Monopoly Here and Now World

Those days of sitting around the table playing a game of Monopoly and wincing as hotels were built on the "high-end district" can be visited again when you play Monopoly Here and Now World.

There have been an estimated 500 Monopoly players since its creation in 1935, and that number is still growing. Charles B. Darrow envisioned the game of Monopoly as he played a similar game on oil skin at his kitchen table. He created his own variation and began making them in his home. He began to sell them to friends and family, but the popularity of the game grew beyond his means, and he approached Parker Brothers. They rejected the game due to 25 design errors.

Darrow went back undaunted and began making them by hand and selling them. He did the best he could and in the process became very successful. Parker Brothers eventually caught wind of him and his game and bought the rights to it.

Since its widespread release, the game has seen many changes to include themed Monopoly boards from sports teams to popular culture, television and movies. Third party designers have even taken the design and created such sensations as "Ghettopoly" and "Dogopoly". The game has even seen an electronic version in the "Electronic Monopoly Banking Edition". One constant has always been that the game, in all its forms, has been based on America. That has all changed with Monopoly Here and Now World.

This is the first time that Monopoly has been released with cities from all over the world as real estate. In order to be fair (and to generate buzz about the game), Parker Brothers created a list of 70 possible cities. They allowed fans of the game to cast their votes to decide 20 of the 22 property spaces. Over 5 million people voted, and the following list represents the winning cities from richest to poorest (in terms of the game board placement):

• Montreal
• Riga
• Cape Town
• Belgrade
• Paris
• Jerusalem
• Hong Kong
• Beijing
• London
• New York
• Sydney
• Vancouver
• Shanghai
• Rome
• Toronto
• Kyiv
• Istanbul
• Athens
• Barcelona
• Tokyo
• Taipei
• Gdynia

The city with the highest votes would be awarded the most expensive game spot in the game. The second most votes got the second highest priced property and so on until all spaces were filled. The last two spaces, brown, were determined by write-in votes. The top ten cities being named until voting ended with the top two.

The properties are just the tip of the iceberg of changes found in this new Monopoly.

• No more money! They have done away with the cash, and now the game is played with a debit card that remembers you and keeps track of all your loot.
• The game pieces have also changed, and there are now 24 of them, but each box has 6 random pieces inserted from the following collection of 24:
  • African Mask
  • Baseball Glove
  • Boomerang
  • Camel
  • Mounties (Royal Canadian Mounted Police)
  • Chinese Dragon
  • Cowboy Hat
  • Easter Island Moai
  • Egyptian Mask
  • Soccer Ball
  • Inca Mask
  • Inca Statue
  • Kangaroo
  • Koala
  • London Cab
  • Matador
  • Pretzel
  • Russian Nesting Dolls
  • Safari Hat
  • Sumo Wrestler
  • Surfer
  • Tuk-Tuk
  • Windmill

• The houses have also changed giving you the ability to build up Tokyo with African houses:
  • North American House
  • South American House
  • African House
  • European House
  • Australian House
  • Asian House

• With the changes in housing, there is no wonder the hotels have also been changed and now you could be seeing a Monopoly skyline containing:
  • African Hotels
  • Asian Hotels
  • North American Hotels
  • South American Hotels
  • European Hotels
  • Australian Hotels

• Chance and Community Chest cards have changed to include fun facts on cities of the world.
• Transportation spaces have changed to more energy conscious ones.

Monopoly Here and Now World creates an entirely new element to the game of Monopoly for a whole new generation, and you can even find it online. The game can be found at any retail outlet and online at Amazon, Wal-Mart and other Internet retailers.

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