Why I HATE Monopoly
The Dice Tower
Views: 98764
Like: 2620
Tom Vasel explains why he does not personally enjoy the classic board game of Monopoly!
00:00 – Introduction
01:46 – Game overview
06:37 – Final thoughts
BGG:
Check out the friendliest conventions on Earth!
Dice Tower Con! – (July 3-7, 2019)
Dice Tower West! – (March 6-10, 2019)
Dice Tower Cruise! –
Buy great games at
Find more reviews and videos at
07.01.2022
I own around 30 games and surprise surprise all 30 are better than Monopoly.
Monopoly deal however is a great game 🙂
I've always considered monopoly a very fun math exercise, but never a game.
+1
I am sorry but I love Monopoly like for some people hate it and the others they love it. It's their own wish so no probs.
The complaints about the components were cringey. I play board games a lot, so even games that have higher quality cards than Monopoly still get ruined quickly. I dont care about keeping a game pristine, or using sleeves for board game cards. So it's not a problem to me. The paper money is fine. My game money isn't perfectly straight, but neither are my dollar bills (which sucks on vending machines).
The one complaint I highly agree with is trading, or rather refusing to trade. The game slows down a lot and people are going around the board without much happening.
Edit: The monopoly car tin edition board and components are much better quality and look prettier.
When you play in a Monopoly competition, it is totally another game which is super exciting and require skills but not just luck. I feel like what you feel in this video when it is just a family gameplay.
Monopoly's origin story is one of the most fascinating stories of America's lack of self awareness.
Auctioning every property regardless of who lands on it fixes most of these problems. It moves it all the way up to a 5/10.
The super mario editions are good fun with completely different rules.
Am I the only one that likes monopoly
You were very kind to monopoly Tom
I can't fathom why he seemed to be bracing for negative backlash.
I played a game of monopoly at the lake with some friends last summer. I won which may have been a factor into why I got into board gaming in general.
However since that fateful night I have developed a board gaming hobby thats boardering on obsessive addiction.
Though I now agree that Monopoly isnt the greatest game out there, it takes a certain type of player to enjoy it regardless of the outcome.
And I find this to carry over to most board games, is that you dont have to win or lose, its just a fun and imaginitive way to pass the time. The winners mindset is toxic and monopoly tends to cater to and breed the winner mindset.
So Ive come to love games like arkham horror, NEMESIS, 7th continent, and spirit island. Cooperation, failure and cutting losses are key components to the game and when 1 fails we all fail.
Seeing how one reacts in failure is a beautiful experience especially when they arent being singled out and its a collective experience.
Monopoly though not the greatest still holds a decent place in my heart.
If you hate monopoly, you actually got the message of the game. It’s an accurate simulation of how broken and unfun capitalism is. It was designed as a teaching tool by a communist.
A few other problems with monopoly. There's no catch-up mechanism. The game is largely determined from the first lap or two around the board, it just takes a really long time to resolve that early advantage. It's just unpleasant to lose. Most modern competitive games (especially economic ones), if I lose, I've still built something cool that I can feel a sense of accomplishment at. Sure, your thing was better, but my thing was still good. In monopoly, I lose with nothing to show for it. This combines with the first problem such that the end of monopoly just gets more and more miserable. Especially with the ability to sell and mortgage, you can hold on for quite a long time, but as you do so you're slowly being ground down to nothing.
Other problems: Every game is the same. There's almost zero strategic choices. There's almost zero tactical choices. It's essentially solved. There's almost nothing to do on anyone else's turn. You barely interact with the other players, except in trading (paying rent doesn't count as interaction, because there's no choices involved). And this is a silly gripe, but the scale is all wrong, and the flavor makes no sense. You can buy an entire street for the 8 times the price of one person paying rent? And what's even happening in this game? We're all property developers, but we have to randomly wander around town, forced to stay in whatever house or hotel we happen to be standing near at night time?
The most important point is that if you're unlucky with the dice at the beginning of the game you're sunk. Which is also why I've sworn off the Monopoly killer, Settlers of Catan. Settlers has the same problem… if the dice are unlucky for you at the start you're kaput, as you quickly get blocked off and unable to trade significantly.
I played Monopoly many, Many times as a kid and I don’t think we ever played a game to completion. Once all of the properties were purchased, the game got boring and we would end up outside playing baseball or basketball.
Amen. Monopoly is for muggles. As an avid board gamer, i cringe when muggles try to break this cardboard menace out. Still… respect to the grandfather if board games. You had your time.
Tom Vasel is like Simone Cowell for the board games. He knows a good game when he sees it and and I enjoyed this review, wrecking monopoly apart. People still believe that this is the best game in the world just because its the father of the board games.
I own over 20 versions of Monopoly. But, yes, it kinda sucks. We play in a way that we finish a game in less than an hour.
Mega Monopoly, with the speed die, is much better.
We do the "no paying rent in the future" trades but are limited to a specific amount (e.g., 1-3 times).
Why did they remove the iron and the cannon from monopoly ?
Seems such a bizarre change
Also wow, it looks so much worse then the older versions.
please love the board game! i like it
Too Long + Too Random + Player Elimination = Ameritrash. Monopoly and Risk which has all the same problems were what the term was invented for.
