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The Monopoly board game. Rick Bowmer/AP hide caption
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Rick Bowmer/AP
A new edition of Monopoly was unveiled this month, and let's just say it's not your grandfather's Monopoly game.
Park Place and Boardwalk have been replaced on the board by Rocket Launch Pad and the Moon. But perhaps most notably in this version, Monopoly money is no more. It's replaced by an app.
Well, isn't everything these days?
Players download a Monopoly mobile banking app to log all the properties they buy, and how much game money they have. No more need to say, "$1,800 for that?" and put down two marigold $500 dollar bills, 4 beige $100 bills, and then count out the rest in blue 50's, and pink 5's.
Now there's an app for all that!
My initial reaction to this new Monopoly-by-app was to think: that's what's going wrong with this world. Everything has gone onscreen, including fun, games, and friendships. A game that used to bring family and friends together over a table to talk, laugh, groan, and show youngsters how to add things up, could now just mean more screen time.
But I asked Justin Wolfers, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, what he thought about the implications. He believed I was being sentimental.
"Paper money is the past," he told me. "It's inconvenient, dirty, insecure, aids tax evasion, and does nothing that Venmo can't. My students don't use cash, so they don't understand that part of the game anyway.
"Digital payments are secure," he continued. "They leave a paper trail, and when I go for a swim at the beach, I don't have to worry that someone will nick a twenty-dollar bill from my flip flops.
"Should that spell the end of Monopoly money? Yes!" he asked and answered. "I mean we could have a game with cash, and people in green visors writing down numbers in dusty financial ledgers. But what's the point? If history's your game, join a civil war re-enactment group."
I guess that's how a scholar says, "Okay, boomer!"
The Hasbro company says their new Monopoly will be out in August. And since you'll be on your smart-phone for the game, you should be careful not to open the wrong app. You could buy Atlantic or Ventnor Avenue in real money on, say, Venmo.
