@Heliograph Holy freaking crap! I was just talking to my son about monopoly yesterday and how it never has a happy ending and even the winner both feels bad and is hated. Even if he tries to be generous and donate to losing players people spite him in the game. They should make a different version. And yet here is one! Prosperity! Why would they take that part out?!?! I want to play that version!

@Heliograph Oh man would I love to play the original version

@Heliograph I was surprised to see this photo; I wasn't aware that Parker Brothers had published it.

According to Wikipedia, "The company only printed a very small run of the game to secure the copyright. Surviving copies of The Landlord's Game by Parker Brothers are considered by many the rarest of all 20th century board games."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord%27s_Game

@Heliograph that's so cool, and sad that this isn't the game we play today. I wonder if there's some way to get a hold of the original/a remake?

@Heliograph
See also "Monopoly is Anti-Landlord Propaganda" by Tom Nicholas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7nFA19Gzrw
#monopoly #landlord

@Heliograph

Fun fact: There is nothing in the current rules preventing players cooperating with one another. Sharing properties and letting one another off mortgages etc.

Its a really fun way to annoy people who say they know how to win by being hyper-capitalist. You can win in short order and they are furious.

@Heliograph Surely that now reveals a gap in the market and could this original version now take off?

@Heliograph

The original game needs to be properly produced, the way Magie intended.

@Heliograph #Georgism ftw

@Heliograph Look at how much more beautiful that board design is!

@Heliograph I learned about this via a CBC show called Under the Influence (they syndicate in podcast form; it's very good), and it really showed me why I hated playing Monopoly as a kid (and still do, honestly).

@Heliograph@mastodon.au Mind. Blown.

This is Real? I'm...wow.

@Heliograph

❣️

@Heliograph

Monopoly doesnt need to be explained, no matter how you play, or who you are, someone will own all of it, then the game is over, and you do something else.

Monopoly is almost over. I am ready do something else.

@Heliograph Wow - I had no idea. I wonder if it’s possible that someone would make and sell the original?

@Heliograph @lifewithtrees Magie also had a couple other successful games published in her day, of which there is shockingly little information available online. The designer of the most popular modern boardgame had other successful games and I can’t find a decent transcription of the rules online??

Another fun bit of board gaming history: the suffragettes sold several suffragette themed board games to fund their activities.

@Heliograph Interesting that it has the name of the designer on the box, much as modern boardgames do

@Heliograph does anyone what the rules to play the prosperity were? ive always been curious about that

@Heliograph@mastodon.au There were so many great political and economical ideas around the 1900s... and so many were lost to capitalism and greed.

Also, I would love to play "Prosperity". Are there any resources available? More photos of the board and rules, even to try to re-create it?

@Heliograph @grumpygamer
I once heard an urban legend according to which Monopoly was meant to be excruciatingly boring for the same pedagogical reason. The demise of a losing player was intended to be painfully slow but unassailable.

@Heliograph I learned about this story in 99pi
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-landlords-game/

@Heliograph @grumpygamer I've seen this story many times, I've even read a full article on the subject, but this is the first time I've heard of this second set of rules. Thank you so much for sharing.

@Heliograph Brilliant. Never knew about Magie.

@Heliograph Are these the originals? I particularly enjoyed several of the rules ": Schelle Hotel- The space represents the distlnction made between classes, only moneyed guests being accepted" and "Caught robbing a hen-roost-go to jail; Caught robbing the public-take $200 from the board. The players will now call you Senator"
https://patents.google.com/patent/US1509312A/en

@Heliograph You can find the original rules online, and I think you could still play both ways, but that board is much cooler...

@Heliograph@mastodon.au Good to see people darring to make that bit of #boardgame #history known.

By the way, I believe the game called #Anti-monopoly is now the nearest thing we can find to the original Landlord's Game, but has some variances in it's rules.

#Anti-monopoly #boardgames_history #Landlords_Game

@Heliograph I wonder if we'll ever get the prosperity rules distributed again...

@Heliograph I never knew about Prosperity before!

I wonder if anyone still has an original rule booklet for that version and if they could share it publicly? Is 1904 long enough ago for it to be out of copyright? Would Elizabeth Magie have minded even if it isn't?!

@Heliograph
I didn't know that, but now I know why I've never enjoyed Monopoly.

@Heliograph has this gem been re-edited somehow ?

@Heliograph I wouldn't mind playing prosperity, like cooperative board games

@Heliograph @marthawells Limited runs of The Landlord’s Game® are produced and sold by a company based in Portland, Oregon. https://landlords-game.com

@Heliograph This is awesome - I'd heard about her original goal with the Monopoly rules, but TIL about the Prosperity rules!

@Heliograph wow. I didn’t know this. What an incredible bit of history.

@Heliograph Thanks for posting this! I had no idea.

We play the dinosaur version a lot in my house. My kids always team up and share their resources. We do a lot of loan forgiveness so the game lasts longer (a game lasts for days!). And my kids call going bankrupt “getting bankrobbed” which seems apt.

@Heliograph mindblowingly interesting, thx for sharing

@craignicol @Heliograph wow you should find an article about this to put alongside the info

@Heliograph I knew this and I refuse to play that evil game now.

"Cards Against Humanity" is way more fun anyhow

@Heliograph I knew this, but I'd never actually seen the original before. That's a WAY cooler looking board!

@Heliograph
So you mean to tell me the not fun feeling of Monopoly is by design.

Brilliant !

@Heliograph @jonnynexus may have opinions... ;-)

@Heliograph @chrisroberson And now more of today's problems make sense. I'll have to play Prosperity, and I'll do it with a Monopoly board to anger them!

