I have a cousin that believes computers are the devil! I then pointed out all the microchips in her house of insatanity.
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
Phew! I thought it was just me. C'mon people, debit card. It ain't a credit card if you're afraid of that, and you can pay for your groceries w/o holding every one up while you write out a friggin' check.
What gets me is these people are in the store, w/a full basket, and it always comes as a surprise to them that they have to write the gd check when they get to the cashier. The least they could do is write out most of it at home. A curse on them and their house!
I support it at that level of math, for the time-saving issue.
Without calculators Calculus 1 would have been a nightmare. Question One on the exam would have taken an hour. The arithmetic is the time-consuming part.
But below high school Trig or Advanced Algebra level, no, let them do it the old way.
Folks must understand that debit cards ARE money and know how to use them wisely. It is easier to track what you spend and see where it is going. Just requires different skills, more like balancing a check book.
How many posts before someone says that the transition away from physical money is a sign of the Apocalypse. Seriously! There are people who believe this!
Need to get one before they change these. Especially since this is also going to be the new version in the U.S.
Actually checks are debit cards nowadays if the cashier is online. You can't float rubber checks with connected cashiers anymore!
That just drives the terminally self debt enslaved to shop at little hole stores! Isn't capitalism great!! Supply and demand!!
Oh, for pete's sake!! It's one game - a tool. Get a grip.
Here, let me help!
The transition away from physical money is a sign of the Apocalypse.
Mwuhahahahahah!
/facetiousness
I have a cousin that believes computers are the devil! I then pointed out all the microchips in her house of insatanity.
The days of playing "check roulette" are over. I remember in my younger, poorer days I could "kite" a check sometimes 10 days before I had to worry about putting the money in my account to cover it.
In college I knew how many days it took every liquor store in town to cash a check. This is important because no matter how poor you are in college, you must always have money for beer.
That's what I meant. The single event of Monopoly going to a debit card format is not the end of the world as we know it.
You make your own with pen and paper. Heck, that's what we did when I was a kid and Free Parking was the jackpot.
Oh, just observance of slight of hand and making her visibly "count out" the money.
I got her back, though.
I bought a packet of replacement "Monopoly Money" and would gradually add money to my stash.
Please don't tell me you guys are now investment bankers! 8-)
Yeah, the nerve of those fundamentalist Christians actually believing what is in the Bible! Next thing you know, they will believe in a LITERAL Hell!
Who would have thought it?!
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