Why thousands of board games are buried beneath Mankato

June 23, 2023 9:35 AM

Somewhere beneath southern Minnesota lie the remnants of about 40,000 board games once created and sold as an antiestablishment alternative to mega-selling Monopoly. Manufactured in Mankato, the game Anti-Monopoly found success in the mid-1970s amid America's rampant inflation and institutional distrust. Then, much like in Monopoly, the ownership class quashed the competition.
posted by Etrigan (16 comments total)

Anspach played Monopoly in Czechoslovakia as a child, Pilon wrote. Later, in Berkeley in the early 1970s, he played with his wife and sons. But with an oil crisis developing and consumer suffering on the rise, the game's message seemed less fun.

"The board game rewarded something in play that hurt people in reality," Anspach thought, according to Pilon's account. Anspach was struck by a realization: "He could create an anti-monopoly game of his own." With help from his family, he set out developing a game that rewarded breaking up monopolies, not building them.

Argh, that was the exact point of the original game!

In 1903, Georgist Lizzie Magie applied for a patent on a game called The Landlord's Game with the object of showing that rents enriched property owners and impoverished tenants. She knew that some people would find it hard to understand the logic behind the idea, and she thought that if the rent problem and the Georgist solution to it were put into the concrete form of a game, it might be easier to demonstrate.

Parker Brothers even initially reject Magie's offer of selling them the game for it being "too political". It was only later after some complex legal (and illegal) twists and turns that it morphed into the anodyne modern Monopoly game.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:02 AM on June 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

I'm a big board game fan from a board game family. I played Anti-Monopoly a couple times as a kid. I was probably in the 7-9 year old range. It might seem challenging to make a game as boring as Monopoly even worse, but they managed: Basically the gameplay was very similar and you lacked the cool tokens. At least in my case the pedagogic and ideological value was about zero.

I didn't understand IP protections back then but I remember being a little confused how you could just make the same game, give it a different name, and sell it. Since then I've assumed it was an "Oh, you can't copyright mechanics" thing so the story of lawsuits in the article was interesting.

(I am sad that all the buried Atari ETs don't have a better board game to play in their underground necropolis.)

I found a short video review of the game here if anyone is curious about the gameplay.
posted by mark k at 10:24 AM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

My favorite anti-Monopoly variant is the Mad Magazine board game. It's laid like Monopoly, but you travel the board counter-clockwise and try to LOSE all your money. You roll the dice left-handed, and get paid if you accidentally use your right hand. The entire gameplay is based on luck. You're obviously already rolling dice, but in addition the cards you draw will randomly have you swap money with someone, or perform a silly stunt to win or lose cash. It's a lot of fun, and because there is zero skill involved, it's hard to be a sore loser or sore winner, unless you're just a jerk, but who plays games with those people?
posted by mrphancy at 10:53 AM on June 23, 2023 [11 favorites]

I've seen these in thrift stores quite a bit. Not sure they really have any value, (certainly not as a game to play), and have never bothered to pick one up.

EDIT: Last one that sold on BGG was "good" condition, so probably not very good, and went for $5...
posted by Windopaene at 11:07 AM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh god, my damn mom got us this stupid game, when all we wanted to do was play Monopoly!(See also: the Sunshine Family dolls instead of a Barbie doll.)

We wanted to PLAY and HAVE FUN and instead we were being taught LESSONS.

I'm only a little bitter about it. ;)
posted by BlahLaLa at 11:11 AM on June 23, 2023 [4 favorites]

We wanted to PLAY and HAVE FUN and instead we were being taught LESSONS.

See Saki, "The Toys of Peace."
posted by doctornemo at 11:22 AM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I grew up in Mankato, and I've heard of this game, but I had no idea it was created (and buried) there. Thanks!
posted by Handstand Devil at 12:27 PM on June 23, 2023

I had it … I remember it was really boring.
posted by thirdring at 2:18 PM on June 23, 2023

I have it!
I inherited it from the Berkeley CA street gifting system where people just put items no longer in use to the curb. Other notable gifts included a Nikon dSLR and an Osprey backpack (Thank you Woolsey Ave). A favorite was 31 unopened cans of craft beer placed kindly in a plastic bin (thank you Cedar). Or the time I needed a theracane but refused to pay REI prices for it. The powers that be knew and delivered a new one, tag still on, to a curb near the Tarea Hall Berkeley Public Library branch within a few days (Thank you Tarea Hall).

Game play is only marginally more boring than Monopoly original. The original really is extremely boring. If you get over the “But Monopoly…”-reflex it’s slightly more complex than the Original to keep you occupied and decreases the infinite regress of lapping “Go.”

Yes, Berkeley is that Berkeley at times.
posted by rubatan at 3:36 PM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Anti-Monopoly is the liberal antitrust critique of Monopoly, but the Marxist critique is the game Class Struggle, which was actually distributed by the game company Avalon Hill in the late 1970s. The game was invented by a Marxist professor Bertell Ollman, who wrote a book Class Struggle Is The Name of the Game: Confessions of a Marxist Businessman, based on his experiences marketing the game.
posted by jonp72 at 4:31 PM on June 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

Okay, well I did thrift Class Struggle. An earlier version than the Avalon Hill one. Looks dreadful, but, I'm kind of into original publisher versions. Also looks like a bad game, but according to the back of the box, it is recommended by the "Bored of Education", lol
posted by Windopaene at 5:54 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

The point of the original wasn't to reward breaking up monopolies, it was the exact opposite.

The message of the game was "monopolies are bad," but the way it taught this was by rewarding players for trying to create a monopoly and, eventually, demonstrating to everyone at the table (winners and losers) that once someone has created a monopoly, they cannot be dethroned.

From what I'm gathering, Anti-Monopoly started out with the assumption, "okay, everyone at the table already knows monopolies are bad, now let's play a game where instead of winning by being the bad guy, you win by being the good guy."
posted by Bugbread at 6:39 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

This is interesting to read as I sit in a rental room in Columbus OH during Origins Game Fair 23....
posted by hearthpig at 8:38 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh man, a Marxist Avalon Hill game? I bet those rules are fucking awesome to read
posted by Sauce Trough at 11:59 AM on June 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

If anyone wants to see what BoardGameGeek has to say:

Anti-Monopoly

Anti-Monopoly 2

Anti-Monopoly 3 (!)
posted by egypturnash at 8:30 PM on June 24, 2023

I grew up with both Anti-Monopoly and the Mad Magazine game! We had all kinds of weird board games.
posted by limeonaire at 8:06 AM on June 26, 2023