I think the simplest fix to Monopoly would just be to auction all un owned property that is landed on, and if nothing is landed on auction the lowest value unowned property, this would cut an hour off the game easily while greatly increasing the amount of player interaction and strategy.
Also lets never forget Monopoly is bad BY DESIGN, because its an allegory for the evils of capitalist monopolization of well everything.
I started viewing catan in the same way to cause of the random dice roll and the stupid robber.
In Monopoly you're not playing the game, the game's playing you. There's only ever basically one thing you can do, which is what the dice tells you to do, what the cards tell you to do, and buy everything you can. It's all random and it never ends.
Monopoly is a good game in my Opinion, but what i dont understand is, why there are so many themes from Monopoly out there. Anything you can think of is a Monopoly Board: Games, TV Shows, Movies or even other themes like instead of Streets they are Countrys and you making a World-Tour. Hasbro makes own Versions like the one where you can pay with vcards or the one you can Cheat or…Mrs.Monopoly. And the Game is exactly the Same, except a few little changes. And i also hate, that it takes hours or days sometimes. Most of the time we dont quit, because someone lose, but rather because its getting boring.
Monopoly was a reason why for many years I hated board games. If you're unlucky, that's it. Your only decission is whenever you want to buy something or not. And usually you do.
Games with RNG are fine, but not when there is nothing but just that. I've had way too many sessions where I've spent most time in prison. Or where my dice rolls were so bad I was in orange zone when most people were ending their second lap.
I've never won any monopoly session. Most games ended without any winner. there is always that one person who refuses to trade or sell. It's plain awfull.
This game should be forgotten. I know it sounds hars, but it's the worst playable boardgame anyone wii ever play.
It needs a house rule that keeps you in the game if you are bankrupt. Like you csn keep playing to affect the chances of the others winning
In my opinion, Ticket to Ride shows how to design a family game and avoid the failures of Monopoly. No player elimination, simple choices every turn, no runaway leader, game can't drag on, hints of possible plans, and planning works but luck and other players requires their re-evaluation.
Yes, Tom. It is indeed antiquidated.
Also, even as a kid, I've never liked Monopoly. Only kid's should like such a game, but what kid wants to sit around for four hours until they finallygo bankrupt?
I hate Settlers of Catan for most of the reasons Tom hates Monopoly. If you get a few crappy rolls early in the game and opponents corner you into a small portion of the board, you just get to sit there and watch them play the game.
To be honest, Monopoly was designed with a lesson in mind – to show how awful capitalism is. So it was never meant to be fun, it was meant to be frustrating. And it achieves just that which, one could argue, is a good design. It's like video game Getting Over It which drives people mad on purpose to teach them a lesson.
my wifes romanian sister gaver us a honest geunine monopoly set and crazily the quality was as bad as the official one. i see hasbro on any box i just smell manure
Bottom line: it's boring AF!
Monopoly needs a huge upgrade. Let Ravensburger produce it.
I enjoy playing Monopoly on occasion and I believe it should always be on your shelves. However I would play it maybe once every 18 months or so and I play it by what the rules are otherwise with all the dumb house rules out there it becomes a VERY slow and long burn of the candle that makes it really crap to play. Monopoly can be played in 90 minutes (120 at most) if it goes longer then that it becomes VERY painful.
Umm probably because if you make your friends land on Railroad after Railroad after Railroad your friends would then bitch and call you a baby then afterwards declare bankruptcy seriously fuck Monopoly and fuck whoever designed this game and the same goes to the PS4 version!!!!!
Three main issues with Monopoly that most modern games have solved in various way.
1. As you point out, is players are eliminated one by one, sometimes quite early, in a game that can often drag on for a long time.
2. There is no set endpoint for the game, it can go on almost indefinitely if the last two players randomly wind up with relatively even property portfolios. All this while as many as two players may be sitting around watching, or if they're lucky, playing something better.
3. The game is usually over (even for the last two players) well before it ends anyway. Almost every game of Monopoly I have ever played never really ended. What usually happens is that one player gets a sizable advantage and it becomes pretty obvious that he is going to win, but it could still take 5-20 trips around the board for him to drive that final player out, so everyone just agrees that this has gotten tiresome and we play something else.
So, even winning the game is often tarnished by the fact that you did not REALLY win, the other guy just got tired of playing and conceded.
We call it monotony.
no way
you need to get the monopoly add on. it adds a smaller board in the center that greatly changes the game. it is the ONLY way i will play monopoly. as far as the player elimination rule. screw it! don't use it. we never do. our house rule is we play until ONE person in eliminated. then everyone adds up everything they have earned in the game and whoever did the best is the winner. makes the game more interesting because you have to evaluate every decision you make, especially when you can see one person is almost out of the game. this makes mortageing properties very tricky. just some suggestions to make monopoly better.
Monopoly isn't the best game but it's okay
I agree Monopoly is a bit of boring game, because of what you said but regarding to the point you make on 4:53 can be mitigated. What a usually do especially when i do not have chances to make a set, or in the other way when i can make set but no one trade, is sort of a rental. I get/give the card someone that needs but they give me part of the profit they make on that, or must pay me an x value any time they pass by start position
Funny how this parody game from the 30's spun out to be the biggest hit and completely missing the mark
I hate Monopoly because I always end up spending the entire game in jail
easy to play, easy to set up, easy to teach, easy to find, easy to find ppl that knows the rules, and with just a lil flavor text , xD