From Peter David's blog:
Monopoly alert: Spread the word
While attending Toyfair, I found out that Hasbro is putting together an international version of Monopoly, and instead of street names on the board, there will be city names. The color coding remains the same: The most valuable real estate will be on blue spots, for instance (normally occupied by Broadway and Park Place), and then green, yellow and so on. There is currently a vote going on that is open to anyone in the world with a computer, and you can vote once a day for up to ten cities. The top vote getters will be on Broadway and Park Place, and the rest will be apportioned to the remainder of the real estate.
Now how, you may ask, is the United States faring in this international voting? The answer: Miserably. Of the twenty eight properties on this quintessentially American game, only two US cities are making any kind of showing, and neither is in prime real estate. New York is #8 (relegated to the much less tony yellow section of the board), while, Las Vegas is an abysmal #23. What's number one, you may ask? The most popular international city?
Istanbul.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Personally, I think this is an abysmal state of affairs. Istanbul the number one city of international Monopoly? The best thing one can say about Istanbul is that it's a catchy song covered by "They Might Be Giants." But "New York, New York" is practically an anthem.
According to the woman at Hasbro I spoke to, the website where the voting is going on--www.monopoly.com--is getting 10,000 votes a day. That's not all that much. A concerted web effort can turn this around.
Obviously I want to see New York nestled in the top spot, with more US cities occupying as many of the rest of the valuable properties as possible. Knee-jerk patriotism? Unreasonable nationalism? Well...yeah. You got a problem with that? If the residents of freaking Turkey should be allowed that indulgence, so should I.
We've only got until February 28th to get it done, so spread the word to all and sundry. Feel free to repost this anywhere and everywhere.
PAD
Hmm. . .not sure I care whether New York is the top spot, but Istanbul?
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3 comments:
cool! I'm totally going to vote for Toronto. Like it'll matter :)
Could be worse. At least it's not Constantinople.
I can't believe I typed that.
As a New Yorker- I voted for Amsterdam first.
;-)
Though to be frank there's a part of me that REALLY feels that Jerusalem and Vatican City( which is NOT one of the cities you can vote for) should be park place and boardwalk. As they don't have vatican city I voted for Rome.
And yeah I also voted for Toronto, to share some of the love.
And darn them... they took the 'leader board' off line. Prolly do to people like PAD checking every day and trying to stuff the ballot box.
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