a moment to compose myself there. There was an original point… Oh yeah! So Monopoly’s ancestor, The Landlord’s Game, was designed to be so odious, it would turn you against capitalism as a concept. It was adapted into a form that was slightly more fun to play, and was tied distinctly to the Atlantic City of the early 20th Century. From there, people realized they could adapt it to any city on Earth. From there, people realized they could apply it to hobbies/beliefs, with mascots like Mario or Jesus Christ. And, now(ish), we have reached the tail-to-mouth of the ouroboros: you can purchase a Monopoly game about how you can play a Monopoly game. And it works! Because everyone that has played Monopoly has an opinion about Monopoly. Monopoly: it’s like assholes.
And just like assholes, things are going to start to stink if you get too many of ‘em.
This essay is not a call to action. This is not a demand of my audience to rise up and throw off the shackles of Mr. Monopoly. Monopoly is a boardgame that has theoretically never actively harmed a human being, and should be spared when the revolution comes. That said, please remember the origin of Monopoly. Understand what is happening when you see Monopoly: Your Hometown Edition. See the trees in this forest, and understand that Monopoly, like so many other products in this world, can be specifically tailored directly to you, because “you” effectively are thousands of other people out there.
Be aware of when you are being coddled. Be aware of how that can be used against you.
And if anyone asks you to join “the quickest game of Monopoly ever,” run in the other direction.
FGC #692 Action Video Monopoly
- System: Do you need me to copy and paste the list from earlier? For the purpose of this article, we are exclusively looking at the NES version. That’s it! You can go play the other ones yourself!
- Number of players: You have the capability of choosing up to eight players when starting a game. I am moderately certain this is one of the old NES titles where you could pass a controller around, so let’s go ahead and say Monopoly beat Smash Bros. to the 8-player finish line.
- Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: Yes, this article was an excuse to examine Monopoly as a concept, not the particular NES edition. But! I did play through a full game of NES Monopoly, and it’s not bad (for Monopoly)! Play is deliberately snappy (probably because the producers knew a game had to be finished before the NES’s RAM melted down), and there are “house rules” available to make things go even smoother. And the cute graphics and animations are pleasant, too! Honestly, I was expecting some “early gaming approximation” garbage that made rolling dice a confusing minigame or something, but Action Video Monopoly is surprisingly a good time. I mean… If you want to play Monopoly at all…
- Favorite Piece: Scotty Dog for life.
- Say something mean: You can “negotiate” with computer opponents for trading property and such. When you are the only human playing the game, and there are three AI monsters on the board, it is hard not to feel like they are all working against you when swapping property. Keep those railroads to yourself, Penelope!
So, did you beat it? Yes! I told myself I was only going to play one full game of Monopoly, and whatever happens, happens. But I managed to land on Boardwalk and Park Place within the first few rotations, and then building up those hotels crushed all rivals. They could even mortgage properties to stay in the game! And they still went bankrupt! I am the champion of the universe!- Goggle Bob Fact #1: My own copy of Action Video Monopoly was part of a collection of games I bought from a friend when he was upgrading to the Genesis. We were, like, 8. Since my parents were terrified of some kind of neighborhood seller’s remorse, I was told to keep “his” games separate for months, as he (or his family) might want those games back at some point. I am now over 40, looking at this cartridge still in my collection, and quietly nodding at the little sticker on the back that indicates it was “his”.
- Goggle Bob Fact #2 (Monopoly Edition): I drive down Atlantic City’s Baltic Avenue on a nigh-daily basis. It’s really not so bad. Atlantic Avenue is appreciably better, though.
- Did you know? While this is not a comprehensive list, there are Monopoly boards themed after Super Mario Bros. (the concept), Super Mario Bros.: The 8-bit Game, Super Mario Bros.: The Movie, and Super Mario Kart. There is also a distinct version of Monopoly Junior themed after Mario.
- Would I play again: I have the exact kind of brain damage that means I will one day say “Oh! Monopoly! This could be fun!”
What’s next? Random ROB is taking a week off, because Valentine’s Day means that Wankery Week returns! Strip down to your unmentionables, and read the sexiest Gogglebob.com article of the year! Please look forward to it!
