 Cover of the game, displaying creator Elizabeth Magie | |
| Other names |
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| Designers | Elizabeth Magie |
| Publishers |
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| Years active | 1906–1939 |
| Genres | property |
| Languages | English, German |
| Players | 2–4 |
| Synonyms |
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The Landlord's Game is a board game patented in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie as U.S. patent 748,626 . It is a realty and taxation game intended to educate users about Georgism. It is the inspiration for the 1935 board game Monopoly . [1]
In 1902 to 1903, Magie designed the game [2] and play tested it in Arden, Delaware. [3] The game was created to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate. Magie also hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood. [3] [4] The Landlord's Game has some similarities to the basic rules of the board game Zohn Ahl , played by the Kiowa Indians of North America. There are hints that suggest Elizabeth Magie might have known Zohn Ahl and incorporated some of the game's ideas. [5]
In 1903, Magie filed for a patent on the game [3] which was granted in 1904. [6] Magie and fellow Georgists formed a company, Economic Game Company, in 1906 New York to publish the game. [6] Besides Magie, the incorporators were E. H. Monroe of Chicago and E. G. Lenbusher of New York. [7] Magie approached Parker Brothers to publish this and one other game in 1909. The other game was accepted while Landlord's was rejected as too complicated. [mwmfg 1]
In the United Kingdom The Landlord's Game was first published in 1913 by the Newbie Game Company, formed by a Liberal Committee from the village of Newbie in Dumfries, under the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit; despite the title change, it was recognizably the same game. [8] Landlord sold well in the northeastern United States amongst its left-wing intellectuals, [3] while Brer was unsuccessful. [8] [ clarification needed ]
Scott Nearing, socialist professor of economics at Wharton School of Finance from 1906 to 1915, lived in Arden in 1910, where Magie invented the game, learned about the game and taught it to his students. [2] College students made up their own boards to use with her rules. [6] Various versions of the game popped up over the following years under a variety of names, Monopoly, Finance, and Auction being among them. Among the Atlantic City and Philadelphia communities of Quakers, the game was particularly popular with college students and economics professors. Jesse and Eugene Raiford, Quakers in Atlantic City, used household items instead of pawns and changed the properties' names to match well-known places in Atlantic City. [2]
With Magie's first patent having expired, in 1923 she decided to attempt to regain control of marketing the game by applying for another patent. [mwmfg 2] On September 23, 1924, a second patent was issued to Magie for The Landlord's Game. [9] Adgame Company (Inc.) published Landlord's Game and Prosperity under this patent in 1932. [mwmfg 3]
Robert Baron had Parker Brothers design its own version, called Fortune, before they began negotiating to purchase Magie's patents, in case the discussion fell apart or she sold to another potential buyer, Dave Knapp, publisher of Finance. [mwmfg 4] Magie held her 1923 patent until 1935, when she sold it to Parker Brothers for $500, [10] equivalent to $10,672in 2022. [11] The company had recently started distributing Monopoly, which it had purchased from Charles Darrow who claimed to have invented it. [10] [3] Parker Brothers only printed a very small run of The Landlord's Game to secure their claim to the rights. Surviving copies of The Landlord's Game manufactured by Parker Brothers are considered by many the rarest of all 20th century board games. Parker Brothers pushed her game aside for Darrow's by 1936. Magie then did two interviews showcasing copies of the original board, with The Washington Post and The Evening Star, to show that Darrow was not the inventor of the game. [3]
In 1937, Carnival was published based on the 1904 version. Parker Brothers published their edition of the game in 1939. [mwmfg 3]
In a 2004 episode of PBS' History Detectives (title: "Monopoly; Japanese Internment Camp Artwork; The Lewis and Clark Cane"), the show investigated a game board belonging to a Delaware man, having an intermediate version of a game combining elements of The Landlord's Game and Monopoly. The investigators concluded that this game board was the missing link that proves that Monopoly was derived from The Landlord's Game. [9]
The set had rules for two different games, anti-monopolist and Monopolist. The anti-monopolist rules reward all players during wealth creation, whereas the monopolist rules incentivize forming monopolies and forcing opponents out of the game. [3] In the anti-monopolist or Single Tax version (later called "Prosperity"), the game is won when the player with the least money doubles their original stake. [2]
The board featured a track around the outside edge of the board split into blocks representing properties and had their purchase price, and their rental value listed in the block. New York City's Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Wall Street were the top properties in price and rent. The published game included Chance cards with quotes attributed to Thomas Jefferson, John Ruskin and Andrew Carnegie. [2]
For the published 1906 version, minor changes were made to what had been described in the 1904 patent: the property names were changed, and the rule regarding increased rent for multiple railroads owned was added. [mwmfg 5]
The game's first patent was the first issued for a game while claiming four features in the application, the most important feature was a continuous path game. At the time, most games had a start and end spot. [mwmfg 6] With the first patent having expired in 1921, Magie applied for another patent with five new claims.
