It might be strange to learn that a game isn’t designed to be fun? Mate, I’ve played Magic the Gathering before.

Was expecting a lighthearted rant, but got an actual history lesson about an incredible woman and general game design. I'll be damned, I seriously learned something today! Thanks and well done, Wheels!^^

The one other thing I'd mention about why to hate Monopoly: Most people play by a house rule (not in game rules) which generally involves all payments of taxes and bills from the cards and Income Tax spot to go into the middle and whomever lands on Free Parking gets all of it. This house rule (that I grew up thinking was a real rule) simply prolongs and already painful game.

Siting here sweating because the reason no one in my family likes monoply is because I always wreck them in monopoly.

I can enjoy Monopoly, but knowing its history... yeah, I'm even more open to alternatives now.

This video really gets me as someone struggling to introduce anything aside from d&d at the game table.

I knew that it had started as the Landlords Game as a socialist criticism about capitalism. Didnt know about the alternative or the story about how the game was stolen after they played and unironically enjoyed the game. So thanks Wheels.

I kind of wish Hasbro would do the right thing and release a version of the game akin to the original vision.

I don't think people hate Monopoly. I think they hate playing me in Monopoly.

Monopoly is a special game to me because it was one of the few games I could play with one of my friends as he had a version of it made for the blind. We played it for hours and always ended up in a stalemate. The important thing was it was a game both of us could play. I haven't played Monopoly in years now, though I have a few of the branded versions of the game, they aren't played.

This brought back memories of playing with my family. I remember how my father enjoyed beating all of us and how unfair it felt at such a young age. We only played maybe 5 times that I can recall. I don’t think I ever won once. I would have loved to play the co-op version that she made. In fact my mom and siblings prefer co-op games and we try to do weekly board game nights. I can’t wait to look into more board games. I already have a long list of board games I want to get from all your dicebreaker videos.

I think it's worth mentioning that there's actually a reproduction version of The Landlord's Game that you can actually buy and play, if anyone's curious.

Thank you SO much for making this video. It’s an important story with so many layers of context that build on each other. It’s exciting to see finally see a video that captures it all so well together. I just sent it to, like, everyone I know who cares about games (or are curious about why games matter so much to me : )

Interesting video. I think the another reason nowadays is how much time a game of monopoly takes compared to a lot of more modern games. It's a real evening-killer, which doesn't combine well with the points you've already mentioned about low agency and deliberately unengaging mechanics. My mum has a habit of referring to the game as "monotony"

Hopefully, next week's episode is Wheels' treatise on how to make Monopoly fun

I actually love monopoly but no one I know does so I never get to play it.

I remember, as a kid, our "house rule" was ... that we actually didn't understand all of the game's rules. Thus: - When a player lands on one of their owned properties, we assumed they got to collect the same money value that other players must pay for landing on their square. (Which unduly exaggerated the strategic value of building on a color block...) - The bank was _not_ under obligation to auction off a property when a player doesn't purchase it (or is eliminated from the game). As for the game being almost entirely luck/dice-based, here's a simple idea to change that: 1- On your turn you roll _three_ dice but pick any _two_ dice to count as your move. For example, if you roll 1+3+6 you can move either 4, 7, or 9 squares. 2- If two dice come up the same (actually quite common, a probability of 16/36) you can choose whether to take the doubles or not. (e.g. if you roll 2+5+2 you can move either 4 or 7 squares, with 4 counting as doubles) If you choose doubles then you get an extra turn, but any subsequent doubles count _whether you choose them or not_ (i.e. you must take yet another turn) and 3 doubles in a row (a probability of about 6%) still sends you to jail. 3- If all _three_ dice come up the same value (a probability of 1/36) you are immediately "caught speeding" and go to jail, do not pass go.

More ranty documentals/game design critiques please! I've learned quite a lot from this

More like this. I like learning the stories behind the games as much as learning of the games themselves.

I love this historical deep dive into iconic games history. Well done and quite informative.

