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SMNTY Classics: The Feminist History of Monopoly · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. And I wanted to bring back an episode
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I personally really enjoyed about the history of Monopoly. This
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: was on my mind because we recently went on a trip.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We went on a voyage. We were on a boat.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I'm on a boat.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Samantha, I thought you did really well.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: The first two days were a hit and go. And
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: then my trial for that patch, that was probably the
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: roughest part of the entirety of the trip, to be honest. Yes.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: It was a lot of the patch being something to
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: help you with seasickness, listeners. There was a lot of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: medications involved, but you did well. But one of the
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: things that really stuck out to me was there were
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: really active people like board game nights.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: People would just be playing board games very, very passionately.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: And I happened to witness, as I was waiting for
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: a drink, a very intense game of Monopoly.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: What a risk to play that game while you're trying
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: to be on vacation. And I'm putting that in quotations
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: because I'm like, what? That stuff, we've talked about it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: People were standing up and pacing and shouting. It was
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: pretty fantastic, honestly.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: I love the fact that the trauma of Monopoly lives
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: on in its entirety. Yes.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: We've all heard of it. A lot of us have
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: experienced it. Oh, that's funny. Yes. And I believe they're
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: making a movie about it. Are they? I don't think
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: we talked about it in this episode.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Of the history of Monopoly or just Monopoly? No, no, no.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Of like, Monopoly.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Also, they're capitalizing on a capitalistic idea, but it's not
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: even capitalism. It's like, never mind. Monopoly.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Monopoly. I also have loved reading these recent articles about,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: particularly Gen Z, but not just Gen Z, wanting to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: get together in person and do things like board games now.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: It's become even more popular than when we talked about it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: So we've talked about it several times, but it's growing
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: in popularity. So I don't know that Monopoly necessarily is,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: but board games in general.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I feel like they're more self-aware, so maybe not that one.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe. Protect yourselves. I've had some good games of Monopoly,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: even if I was furious. You know, it is what
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: it is. Well, please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: is Annie.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: And Samantha.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And welcome to Stuff I Never Told You, a production
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. And today, we are talking about Monopoly, the game,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: which will be elucidated throughout, but I have recently run
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: into a lot of instances of Monopoly in my life,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: which sounds very bizarre. Somebody gave me a version of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Star Wars Monopoly for Christmas. And then I recently saw
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the movie Heretic, which has a whole Monopoly-based monologue in it.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: So I was just thinking about it. And we have
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: briefly talked about Monopoly in the past and about the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: history of it. We talked about Miss Monopoly, which is Mrs. Monopoly,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: excuse me, which was not so great, which was an
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: edition that came out a couple of years ago. But so, yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I thought we would just do a quick run through
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: of the history of Monopoly, which I promise you is
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: related to feminism. So, Samantha, what... I am very excited
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: to hear your update about Monopoly. But have you played
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the board game? What were your experiences with the board game,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: if you have any?