The claims of Magie's second patent could not include those of the first (now in the public domain) and leaned more towards the single tax theory of play. One common misconception is that Parker Brothers acquired the rights to Magie's original invention of Monopoly play and the unique design by purchasing the later 1924 patent. Parker Brothers acquired Magie's patent to The Landlord's Game but although both patents had the same name they covered different claims. The substitution or confusion of the early patent for the latter is still commonplace. [12]
Monopoly is a multiplayer economics-themed board game. In the game, players roll two dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents and aim to drive them into bankruptcy. Money can also be gained or lost through Chance and Community Chest cards and tax squares. Players receive a salary every time they pass "Go" and can end up in jail, from which they cannot move until they have met one of three conditions. House rules, hundreds of different editions, many spin-offs, and related media exist. Monopoly has become a part of international popular culture, having been licensed locally in more than 103 countries and printed in more than 37 languages. As of 2015, it was estimated that the game had sold 275 million copies worldwide. The original game was based on locations in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States with the exception of Marvin Gardens which is in adjacent Ventnor, NJ.
Parker Brothers was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. Among its products were Monopoly, Clue, Sorry!, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, Ouija, Aggravation, Bop It, Scrabble, and Probe. The trade name became defunct with former products being marketed under the "Hasbro Gaming" label with the logo shown on Monopoly games.
Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that people should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land—including from all natural resources, the commons, and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society. Developed from the writings of American economist and social reformer Henry George, the Georgist paradigm seeks solutions to social and ecological problems, based on principles of land rights and public finance that attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice.
Anti-Monopoly is a board game made by San Francisco State University Professor Ralph Anspach in response to Monopoly. The idea of an anti-monopoly board game dates to 1903 when Lizzie Magie created The Landlord's Game, which later inspired Monopoly.
Charles Brace Darrow was an American board game designer who is credited as the inventor of the board game Monopoly. Although the original idea for the game came from Lizzie Magie's The Landlord's Game, Darrow has been credited as the creator by Parker Brothers, the game's publisher.
Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips was an American game designer, writer, feminist, and Georgist. She invented The Landlord's Game, the precursor to Monopoly, to illustrate teachings of the progressive era economist Henry George.
Cooperative board games are board games in which players work together to achieve a common goal rather than competing against each other. Either the players win the game by reaching a pre-determined objective, or all players lose the game, often by not reaching the objective before a certain event ends the game.
Marven Gardens is a neighborhood in Margate City, Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, located two miles (3 km) south of Atlantic City. The name Marven Gardens is a portmanteau derived from Margate City and Ventnor City, because it lies on the border of Margate City and Ventnor City. Marven Gardens is surrounded by Ventnor Avenue, Winchester Avenue, Fredericksburg Avenue and Brunswick Avenue. The streets within it are Circle Drive, East Drive and West Drive, and signs at the end of each of these streets pay homage to its Monopoly heritage, with 'Marven Gardens' on a yellow background, and replicas of the house playing pieces adorn the posts on each sign. Most of the homes were built in the 1920s and 1930s. The permanent population of the neighborhood as of 2020 was 64, with over 47% of the neighborhood's homes being seasonally occupied.
