Parker Brothers has announced that a new version of its widely popular board game, Monopoly, will be in stores by Christmas 2009. The new game, Bailopoly, is believed to feature several new twists from the original.
“For instance, in Bailopoly, all the money is distributed to the players at the beginning of the game,” said the spokesman, “until there is nothing left in the bank.”
The spokesman explained that as players proceed around the board, they are permitted to purchase houses and hotels instantly, and to improve any property they buy, without having to wait until they’ve purchased the other properties in that group.
“When players land on a square labeled ‘Subprime Loans,’ they may purchase as many houses or hotels as they wish, paying the bank as little as $1 for every $30 dollars of improvements players purchase,” the spokesman explained. “The bank collects those dollars and issues certificates, whose value players may bid for when they land on the squares labeled ‘Derivatives.’”
The object of the game is to purchase the maximum number of properties players can acquire with their cash, and then sit back and live off their ever-increasing investments.
When a player lands on another player’s improved property but does not have the cash to pay the rent, the player is allowed to cash in as many of the derivative certificates that it owns in order to raise sufficient cash from the bank. But since the bank never possessed the cash to back up the value of the derivative certificates it was issuing, the bank announces it is in default and refuses to pay out any more cash.
Players unable to redeem derivatives to pay the rents, are then forced to foreclose on their own real property to satisfy its debt. But before the player who survives all the other foreclosures is declared the winner, any bankrupt player can shout, “bailout!”
“When a player shouts ‘bailout,’ the bank is allowed to print as much money as is required to sustain all the other players in the game indefinitely,” the spokesman explained.
Bailopoly comes with its own miniature printing press and engraving plates to print the cash. Parker Brothers says that its Classic Edition will offer the special feature of printing actual U.S. currency.
“The company feels that by the time that edition is available, U.S. currency will be far less expensive to provide for the game than our own traditional Monopoly money,” the spokesman noted.
The spokesman said the game can only end when a player lands on the square labeled ‘China Calls Its Loans.’
“At that point every player in the game goes to jail, unless a player holds the ‘Ruth Madoff Get Out of Jail Free’ card, in which case the player is allowed to keep all his or her assets and retire to a country estate in France,” the spokesman said.
The spokesman confirmed that Bailopoly will be in “whatever stores are still open for business by Christmas.”