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I have a feeling it's similar to most other people's,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: especially if you played with family. If you ever played
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: that game, it ended up with a lot of fighting
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: and a lot of shouting. And then your father coming
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: and ripping the game out from underneath you saying, he's
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: going to burn this because he's tired of this BS
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: and then hides it for six months. And then you
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: come back and play it by yourself because you can't
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: play with your family anymore. That's my experience. Yeah, no, no.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I think that is a lot of people's experience. Some
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: version of that. I have said it before. I won't
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: say I hate Monopoly. I feel like a lot of
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: people really hate Monopoly. I think it is a game
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: that brings out a lot of tension. And I have
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: infamously in my family cheated on at Monopoly and still lost.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: And I think that says something about the game. I
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: did have a Monopoly computer game that was Star Wars
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: based and I have really fond memories of that. But
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: that you were playing with the computer, you weren't playing
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: with like other people. And I do kind of love
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of the very strange versions of Monopoly that
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: are available. I have a lot of the Star Wars ones,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: but there are some very obscure versions pop culture versions
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: of Monopoly you can get. But yes, I did want
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to ask you, Samantha, about, you said you've gotten back
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: into the Monopoly mobile game.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: Yes. I want to shout out first, one of my
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: favorite K-dramas actually has their version of Monopoly. It's Monopoly,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: but it's Korean version. And it's super interesting to see.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: So if you know, you know, but I love that
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: it was like cross-culturally. Mm-hmm. It exists and it still
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: makes everybody fight. Yes, as in fact... So I stopped
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: playing it for a while because my addiction was too hardcore.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I never actually mentioned it. I remember being very elusive
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: about it when we were talking about mobile gaming just
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: because I didn't want to advertise it. Obviously, they are
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: not a sponsor. They don't care about us. They sponsor
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: big names like Marvel people. That's fine. I'm fine. But
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: all of that to say is that I didn't want
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: to give any more creed to it because it is
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: such a popular game. And it's such a time suck.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: But they are also very smart in getting everybody's money.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: It is like one of the top money makers now.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: And it flew to that top spot the way like
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: people are addicted to it. And I get it. Like
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I said, and I stopped for a long while because
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: I'm like, this is obsessive. Like I had it on
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: three mobile devices so I can give myself cards.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I was sitting next to you once and it
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: was like you were a secret agent. You were picking
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: up different phones.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: I had burner phones for my Monopoly game and I'm
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: not the only one. I'm not the only one. There's
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: a big Facebook community of people and it's absurd. The
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: amount of trolling and targeting in that game is so wild.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: People have been banned for selling things. I mean, hundreds
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: of dollars of like black market monopoly dice go game market.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: Like it's an odd, odd thing phenomenon. But yes, so
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I stopped that because I was like, this is too much.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I'm doing too much. I've spent a little bit of
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: money and this makes me mad. I don't want to
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: do this anymore. So, but recently one of my good
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: friends in real life posted and was like, hey, I'm
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: playing this. You want to play? And I was like, well, damn,
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: let's be friends because now I want to steal your money.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: That's the whole game. I get so mad. People get
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: mad on here because people target. So once they see
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: that you're weak, like if you've lost all your shields
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: or you haven't played for a while and they can
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: come after you, they come after you. And it's mean.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I am loving this. Oh, my God.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: And they get you, Annie. They get you. They know
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: how to get you. Whoever is working. There's a whole.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I joined Discord to get the download. I'm not on Discord, y'all.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know how Discord works. I have an addiction.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: But that's why I stopped it. But I am back on.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: And they have revamped it. And yes, they have now
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: made it full celebrity. Like, you can do emojis and
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: all of this that are Marvel-based because they are now
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: part of the sponsorship. Wow. I really....
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Honestly enjoyed hearing about your rivalries.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: And there's certain people, yes.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Their usernames, because their usernames were kind of comical.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: Thoughtful Bunny or something along those lines.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: It was very funny to me. I'm sorry for any
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: anxiety that it caused you. But it did make me laugh.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And also, I know you got your partner kind of
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: involved in helping you out.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: He was just like, why am I getting tagged on
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: the social media posts about your game? And I'm like,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: don't worry about it. Just say yes.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Just say yes. No questions asked. It's fine.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Honey, you're lucky I didn't get you involved, to be honest. No.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, no. I think I told the story. We were
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: being vague about what game you were talking about at
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the time, the previous time we talked about it. But
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I did tell the story of I was waiting in
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: line for a ride at Disney World and the person
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in front of me who was a young person was
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: playing it um on her phone i'm really curious uh
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to hear from listeners about this your experiences with monopoly
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: uh but also young people because i you know usually
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: we like to do a definition i was like i
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: feel like we don't have to do a definition of
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: monopoly but maybe there are some people who don't know
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: what it is not sure let us know We'll be
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: discussing it throughout. You can see our past episodes on
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Tabletop Gaming. Yes, the brief update episode we did on Mrs. Monopoly.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: Just any of our episodes on gaming in general, I
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: would say. Okay, the game most of us know as
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Monopoly was based on the Landlord's Game, which was designed
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: by feminist... elizabeth lizzie maggie uh so lizzie maggie created
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: the landlord's game in 1903 or 1904 her father was
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: an abolitionist and she was very progressive in part because
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of that uh oh and also she had a whole
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: life like i feel like it could be a female
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: first episode we're focusing on the game but yeah she
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: did she did a bunch of stuff but um Yeah,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: her family moved to Washington, D.C. in the 1880s. She
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: got work as a stenographer and typing for the Dead
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Letter Office, which is basically when mail that is, for
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, is undeliverable, an employee comes and they try
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: to find a forwarding address. So she worked for them,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: but she was also involved in engineering, comedy and writing, reporting...