@Heliograph Oh wow, I've never seen the board, that is FABULOUS!

@Heliograph @tscriado

@Heliograph wow! Wish they had both sets of rules today!

@Heliograph This was fascinating to read! What an amazing idea, and how sad that the very thing it was basically educating against contorted it into an overt, aggressive ad for greed and theft. The original Prosperity game deserves way more attention than Monopoly.

@Heliograph Co-op games weren’t cool yet.

@Heliograph Explains why its not fun for any normal human beings

@Heliograph ans now there is "the anto-monopoly" wich is a lot more cynical, one player starts the game with a lot more assets, more money, a few houses, the other players start with a small capital. Like real life.

@Heliograph
So — are the Prosperity rules available anywhere?

@Heliograph I thought about this recently while watching the episode of "Succession" wherein the – super rich, almost parodically privileged, and also constantly scheming – characters play a game of Monopoly.

@Heliograph 🤯

@Heliograph also check CommonsPoly! No one wins unless everybody wins! This is a 'hack' of the hacked Monopoly to bring back the collaborative aspect of the game.

https://commonspoly.cc/

hashtags: #CommonsPoly #BoardGames

@Heliograph Thanks for the explanation! I knew it was meant as a way to criticize capitalism and that the "It's not fun to play if only one has all the money/properties etc" aspect was actually not a bug but a feature, but I learned a lot there. Thanks for sharing!

@Heliograph Landlord's game is a fitting name imo

@Heliograph

As I do whenever this tidbit flows through the timeline, I gotsta plug #Throughline from #NPR's show about this topic: https://mastodon.social/@jaze/110140642020708134
☮️ !

@Heliograph There's a very good podcast by the economist @TimHarford on the history surrounding the game and the theft of it here: https://chtbl.com/track/39E17/podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/a5ed5d47-9a5f-4687-a59d-ae39003998cb/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

@Heliograph I'd be interested in playing the original version.

@Heliograph Also a funny story: When Parker Bros. went after Anti-Monopoly and almost ended up losing their own copyright because of "The Landlords Game".

@Heliograph interesting

@Heliograph Also, even in standard monopoly rules, there's a basic income for everyone and everyone starts with the same amount of wealth.

@Heliograph There is a really good podcast episode about it by the ever brilliant Tim Harford. https://timharford.com/2021/05/cautionary-tales-do-not-pass-go/

@Heliograph @icd there's a very good SYSK episode about it: https://pca.st/episode/f7ddab14-be13-4302-ad49-9693d8a979e1

@Heliograph I wonder wether the other version is still available

@Heliograph

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! :)

@Heliograph @privacydingus check this out

@Heliograph Original link on Tumblr:
https://www.tumblr.com/soberscientistlife/710986606101790720/monopoly-wasnt-invented-by-the-parker-brothers

@Heliograph She was also a Georgist, and was specifically hoping to encourage land value taxes with the pair of games.

@Heliograph here's a copy of the rules: https://landlordsgame.info/games/lgp-1932/lgp-1932_rules.html

@Heliograph this may be a later version of the board, from what I see at https://landlords-game.com/?page_id=5.

@Heliograph Sorry, any idea from what year is the edition on the picture? which is the source?

Seen also at the Monopoly museum in NYC.

@Heliograph GTFO! How are we just hearing about this now—and who is reviving the original one: Monopoly, the Better Version?!

@Heliograph

For all German speakers: there's an Episode of @GeschichteFM on this topic...

Check Out Geschichten aus der Geschichte

Geschichte.social

@Heliograph NPR's throughline #podcast has an episode on this btw:

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1108728257/do-not-pass-go

@Heliograph It should be noted that Magie specifically created the game to advocate for Georgism.

@Heliograph

Fascinating

@Heliograph exciting! I only found the plan for the game board: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Landlord's_Game Now the rules for the two game modes would still be interesting ...

@Heliograph

A not-so-well-known fact, thanks for publicising. The Women's History website has a lengthy entry on Elizabeth Magie and her "Landlord" game with the Prosperity and Monopoly rule sets.

Magie, in 1903, "actually designed the game as a protest against the big monopolists of her time—people like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller."

https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/monopolys-lost-female-inventor

#ElizabethMagie #Monopoly #Landlord #Games #BoardGames

@Heliograph
Wow, I really didn't know this, so good to know. Too bad the developers took out Prosperity, this is interesting. Monopoly usually made me very nervous.

@Sheril Maybe one for the women in history?

@Heliograph
There still is a Anti-monopoly game available. Parker Bros never succeeded in taking it off the market
@paulrispens

@Heliograph

@ShekinahCanCook

I would love to see the rules for the "Prosperity" version of this game.

@Heliograph PBS had a great segment on this about a month or two ago

it's just all so ironic, on multiple levels

@Heliograph Thanks for this post. I’m stunned by the possibilities that have been lost because the Prosperity rules were omitted. Yesterday I read a piece about the “Pie Fallacy”, the idea ingrained in our thinking that there is only so much wealth in the world, so if I get more then everyone else gets less. If, over the last century, millions of kids had a chance to play the Prosperity rules, we would be in a very different place today. The “what ifs” are mind boggling.

@Heliograph thnaks, goood to know, one of the most playing game when I was young

@Heliograph bummer... prosperity seems a more instructional game. 🙁

@Heliograph Fascinating stuff!

@Heliograph I wanna play Prosperity - both the game and irl.

@Heliograph I can't believe this being true and we all only played monopoly all the time, when there would've been a prosperity version.

@Heliograph Are the rules accessible somewhere?