I think that another big reason why people don’t really like monopoly is that many people play with custom rules. Here is a list of the rules I have played with or friends/family have played with. 1. Whenever you pay money to the bank (like from a card or space on the board) you put it in a pile in the center of the board. If anyone lands on free parking they get all the money from the center of the board. 2. If you LAND on GO you get 500$ 3. No auction’s 4. Every player starts with 5,000$ 5. You can build houses whenever you want (even if you don’t own all the property’s in a set) 6. You have a credit of 2,000$ from the bank that you can use if you run out of money 7. Adding more houses and hotels to the game because “they didn’t put enough in the box” (actually had one of my friend’s complain about that exact thing like a couple months ago) 8. Custom chance and community cards like “when you next pass GO collect 1,000$” and other equally ridiculous ideas 9. No trading 10. Being able to give others players “loans” that usually come with pretty low risk for the person taking the loan Even though one or two of these rules combined might not affect the game that much I commonly see people use a lot of if not most of the rules I listed. Or at least some versions of them. So it’s not surprising that when you ask if someone wants to play monopoly they grown because in 90% of cases the “custom” rules make a 1-2 hour game take 3-5 hours or more in some cases. Most people just don’t want to subject themselves to that, and I can understand them.

"If you like Monopoly then more power to you and I hope you're having a good time but also you need to be on a LIST." Fixed that for you.

Whenever my family played monopoly, we set a timer. End of the timer the one with the most money in cash and property won. No drawn out bankruptcy nonsense so I don't have those negative memories of games lasting for eons

Thanks for covering this subject! I love the sad irony of Monopoly! and im a Chicagoan, so like, its a story that is close to home.

I just hate that the Monopoly money is fake.

I'm really enjoying this type of video lately. Finding myself genuinely interested in something that I didn't even realise I needed to know.

There was a game called Anti-Monopoly years ago- not sure of what ever became of it but ironically it also involved building a monopoly of interests...

I always hoped DB would make a video like this at somepoint as it's a topic i've always been curious about. I remember watching one of the very first livestreams and asking when they were going to play Monopoly on the channel.

This is a very good video. Love home much it teached me. Not sure what I expected but it was quite entertaining. Go Wheels!

Everybody hates monopoly because my sister is a big cheat and always stuffs a couple of hundreds in her left sock.

I have no fond memories of Monopoly for exactly the reasons you state here. Also the person I played it with the most was a serial cheater, and would give themselves extra money if I left the room, so I always ended up losing.

Literally all I knew was that it was originally called The Landlord's Game, nothing else...this was really interesting! More Tom Scott-style videos like this please 😂

Does the "other" version of the landlord's game exist anywhere on rhe internet? I have a growing desire to try it out :3

Great video! I had no idea about the second, Georgist, game! 🤯 Maybe follow this up with a video of games similar to Monopoly as suggestions for people who are tired of playing it?

Will you guys consider making a video on Monsterpunk?

Monopoly is one of the reasons - the others being several other board games and my chronic bad luck - that I hated the entire concept of board games and/or dice until I was about 16, and still struggle to like them now when I'm actually trying to.

13:00 "Ooh la la, someone's getting laid in college" 🤣

An overlooked issue is that someone has to be the banker, which is an endless chore. So there's always one player who doesn't get to enjoy the game because they're doing endless transactions.

Enjoyed the video!

"There was no rulebook, it was just something you were taught." I reckon this is still true today - something like 90% of players have never actually read the rulebook themselves, according to Hasbro- hence the myriad "home rules".

Good video! I'd heard of the Landlord's Game, but didn't know about the rest of the history. Having said that - pedant's corner!

I am pretty sure monopoly is hated because our bad experience with a lot of house ruling in our childhood. I would still play monopoly, if only we play it by the rules, no house ruling!!

Then, of course, there are the "house rules" that were, more often than not, "invented" (because, y'know, no-one ever reads the rules) so that a player (usually the inventor of said rules(s)) could actually win.

Are there any hacks or house-rules you can apply to the game to make it any better? Or use the game pieces and play an altogether game with it?

Great video! Nice work. I hate Monopoly, but now it at least makes sense why.

House rules usually make the game worse, too. Also forgetting the rule about auctioning properties that someone lands on but doesn't buy.

For an excellent insight in to luck in board games and a damn good read, read The Player Of Games by Iain M. Banks.