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: When she was 26, she got a patent that involved
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the rollers on typewriters and like more quickly moving the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: paper through. At this time, only 1% of women received patents.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: She taught political classes after work. She was an anomaly
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: of her time in a lot of ways. She was
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: an older single woman who was able to buy a house.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: She did eventually marry, but at this time she was
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: not married. She spent a lot of time thinking about
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: issues around monopolies, income inequality, and corruption. She was determined
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to do something to address it, or at least educate
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: people about it. So she started working on a board game.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: She received the patent for the board game, the Landlord's Game,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: in 1904, which was before she was allowed to vote legally,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: just by the way. The game was played on a
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: square board and players had to pass corners like go
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to jail or public park, all while gathering money, paying rent,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: and collecting properties like railroads. There were necessity spaces that
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: provided things like food and shelter, utility spaces. Players earned
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: money through tasks as they progressed around the board. At
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: one corner of the board was a globe, which was
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: an homage to her political hero, Henry George Smith. who
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: proposed that wealthy landowners should be responsible for the bulk
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: of taxes. And so that space read, quote, labor upon
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Mother Earth produces wages. Pass and go required players to
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: have earned $ 100 or go to the poorhouse. Trespassing on
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: land resulted in jail time and a fine. But here's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the interesting thing. There were two sets of rules. The
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: anti-monopolist rules called prosperity rules, that rewarded everyone when money
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: was earned, and the Monopolis set of rules called Monopoly
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that rewarded those who crushed their opponents, and you can
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: guess which one endured. I do wonder how popular the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: original game, the anti-Monopolis version, would be now with the
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: rise of co-op board games.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I'm just curious.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I need to look into, I think you can still
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: play it, I think it's sort of hard to get,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: but I think you can still play it.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: There's so many games we need to play. I know.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: We never released our Girl Talk.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: It's still in the works. I still have it, but
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: the audio was so bad that I wanted to hesitate
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: and do a redo. But yeah, it was quite funny.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It was quite funny. We recorded it as playing Girl Talk.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: The technology was great.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: The technology was very quiet. That was one of the problems.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: That was the problem, but it was fun.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: But like the overall, well, first of all, going down
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: memory lane for me, wow. Mm-hmm. Wow.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I got the guy at the end.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: She sure did. Did she want him? No, but she
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: got him. I got him.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Anyway, back to Monopoly. Her goal was to create a
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: game that demonstrated the cruelty of hoarding wealth while others
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: were suffering. She said in 1906, quote, In a short time,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I hope a very short time, men and women will
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: discover that they are poor because Carnegie and Rockefeller may be,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: have more than they know what to do with. She
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: also said of it, quote, It is a practical demonstration
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: of the present system of land grabbing with all its
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: usual outcomes and consequences. It might well have been called
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the game of life, as it contains all the elements
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of success and failure in the real world, and the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: object is the same as the human race in general
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: seems to have, i.e. the accumulation of wealth. It was
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: sold for a short time by a publisher in New York,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: But it was mostly word of mouth that helped spread
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: it along the East Coast. People would play on things
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: like handkerchiefs, like they would make their own version of
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it based on what they'd heard. And then in 1932,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Charles Darrow played what was called the Monopoly game. That's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: how it was introduced to him. A game that wasn't
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: sold in a box. He allegedly played a version, the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Quakers of Atlantic City game. had customized with the names
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: of their own neighbors, which I kind of love. Daryl
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: loved it. He fell in love with it. He sold
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the game as his own. That's how much he loved it.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: To Parker Brothers in 1935, with some changes. Obviously leaving
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: out the anti-monopoly rules. And it was a huge success.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: He played it off as this idea that he had
