''Anti-Monopoly'' is a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a co ...

made by

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different ...

Professor Ralph Anspach in response to ''

Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

''. The idea of an anti-monopoly board game dates to 1903 and the original Monopoly created by Lizzie Magie.

Background and history

Anspach created ''Anti-Monopoly'' in part as a response to the lessons taught by the mainstream game, which he believed created the impression that

monopolies A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

were something desirable. His intent was to demonstrate how harmful monopolies could be to a free-enterprise system, and how antitrust laws work to curtail them in the real world. The game was originally to be produced in 1973 as ''Bust the Trust'', but the title was changed to ''Anti-Monopoly''. It has seen multiple printings and revisions since 1973. In 1984, a new version appeared as ''Anti-Monopoly II''; this version was updated and re-released in 2005 without the numerical designation. The game is currently still in print, and is produced and distributed worldwide by University Games.

Gameplay

The original ''Anti-Monopoly'' game begins with the board in a monopolised state, effectively the result of a completed ''Monopoly'' game. Instead of real estate and public utilities, properties in ''Anti-Monopoly'' are individual businesses that have been brought under single ownership. Players take the role of federal case workers bringing indictments against each monopolised business in an attempt to return the state of the board to a

free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...

system. In ''Anti-Monopoly II'' individual players choose to play either by monopolist or competitor rules at the beginning of the game. This version plays more like the actual ''Monopoly'' game in that it is based on the buying and selling of real estate. Among other differences, competitors charge lower rents and can improve any property they own at any time, while monopolists must own at least two properties in a group before building houses on them and charge much higher rents.

Trademark lawsuit

In 1974, Parker Brothers sued Anspach over the use of the "''Monopoly''" name, claiming trademark infringement. While preparing his legal defense, Anspach became aware of ''Monopoly''s history prior to

Charles Darrow Charles Brace Darrow (August 10, 1889 – August 28, 1967) was an American board game designer who is credited as the inventor of the board game Monopoly. Although the original idea for the game came from Lizzie Magie's '' The Landlord's Game'', ...

's sale of the game to Parker in 1935, and how it had evolved from

Elizabeth Magie Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips (''née'' Magie; May 9, 1866 – March 2, 1948) was an American game designer, writer, feminist, and Georgist. She invented '' The Landlord's Game'', the precursor to ''Monopoly'', to illustrate teachings of the progre ...

's original '' Landlord's Game'' into the version Darrow appropriated. Anspach based his defense on the grounds that the game itself existed in effectively the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

before Parker purchased it, and therefore Parker's trademark claim on it should be nullified. The case dragged on for ten years, with numerous appeals and overturned judicial verdicts, until Anspach and Parker ultimately reached a settlement, permitting him to continue using the name ''Anti-Monopoly'' and distributing the game. For a time during the dispute, the game was marketed as simply "Anti."

Related games

* ''Syndrome'', a similar game in that it inverts the objective of ''Monopoly'' but with the aim of giving away money and property, was described by

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

author Philip K. Dick in his short story "

War Game A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to s ...

". Selchow and Righter published the game as ''Go for Broke'' in 1965. * '' Class Struggle'', a board game based on Marxism, created by

Bertell Ollman Bertell Ollman (born April 30, 1935, in Milwaukee) is a professor of politics at New York University. He teaches both dialectical methodology and socialist theory. He is the author of several academic works relating to Marxist theory. Ollman att ...

Plocek, Keith
"The Story of Class Struggle, America's Most Popular Marxist Board Game,"
''Mental Floss'' (Aug. 12, 2014). * In

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, where the original game was and still is very popular, two more versions of ''Anti-Monopoly'' were created and popular in the late 1970s and 1980s: ''Provopoli - Wem gehört die Stadt'' ("To whom the city belongs"), where

squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

take over parts of the town, and ''Ökopoli'' ("Ecopoly") where the objective is to take over the town from polluters.

References

External links