Great video! I always suggest Tokaido over Monopoly. They both involve some randomness, but Tokaido gives you agency over what you do with your turn. They both involve limited resources and set collecting, but Tokaido offers much more opportunities for strategy. And Tokaido doesn't have a mind-numbingly long second half where you watch the winning player strongarm everyone else. I guarantee Tokaido will never end in a tableflip.

Damn you Dicebreaker! You made me learn!

Maggie: second edition Fantasy Flight: AMATEUR HOUR Mitigation of randomness is a key of good game design. Negotiation is the only "strategy" in Monopoly, leading to players being stingy or resorting to real world favors to make play " interesting (and if you have to do that, the game wasn't interesting to begin with), which is why I only collect Star Wars version for its bits and bobs.

13:52 why is she moving the houses?

My siblings and I loved playing Monopoly back when we were kids. Then again, we never played it seriously as it was meant to be played. We always had our own spins and additions to the game like loansharks, robbing the bank, gamblings (blackjack & raffles), random disasters, etc. Those things, and not taking it seriously, made it fun. The one time we tried playing it correctly with my cousins, we stopped after an hour because it was so boring and we get vengeful at whoever's winning.

Great job with the research. However, my only reason for disliking the Monopoly board game and it's many variations is the lazy creation of its many variations. Basically, they're a bunch of reskins that is released whenever some popular movie comes out that may or may not have some new rules on top of the original rules. A novelty board game in the end that produces nothing new besides pretty pictures.

Chess and checkers do not have both sides starting equivalent. One player gets the first turn. Whether or not that is an advantage or disadvantage, it is a difference in the two sides. It is essentially impossible to make a turn-based competitive game completely "fair" for lack of a better term.

I once had a Pokemon themed Monopoly set when I was a child. I had fun playing with the figurines and pretending it was one big dollhouse town. Apparently when I read the rules I was playing it wrong, but the actual game looked so boring, I didn't really care.

This video is amazing!!!

Would love to see a follow-up of recommendations for games that do similar things as Monopoly but aren't soul sucking experiences in hating your friends and family. A few things that come to mind include Chinatown, Lords of Vegas, and Machi Koro.

First time I ever tried to play Monopoly as an adult with a fully functioning brain I was almost immediately sent to jail. I'm glad my dislike for the game has a solid basis. (Also this was extremely interesting, I will always look at it differently now, thank you)

Are you not allowed to put the sponsor links in the description?

I think Monopoly is fine until around about when all the houses run out. After that it becomes a real slog, so if somebody does demand that you play it, maybe try ending it when the house supply runs dry & tot up all the owned assets at that point to determine the winner. It'll save you about 3 hours of misery. Nice hat token though.

Complaining about a game going too far on the RNG spectrum is not being a sore loser. Player's decision is the key component for making a game fun imo. I mean, some people like games with litterally zero decision making and I respect them (it's all about taste and opinion) but you can't argue with others who want to have more control over what's going on, it's definitely a valid point.

Thank You. Well put and calmly presented. Well researched and concise. I will use this to show to co-workers in the store where I work. We sell games.

Not started the video yet, but my highlight: most people don’t play the game properly. No one uses the auction rules set out in the book, and no one uses the right strategy to play. Edit: I’m a horrible person, as I love playing, and almost always win playing monopoly. I also found this super interesting! Thanks Wheels!!

Stop making me learn stuff, Wheels! ;)

i have quite a number of monopoly games. i’ve been collecting them. many of them are fun depending on if they are the trademark Monopoly game or an off brand. some have special rules and some have the rule of money in the center and goes to free parking. my group can get vicious during gameplay. but for our group it’s more about seeing who drops their poker chips or throws dice like it’s a crap game. and just about talking and shooting the breeze over cake. i will admit some games are not as good as i thought and others were better than i thought

Outstanding examination and political analysis of board games.

Monopoly is really funny in it's poor ties to reality and economical understanding. It's also funny how little it includes the government and understanding of how bad it is. And as a final comedic fat dot in the end, how the creator of monopoly ended up losing out on all the money of it, due to a monopoly someone else got on her game, via the government lol (patent/copyright)

I actually like Monopoly and learned a little bit about the history before watching this video so this should be good :). EDIT: I was right! Wonderfully infomative. Thanks so much!