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: one day. not crediting maggie at all uh he made
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: millions off of it and it's often referred to as
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the first board game designer to become a millionaire and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the tale has definitely been spun by parker brothers and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: now hasbro which owns monopoly and also darrow himself a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: man struggling during the great depression comes up with this
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: game and it's a smashing success They're still really cagey
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: about mentioning her at all. Sometimes they'll be like, she exists,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: but no. She's a woman. She's there.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: She didn't. No, no, no.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Maggie did sell the patent to the game to Parker
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Brothers in 1935. She thought that more people having access
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: to it would be a good thing in terms of
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: her intended message and more people receiving that intended message. However,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: sort of the opposite happened and instead became a symbol
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of cutthroat greed, of laughing when someone lost their properties
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: and went bankrupt, of perhaps joining discord groups, taking people down.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I get it.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: I get it. It's about revenge against other landlords.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: For me.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Okay. Okay.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I like that. I like that. At first, Maggie was
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: quite happy after the sale, but within a year of it,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: she was doing angry interviews with major publications. You can
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: read them. She was not happy. And in a 1940 census,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: she listed her career as maker of games and her
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: income as zero.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, whoo.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: She died in 1948 with no children and never being
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: recognized for what she did. And this game was hugely impactful.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Just to say, her design had a lasting impact on
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: board games, especially when it came to the circular design.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So many games after that. took inspiration from this game
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and of course these days it's all over pop culture
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: uh you can play it in numerous versions based on
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: numerous franchises play it on your phone with mcdonald's according
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to the company billions of people have played monopoly uh
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: hasbro the current owner as i said still doesn't credit
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: her as i said But that has started to change.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: In 1973, a liberal man named Ralph Ansbach started looking
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: into the history of Monopoly after he was sued by
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Parker Brothers for his anti-Monopoly game. And he learned all
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: about her story and he started to share it. It
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: took a long time, but Ansbach eventually won his case.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: And yeah, now I feel more people are aware, but
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: still a pretty small number. But it was... big part
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of the movie Heretic. It's more people know, but it's still.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: um pretty obscure you have to look for it maybe
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: i do want to play it i'm really interested to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: see because it's very similar but i want to play
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: with the anti-monopoly rules.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah i want to see what that is what's the
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: point you always lose.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: No, it's supposed to be you build each other up.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: We all come together.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Unless you have that one person.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's why Monopoly happened. I think that's
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: why that version took off. But, you know, it made
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: me think of a lot of the episodes we've done
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: about creators who are women or non-binary in the gaming space.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: They often play with our traditional idea of what a
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: game is. And so like in Cozy Gaming, we've talked
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: about how so many times a lot of video games
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: are defined by violence. And that's how you succeed in
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: your goal. But a lot of women creators are like, no,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: what if we did something different? Or what if we,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you know, looked at it this way? And I love that.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: And so I wonder, especially like I said, there is
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: a rise of co-op games. And I know we played
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: together wingspan and we talked about wingspan but that that's
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: an example of one where you're still competitive but you're
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: not necessarily like competing against each other I don't know
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: like I wonder if this game would actually be pretty
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: successful right now because a lot of articles I read
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: were like well she never managed to really sell it
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: so too bad for her I'm like well I think
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: it I think it could have been pretty successful.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I mean technically she did sell it until someone stole.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: It yeah somebody stole it It's like, it's mine. And
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: then they found the patent.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Take this money.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Right. Without understanding. I wonder if she understood that that's