Ralph Anspach was a Danzig-born American economics professor and games creator from San Francisco State University. Anspach was a graduate of the University of Chicago and fought with the Mahal in 1948 in support of the independence of Israel. He is best known for creating the game Anti-Monopoly and the legal battles that followed.
There have been numerous Monopoly video games based on the core game mechanics of Parker Brothers and Hasbro's board game Monopoly. They have been developed by numerous teams and released on multiple platforms over 35+ years.
The board game Monopoly has its origin in the early 20th century. The earliest known version, known as The Landlord's Game, was designed by Elizabeth Magie and first patented in 1904, but existed as early as 1902. Magie, a follower of Henry George, originally intended The Landlord's Game to illustrate the economic consequences of Ricardo's Law of economic rent and the Georgist concepts of economic privilege and land value taxation. A series of board games was developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land and the development of that land. By 1933, a board game already existed much like the modern version of Monopoly that has been sold by Parker Brothers and related companies through the rest of the 20th century, and into the 21st. Several people, mostly in the midwestern United States and near the East Coast of the United States, contributed to its design and evolution.
Easy Money or The Game of Easy Money was a board game introduced by Milton Bradley Company in 1935. Like Monopoly, the game is based on The Landlord's Game in the movement of pieces around the board, the use of cards, properties that can be purchased, and houses that can be established on them.
Finance, or The Fascinating Game of Finance or Finance and Fortune, is a board game originally released in 1932. The game is based on The Landlord's Game in the movement of pieces around the board, the use of cards, properties that can be purchased, and houses that can be erected on them. The game also has railroads; however, these may not be purchased. The game is a predecessor to Monopoly.
Aggravation is a board game for up to four players and later versions for up to six players, whose object is to be the first player to have all four playing pieces reach the player's home section of the board. The game's name comes from the action of capturing an opponent's piece by landing on its space, which is known as "aggravating". The name was coined by one of the creators, Louis Elaine, who did not always enjoy defeat.
Mary Pilon is an American journalist and filmmaker who primarily covers sports and business. A regular contributor to the New Yorker and Bloomberg Businessweek, her books are The Monopolists (2015), The Kevin Show (2018), Losers: Dispatches From the Other Side of the Scoreboard, and The Longest Race, co-authored with Olympian Kara Goucher. She has also worked as a staff reporter covering sports for The New York Times and business at The Wall Street Journal and has also written and produced for Vice, Esquire, NBC News, among other outlets.
George Swinnerton Parker was an American game designer and businessman who founded Geo. S. Parker Co. and Parker Brothers.
Carl E. Person is an American attorney and politician. He founded the Paralegal Institute in the early 1970s and played a pivotal role in creating the paralegal field. He has also run unsuccessfully for various political offices. He was a candidate for the 2012 presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party, was the Reform Party nominee for Mayor of New York City in 2013, was the Libertarian nominee for New York State Attorney General in 2010 and was the Libertarian nominee for New York State Attorney General again in 2014.
An Amerigame, short for American-style board game, is a loose category of tabletop game that generally features a prominent theme, encourages direct conflict between players, and has a significant degree of luck. It is distinguished from a Eurogame, or German-style board game, in that American-style games often have longer playtimes and mechanics designed to suit the theme. Games of this genre are sometimes, if pejoratively, nicknamed Ameritrash.
Trump: The Game is a board game named after Donald Trump. Milton Bradley Company initially released the game in 1989, but it sold poorly, with only 800,000 copies sold out of an expected two million. Parker Brothers re-released Trump: The Game in 2004 following the success of Trump's reality television series, The Apprentice, from earlier that year. Trump: The Game received poor reviews from critics and the public audience.
Ms. Monopoly is a version of Monopoly that recognizes inventions that women created or contributed to and gives bonuses to female players. It was released by Hasbro in 2019. Upon release, the game was criticized for its gameplay mechanics of giving bonuses to female players, as well as ignoring the original Monopoly's creator.
Orbanes, Philip (2006). Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game-- and how it Got that Way . Da Capo Press. pp. 9–10. ISBN 0306814897.:
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