Are we ribbing on Papa Hasbro? lemme call the MTG warriors!! Kidding aside. I wholeheartedly agree on the No randomness=Predictable too much randomness=frustrating

I love Monopoly ,it is great a game . I like winning ,but losing gives you information on your mistakes . Monopoly isn't just luck at all ,there are dice probabilities 7 is the most rolled number from 2 dice . Take whatever you can and do trade smartly. Luck is part of Monopoly ,but most of the time players make dumb decisions that is what you can fix .

I have to disagree on the “luck-vs-skill” argument. My dad is an accountant, and the first lesson of Monopoly I learned is “the accountant always wins”. Even when you cheat and slip yourself some extra money at the beginning of the game, the accountant ALWAYS wins. We had to homebrew some rules that basically turned it into a 3-vs-1 game to give anyone else a chance. Now the accountant just usually wins.

I think you're being a bit unfair: the main reason most people don't like monopoly is that people don't play it correctly, the fact that you can auction off property after someone passes up on it actually makes the game much quicker, and introduces strategy, because you can tactically use this to try and force other players to spend more than they can afford. I'm not saying it's a great game that is tragically misunderstood, but just that the majority of the gripes that people have, are because a game takes all evening, when instead the game should be over in an hour.

ya i never found the game very much fun anyways. even when you win evryone else is sad who wants to play a game like that

When you have anti-monopoly and monopoly mha edition

Monopoly a.k.a. Familybreaker

This game, and Risk is a No No in my home.

I saw math study video that studied if it was the best thing to buy everything. They came to the conclusion that you can upgrade your chance of winning by buying certain plots depending on the number of players around the table. Because of the odds of your rolls. Can't imagine how much boring it would be to play against someone who use this strategy.

I have Monopoly Socialism, and I really enjoy it! I'd get the original Landlord's game of i could, but in spite of the mocking tone of Monopoly Socialism, it plays less mean spirited, and works as a cooperative game!

>purely luck based Heh. Sounds like cope to me. Any game that lets you interact with other players will never be pure luck. Something like Snakes & Ladders is pure luck because you only care about your own piece. I've had shtty hands in Monopoly before and managed to trade with every single other player and win the game. What's more is that there's no rule for teaming up. Some guy just bankrupted a dude and have more properties? The rest of the landowners team up to take him down. Trade any prop to complete their ally's set for free. Trade cash to develop props. Only charging the one guy while refunding everyone in the alliance. The little guys teaming up to fight the big dude? Sounds familiar. Speaking of which, Magie's view was too zero sum. Not surprising given her beliefs. Being bankrupt doesn't mean not playing. Instead of being destitute, you can imagine it as entering a merger. Losing players at my table work together with their buyers. Returning to the social game aspect, you now have 2 or more people to negotiate with. 2 heads to think strategy. Some dude with early bad luck can win the game for his lucky, less socially skilled partner. Nothing says there can only 1 person can win. People aren't robots performing deterministic actions. Anyone assuming so can only think about taking larger pie pieces instead of making more pies. Going back to strat. Yes the dice is random, but houses aren't. It only seems random if you buy every single thing you can during your round, leaving you poor and vulnerable to even the smallest of rents. The fact that the creator thinks this is the only outcome says more about her. If you save enough money to cushion your fall, you can comfortably survive 2 3-houses property before your next pay. So, when's the right time to spend your money? When people are close to your properties. A 2d6 isn't as swingy as just 1 dice. It's has a bell curve averaging on 7. This means turning the game to risk assessment. Having 3 prop per set means there are 3 space where the opponent needs to land for you to upgrade your prop. If you want to be lenient and include 6-8 (because of the bell curve), that turns to 9 spaces. This isn't even mentioning sets themselves. Remember, you can basically get nearly any set you want if you're charismatic enough. Would you rather have 3 well developed props? 6 props in a line/corner? A cheap defensive prop + a killer set? Early rails to drain players and deny others buying and go straight to auctions? Compounding on that last point, tempo. The biggest jump to value is buying the 3rd house. You could decide to plop 3s on your set, but it goes back to the cushion dilemma. Buying less means less bang for your buck. Maybe you need to buy more to deny others potential houses. Or buy hotels to bankrupt/drain a dude 6-8 spaces away from your props. And since this is a social game, buying houses might spur others to do the same, while saving up means others can also relax. This means every player controls the tempo of the game, deciding when to build up and when to go for the throat. Would you go safe or risky? Can it go too long? Yes. If so, do house rules. Game ends after 1st bankrupt. Set a cash goal. First to reach it wins. Put a 20, 30, 40 turn limit. Or heck even put a real time limit like 1, 1.5, or 2 hours. Decide winners by cash, props, & houses. Or you can just play quickly and not sulk about how random it is while taking more than 2 minutes on your own turn or take 15 minutes on trading a non-monopoly prop. In fact, start making deals *before* your turn comes up. That way when it does, you're just signing the deal. You say Monopoly's randomness is a bad thing. I say it's actually beneficial. Being this random gives the illusion of a party game. Like beer pong. A low skill floor, skill ceiling game everyone can learn it in 5 minutes and beat long time players. Ironically, it doesn't have to be as sweaty as the 5 paragraphs above. Everyone can just stop playing if it gets boring and do other party sht like actually socializing. S&L is too simple with its randomness which is why people hated it. Monopoly has enough moving parts that you can actually influence randomness to your advantage. In short, have you ever wondered why nobody complained poker is too random? It's because if they do, they know they'll be called out as coping. Oh and eternal pessimists always construct bad economic models 🙃