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: what they were intending or if she really thought they
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: were going to do it as a whole.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I think I honestly would love to see a movie
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: about this because like in my head, what I am
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: envisioning is she really had this idea that this optimistic
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: idea that a lot of people would see that the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Monopoly version was the bad version. And she wanted people
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: to see, oh, this anti-Monopoly one is much better. But instead,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: they only really sold the Monopoly version. And so that
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: betrayal and hurt of her idea being... completely misrepresented, and
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: then them making all of this money off the complete
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: misrepresentation of her work.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You know, interestingly, the mobile game have a lot of
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: events where you have to team up with people, oftentimes,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: in order to make a successful run or whatever, whatnot.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm wondering, like, is that's their try and take
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: of being like no see we got the other side
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: here it's not just because like the narrative has changed
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: like it went from becoming a landlord to being like
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: yeah we're suspicious and we don't like landlords because it
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: looks really gross and eat the rich type of conversation
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: so they're taking that and they also need the community
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: to foster this competitiveness as well as encouraging them yeah
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: my friend telling me he's on That game made me
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: come back and play. But, like, stuff like that. And
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I wonder if that's their flip. Because, obviously, people do
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: desire some community, not just being alone.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. That's interesting. I bet. I mean, and the thing is,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: as many people as they said have played Monopoly, which
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I completely believe, I feel like everyone I know has
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: that story you kind of opened with. Of like the miserable,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: like I'm banned from playing Monopoly or my family isn't
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: allowed to play Monopoly anymore. I wonder if they were like,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: maybe we should try to find a different, not so
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: heated way of playing this game.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Also, it lasts forever.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Forever. It's probably one of the longest running games I've
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: ever played. Outside of, like, that.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: I feel like everybody has the story, too, of cheating. Like,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: somebody cheating in their family.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: I was one. You know, they have household rules for
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: different things. Uno, all this monopoly. Monopoly is, like, I
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: don't think... Everyone does this, but you have to recognize
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: that someone's landed on your property. If you want to collect,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: you don't just get it. And if the person moves
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: on before you find out, then you can't get it later.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: We had that rule, and that caused a lot of fights.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Because people were trying to hurry and like, roll the dice, hurry!
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: So they didn't have to pay rent to park place.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: And then you're suspicious of the banker.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, taking money.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Yes, not giving you the right, uh-huh. Well, one of
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the reasons this idea came to me is I saw
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: a bunch of advertisements for various monopolies that are not licensed.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And I know Hasbro was like, we should sue them.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: And it's just kind of interesting when it's like you
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: look at the history.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: They're going to monopoly on monopoly. Obviously. Duh.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: It just... My eyebrows are kind of like, I don't know.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying necessarily those unlicensed monopolies should or shouldn't
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: be out there. But I was just like, this is
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: interesting that you don't like that somebody came in.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Taking what you see as your property. Okay, cool. But
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I really would love listeners, if you write in, if
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: you had family rules... If you have memories, trauma with
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Monopoly or any board games, you know we love board
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: games over here. Please, please, please contact us. You can
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: email us at stephaniemomstuff at iheartmedia.com. You can also email
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: us at hello at stuffmonevertoldyou.com. Both work. Choose your own adventure.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Blue Sky. at MomStuffPodcast or
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff Mom Never Told You.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: We're also on YouTube. We have a TeePublic store and
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: we have a book. You can get wherever you get
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: your books. Thanks as always to our super producer, Christina,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: executive producer, Maya, and our contributor, Joey.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And thanks to you for listening. Stuff Mom Never Told
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: You is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 26:41
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• 26:43
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.