This episode of the show focused largely on the history of modern Monopoly, arguably the most popular board game in print, and possibly to have ever been printed. I was surprised that the roots of the game went all the way back to 1904 (not as far as some games certainly, but still impressive) and began with a woman named Elizabeth Magie, who was a devout Georgist (Henry George was a 19th Century American who developed the idea that there should only be a single tax on land values).
She developed a game called The Landlord's Game. The game was underwhelmingly successful, perhaps due to being designed as a learning tool and not a game as such. From there, suffice to say that the game went back and forth through iterations and publications and patents and developers for more than 30 years.
After that it was doggedly followed and purchased by Parker Brothers who became the sole publishers of the game which quickly became the most popular board game in the Western World. The only thing I can really say is kudos to Parker Brothers, they made a mint from that game.
No comments:
Post a Comment