Moral of the story is a man got away with patent infringement of a woman's ideas. Pretty crappy.

For a bunch of folks who say they hate Monopoly, they sure do talk about Monopoly a lot.

Easiest way to still have fun is mod it. Don't auction a property if you don't want to buy it and end the game early once all the properties are bought. Whoever then has the most money (or least money) wins. Simple changes can keep the fun and enjoyment (as well as a shorter overall game).

I don't think Monopoly deserves the disdain. I think it's quite fun, as long as you don't do anything to intentionally extend it and play according to the rules.

I'm not a fan of Monopoly, but the last part of the video falls a bit flat. "It's automatically bad because it's published by the biggest games publisher" doesn't really carry much weight.

Personally really like playing Monopoly don't understand why people don't enjoy it

I used to enjoy monopoly because it made people cry ( including evil mustace twirling). But I was shown the error of my ways and I'm a better person now.

The worst board game ever made. End of.

Honestly I dont like monopoly because i just find it boring. There is bearly and strategy in it, all you do is walk around and buy and spend stuff until one of you is broke. But now that I know the history of this game I would rather to play any other game even more now.

So the origin of Monopoly is a guy who stole another person's patented idea and implemented only half of it, the awful side that the original creator used as a bad example to criticize society. What's even more interesting is that Elizabeth Magie intended this game to be awful on purpose, and yet it because extremely popular. Interesting history lesson, it makes me despise this game even more, now also for what it represents in its creation.

There's nothing to hate in this game.. this is basically the American way of life...

Wait, there are people who are fans of being taxed?!? 🤣 .

The main reason why people hate monopoly is because the game is way too long. The real rules aren't good. Like why should you auction a property if you don't want to buy it at full price? The income tax rule of pay 10% of everything you own or $200. Which they changed this later in new Monopoly games of paying just the $200. Trading, another stupid thing in monopoly. If you play 3 players or more & somebody goes out, the person who gets all the properties mortgage has to pay the 10% on those properties whether he unmortgages them or not. The shortage of houses another stupid rule. The fact that I have to buy houses first to get a hotel. Chance cards that advance you places. Why? We already roll dice to advance to properties, why do I need cards to advance me as well? When I used to play Monopoly a couple of years ago I would play with house rules to make the game a lot shorter & even that was too long of a game. I would eliminate trades by having each player own a property set. The game would take like 2-3 hours instead of 6-8 hours.

Pretty big disconnect between title and content here. Nobody (at least not a significant part of Monopoly-haters) hates Monopoly because of its origin story, nor because Hasbro is such a big company in the tabletop space. Personally I hate Monopoly because of the lack of player agency; about the only bit in the video that did hold true to the title.

Monopoly. AKA The Conservative Party: The Game. I don't know if I hate it, I appreciate what its done for tabletop gaming but when people say about playing it I just want to introduce them to Catan, Lords of Waterdeep or Ticket to Ride instead, all much better themes and so much more enjoyable.

It’s one of the worst games ever invented.