Why does everyone hate Monopoly? | The secret behind the world’s biggest board game
Dicebreaker
Views: 8495
Like: 885
Monopoly from Hasbro is one of the biggest board games in the world, so why does it get so much backlash from board game fans? Why does everyone hate Monopoly? From the secret history of Elizabeth Magie to the massive corporate machine that Hasbro has become, Wheels takes you through some of the reasons why Monopoly might not be all that it’s cracked up to be…
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30.04.2022
This video really gets me as someone struggling to introduce anything aside from d&d at the game table.
I have to disagree on the “luck-vs-skill” argument. My dad is an accountant, and the first lesson of Monopoly I learned is “the accountant always wins”. Even when you cheat and slip yourself some extra money at the beginning of the game, the accountant ALWAYS wins. We had to homebrew some rules that basically turned it into a 3-vs-1 game to give anyone else a chance. Now the accountant just usually wins.
Are we ribbing on Papa Hasbro? lemme call the MTG warriors!!
Kidding aside. I wholeheartedly agree on the No randomness=Predictable
too much randomness=frustrating
Wait, there are people who are fans of being taxed?!? 🤣 .
13:00 "Ooh la la, someone's getting laid in college" 🤣
Are there any hacks or house-rules you can apply to the game to make it any better? Or use the game pieces and play an altogether game with it?
Great video! I had no idea about the second, Georgist, game! 🤯 Maybe follow this up with a video of games similar to Monopoly as suggestions for people who are tired of playing it?
Not started the video yet, but my highlight: most people don’t play the game properly. No one uses the auction rules set out in the book, and no one uses the right strategy to play.
Edit: I’m a horrible person, as I love playing, and almost always win playing monopoly. I also found this super interesting! Thanks Wheels!!
Monopoly a.k.a. Familybreaker
For a bunch of folks who say they hate Monopoly, they sure do talk about Monopoly a lot.
I always hoped DB would make a video like this at somepoint as it's a topic i've always been curious about. I remember watching one of the very first livestreams and asking when they were going to play Monopoly on the channel.
I love this historical deep dive into iconic games history. Well done and quite informative.
I kind of wish Hasbro would do the right thing and release a version of the game akin to the original vision.
My siblings and I loved playing Monopoly back when we were kids. Then again, we never played it seriously as it was meant to be played. We always had our own spins and additions to the game like loansharks, robbing the bank, gamblings (blackjack & raffles), random disasters, etc. Those things, and not taking it seriously, made it fun.
The one time we tried playing it correctly with my cousins, we stopped after an hour because it was so boring and we get vengeful at whoever's winning.
More ranty documentals/game design critiques please! I've learned quite a lot from this
Stop making me learn stuff, Wheels! 😉
Complaining about a game going too far on the RNG spectrum is not being a sore loser. Player's decision is the key component for making a game fun imo.
I mean, some people like games with litterally zero decision making and I respect them (it's all about taste and opinion) but you can't argue with others who want to have more control over what's going on, it's definitely a valid point.
Monopoly. AKA The Conservative Party: The Game.
I don't know if I hate it, I appreciate what its done for tabletop gaming but when people say about playing it I just want to introduce them to Catan, Lords of Waterdeep or Ticket to Ride instead, all much better themes and so much more enjoyable.
Would love to see a follow-up of recommendations for games that do similar things as Monopoly but aren't soul sucking experiences in hating your friends and family. A few things that come to mind include Chinatown, Lords of Vegas, and Machi Koro.
When you have anti-monopoly and monopoly mha edition
I have Monopoly Socialism, and I really enjoy it! I'd get the original Landlord's game of i could, but in spite of the mocking tone of Monopoly Socialism, it plays less mean spirited, and works as a cooperative game!
Whenever my family played monopoly, we set a timer. End of the timer the one with the most money in cash and property won. No drawn out bankruptcy nonsense so I don't have those negative memories of games lasting for eons
This video is amazing!!!
Moral of the story is a man got away with patent infringement of a woman's ideas. Pretty crappy.
For an excellent insight in to luck in board games and a damn good read, read The Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks.
I have no fond memories of Monopoly for exactly the reasons you state here. Also the person I played it with the most was a serial cheater, and would give themselves extra money if I left the room, so I always ended up losing.
I think it's worth mentioning that there's actually a reproduction version of The Landlord's Game that you can actually buy and play, if anyone's curious.
"If you like Monopoly then more power to you and I hope you're having a good time but also you need to be on a LIST." Fixed that for you.
I think Monopoly is fine until around about when all the houses run out. After that it becomes a real slog, so if somebody does demand that you play it, maybe try ending it when the house supply runs dry & tot up all the owned assets at that point to determine the winner. It'll save you about 3 hours of misery. Nice hat token though.
