What a hideous idea!! Kids get no conception of what money is!!
Posted on 07/26/2006 9:14:30 AM PDT by paulat
New Monopoly game uses debit card, no cash By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer Wed Jul 26, 7:14 AM ET
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A British version of the classic Monopoly board game released this week substitutes a Visa-imprinted debit card for the stacks of yellow, blue and purple play money long hoarded by children worldwide.
"We started looking at what Monopoly would look like if we designed it today," said Chris Weatherhead, a Britain.-based spokesman for Hasbro Inc., which makes the best-selling board game. "We noticed consumers are using debit cards, carrying around cash a lot less."
British players might not be the only ones switching to plastic. Officials at Pawtucket-based Hasbro say they're considering a similar change for American versions.
First offered in 1935, Monopoly offered players a form of financial escapism during the country's worst financial depression. Players become pretend real estate magnates who compete for fictitious property named after real places in Atlantic City, N.J. A British version released that same year featured London neighborhoods.
In the new British version of Monopoly Here & Now, players type amounts into a palm-sized scanner and swipe their debit cards to seal the deal.
While the change may startle some Monopoly fans, the game has been revised several times before. Consumers can now buy Monopoly editions inspired by the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings movies, or even a version featuring SpongeBob SquarePants, an animated TV character.
An earlier version of Monopoly Here & Now was released last year in England and still included paper money, Weatherhead said.
But the game had been modernized in many other ways. Some addresses have changed — and the game now includes Kensington Palace Gardens, near Buckingham Palace, and Notting Hill Gate, the setting of a 1999 movie starring Julia Roberts.
Cards that once rewarded players for winning a beauty contest now compensate them for winning a reality TV show. Completing a full circuit around the board is worth two million English pounds, not 200.
"Quite a nice bonus," Weatherhead said.
Hasbro no longer sells English retailers the paper-money versions of Monopoly Here & Now, but fans can still purchase the classic edition, which includes fake cash.
At least one Monopoly devotee seemed ambivalent about the potential changes.
Krisi Lee of Antioch, Calif., owns 19 versions of the game, including the electronic one on her cell phone. She sometimes competes in a Monopoly tournament run by her mother, which usually attracts about 50 players.
She wants her young daughter to learn how to count Monopoly paper money before touching the real stuff, she said. But Lee, 28, isn't a purist.
"That is the here and now," she said. "That's what we do. For a $3 purchase, I use my debit card."
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On the Net:
http://www.hasbro.com/monopoly/
http://www.hasbro.com
What a hideous idea!! Kids get no conception of what money is!!
Great way to teach kids to be in debt for the rest of their lives.
My sister was always the banker and she embezzeled.
I see this as a good thing.
Ever had a Monopoly set that was more than a couple of years old? The 'money' just disappears after a while.
New Monopoly. Looks a lot like New Coke to me.
You're thinking of the "UN Game", I believe.
They haven't for some time, now. Cash is becoming quickly outdated, when was the last time you 'Cashed' a check, rather than deposit it all, or most of it, then using an ATM/Debit or credit card for most of your purchases.
So we'll keep our old Monopoly game and still play store with real bills & coins. (We won't talk about how much they learned playing poker! :-)
You missed my point. It's about educating children before they even handle real cash. Once they understand the cash concept, the debit card makes sense.
Sounds about right. Have you ever seen a 5 year old kid buy a candy bar when he can't count change? He just holds out a handful of change and trusts the clerk to take the right amount. The other day at Mini-Mart, I saw a girl who was like 14 or 15 do this. Pretty appalling.
If you loose all the money on your account card can you get a welfare debit card?
Counting the money slows down game play. When I was growing up, me and my brothers operated calculators to keep track of our balances. Of course, we played a fast and furious pace -- with competent players it takes a lot of iterations for the game to settle out.
Monday. The only thing we use a credit card for is online purchases, and we pay off monthly.
I just Googled "order Monopoly money," and there are tons of places to order some.
Calculators in the classroom was the beginning of the end.
If a hurricane hits one of your hotels, do you get a $2,000 FEMA card?
The Nintendo version in the 80s counted it for you. Game goes a lot faster.
I think the reference was to DEBIT cards, not CREDIT cards.
People who write checks in store lines (holding everyone up) ought to be shot.
They should create a new version called "Bankrupt" where people play to see who can spend themselves into life long credit card debt the fastest.
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