No Dice, No Money, No Cheating. Are You Sure This Is Monopoly?

“It seems that there’s a computer that makes most of the decisions for you — it changes a lot of the rules, it removes a lot of the skill,” said Ken Koury, a competitive Monopoly player and coach who informally settles rule disputes for others. “With this computer, I’m wondering what’s left for the player to decide — is it they just keep pushing buttons and wait for someone to win?” There are a couple fascinating points discussed in this article, such as the shortening of attention spans making old-school Monopoly almost obsolete and the concept of having the computer tell people what to do, rather than engage in the process of negotiation to figure things out for themselves – players don’t think, they obey. (NYT, Free Reg. Req.)