Chess and checkers do not have both sides starting equivalent. One player gets the first turn. Whether or not that is an advantage or disadvantage, it is a difference in the two sides. It is essentially impossible to make a turn-based competitive game completely "fair" for lack of a better term.
So the origin of Monopoly is a guy who stole another person's patented idea and implemented only half of it, the awful side that the original creator used as a bad example to criticize society. What's even more interesting is that Elizabeth Magie intended this game to be awful on purpose, and yet it because extremely popular. Interesting history lesson, it makes me despise this game even more, now also for what it represents in its creation.
Geez, I'm glad that whole thing 'freedom is only true for white males' thing consigned to the pages of histo… oh wait.
ya i never found the game very much fun anyways. even when you win evryone else is sad who wants to play a game like that
Does the "other" version of the landlord's game exist anywhere on rhe internet?
I have a growing desire to try it out :3
More like this. I like learning the stories behind the games as much as learning of the games themselves.
I'm really enjoying this type of video lately. Finding myself genuinely interested in something that I didn't even realise I needed to know.
Maggie: second edition
Fantasy Flight: AMATEUR HOUR
Mitigation of randomness is a key of good game design. Negotiation is the only "strategy" in Monopoly, leading to players being stingy or resorting to real world favors to make play " interesting (and if you have to do that, the game wasn't interesting to begin with), which is why I only collect Star Wars version for its bits and bobs.
Monopoly is one of the reasons – the others being several other board games and my chronic bad luck – that I hated the entire concept of board games and/or dice until I was about 16, and still struggle to like them now when I'm actually trying to.
I think you're being a bit unfair: the main reason most people don't like monopoly is that people don't play it correctly, the fact that you can auction off property after someone passes up on it actually makes the game much quicker, and introduces strategy, because you can tactically use this to try and force other players to spend more than they can afford. I'm not saying it's a great game that is tragically misunderstood, but just that the majority of the gripes that people have, are because a game takes all evening, when instead the game should be over in an hour.
Great video!
I always suggest Tokaido over Monopoly. They both involve some randomness, but Tokaido gives you agency over what you do with your turn. They both involve limited resources and set collecting, but Tokaido offers much more opportunities for strategy. And Tokaido doesn't have a mind-numbingly long second half where you watch the winning player strongarm everyone else. I guarantee Tokaido will never end in a tableflip.
Personally really like playing Monopoly don't understand why people don't enjoy it
I remember, as a kid, our "house rule" was … that we actually didn't understand all of the game's rules. Thus:
– When a player lands on one of their owned properties, we assumed they got to collect the same money value that other players must pay for landing on their square. (Which unduly exaggerated the strategic value of building on a color block…)
– The bank was not under obligation to auction off a property when a player doesn't purchase it (or is eliminated from the game).
As for the game being almost entirely luck/dice-based, here's a simple idea to change that:
1- On your turn you roll three dice but pick any two dice to count as your move. For example, if you roll 1+3+6 you can move either 4, 7, or 9 squares.
2- If two dice come up the same (actually quite common, a probability of 16/36) you can choose whether to take the doubles or not. (e.g. if you roll 2+5+2 you can move either 4 or 7 squares, with 4 counting as doubles) If you choose doubles then you get an extra turn, but any subsequent doubles count whether you choose them or not (i.e. you must take yet another turn) and 3 doubles in a row (a probability of about 6%) still sends you to jail.
3- If all three dice come up the same value (a probability of 1/36) you are immediately "caught speeding" and go to jail, do not pass go.
Literally all I knew was that it was originally called The Landlord's Game, nothing else…this was really interesting! More Tom Scott-style videos like this please 😂
"There was no rulebook, it was just something you were taught." I reckon this is still true today – something like 90% of players have never actually read the rulebook themselves, according to Hasbro- hence the myriad "home rules".
Good video! I'd heard of the Landlord's Game, but didn't know about the rest of the history. Having said that – pedant's corner!
I think I do often forget that Monopoly was designed not to be enjoyed. Of course a man stole the idea and missed the whole point hahahahhahahahahaaah. .. …
Are you not allowed to put the sponsor links in the description?
House rules usually make the game worse, too. Also forgetting the rule about auctioning properties that someone lands on but doesn't buy.
Damn you Dicebreaker! You made me learn!
Monopoly is really funny in it's poor ties to reality and economical understanding. It's also funny how little it includes the government and understanding of how bad it is. And as a final comedic fat dot in the end, how the creator of monopoly ended up losing out on all the money of it, due to a monopoly someone else got on her game, via the government lol (patent/copyright)