https://apps.facebook.com/saveyourtoken/
Monopoly has a new contest to drum up business. They're retiring one of their classic pieces and replacing it with a new one. You can now vote to save one of the classics and vote on a replacement. Shocking! I mean those things are classic. You just don't mess with the classics! Well actually apparently Monopoly does. The game at one point had wooden peg-like pieces until they introduced their signature die-cast metal pieces. They've already retired a few pieces since the games inception in 1937 in the 1950s they decided that they had to let go of the Lantern, Purse and Rocking Horse. Most people today have probably never even heard of these pieces they certainly were not in the set I played with as a child. Well even the set I once played with has had a few cuts to the line up Howitzer and Man on Horse pieces have been put out to pasture. Parker Brothers has even added a few special edition pieces here and there notably the bag of money and the locomotive engine. There's a billion different versions of the game out there now each with their own tokens. Insert State Monopoly, Sponge Bob Monopoly, Dr. Who Monopoly etc etc etc... But for the most part the classic game has kept the same line-up: the Car, Hat, Shoe, Iron, Wheel Barrow, Battleship, Thimble and Scottie dog. One of those classic pieces is about to get a permanent vacation. Taking its place? Potentially: Toy Robot, Diamond Ring, Helicopter, Guitar or a Cat... The toy robot is cute but honestly it belongs in the sci-fi edition of the game not the classic. If one of these has to become a part of the classic game the diamond ring seems more fitting to me just because it echos the era of the games origins. But in all honesty the cat will probably win. You know EOE they've got a dog they gotta get a cat just to be fair.
Am I the only one outraged? Probably so.I asked around the office and most of my fellow co-workers don't like the game. They say the game never ends, that its boring, or that they don't play board games. People don't play games anymore, at least not in person. Computer games in their pocket connecting them to anyone at anytime. A world of infinite social-media and instant gratification. The one-on-one un-plugged interactions just don't happen anymore. Time is such a priceless commodity and anything that takes longer than five minutes is seen as "a waste of time". One lady told me she never finished playing a single game of monopoly but she could remember playing the game for hours... I don't think any of the tokens should change. I love them all. This game was such a part of my childhood. Why do they gotta change somethings so iconic? It will only let you vote for one token to save. I wanted to vote for them all. I voted for the hat because the version I grew up playing we always stuck the hat in the center as a place holder/paper weight for the free parking money pot.I'm sure the car and dog will get their fair share of votes, or at least those are the pieces I remember everyone fighting over who got to be. Sadly I think its gonna be the iron or the wheel barrow that ends up with the axe or perhaps the thimble. Such common place objects at one point and time, now are seen more as relics from the past.The new tokens are cute and more modern and probably more relatable to today's generation. But they're just not the same. The weekends coming up, turn off your cellphones and computers and dust off those board games sitting in your closet. You know, for old times sake.
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