East Longmeadow, Mass. – Jan. 21, 2008 – With the roll of the dice, will aspiring capitalists soon be able to own and unify Washington, D.C., Moscow and Beijing? Will Boston and Bogotá become next-door neighbors? And will Lady Luck smile more on Las Vegas than on London?
Beginning today, MONOPOLY fans around the globe will have the chance to vote to determine which great global cities will be on the game board of the first-ever worldwide MONOPOLY edition. Fans visiting Monopoly.com will have the opportunity to select from more than 68 ‘candidate cities’ from six continents that run the alphabetical gamut from Amsterdam to Zurich. The United States has six candidates on the ballot: Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C.
The 20 cities earning the most votes will automatically win a spot on the new MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition game board and will be placed on the game board in rank order from highest rent property to lowest rent property. So as the election begins, pundits may ponder whether Oslo, Tokyo, or Toronto -- or another great global city -- will claim the coveted spot traditionally occupied by Boardwalk. Others may wonder if wintry Montreal will cozy up next to warm weather Rio de Janeiro and be neighbors on the board. And there’s always the possibility that former political foes will find themselves as friendly members of the same property group.
Fans may cast votes for up to 10 of the “candidate cities” each day from now until Feb. 28, 2008. To facilitate voting for MONOPOLY fans worldwide, the website is available in more than 30 languages.
While the ballot of candidate cities attempts to capture the greatest cities on the planet, game maker Parker Brothers acknowledges that some fans may feel that their favorite city didn’t make the list. Fortunately, fans visiting www.monopoly.com
“MONOPOLY is the world’s most popular board game and transcends cultural barriers,” said Helen Martin, Global Brand Leader for toy and game-maker Hasbro, Inc.’s (NYSE: HAS) MONOPOLY brand. “More than 750 million people around the world have played MONOPOLY since the game was introduced nearly 75 years ago and it remains a perennial favorite among today’s adults, kids and families.”
Along with the 22 property spaces featuring great cities from around the world, the game’s traditional “railroad” spaces will be modified to highlight four types of transportation used by people around the globe: land, sea, air and space travel. The game will also feature modern-day scenarios on the Chance and Community Chest cards.
The MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition game board will be unveiled in August 2008 and the game will go on sale in September 2008 in 45 countries.
There are 68 cities nominated for the global vote!
For more than 70 years, Parker Brothers selected elite locations within each country to place on MONOPOLY game boards. Recently, Parker Brothers invited fans of the game to help update the board in their respective countries to reflect what the game board would look like if it were created today instead of in 1935. The votes resulted in Here & Now editions of the game in each country. In 2006, more than 3 million votes were cast for the U.S. MONOPOLY: Here & Now Edition which features New York City’s Times Square and Boston’s Fenway Park on the high-rent spaces traditionally home to Boardwalk and Park Place.
