Media Matters: Monopoly for Millennials and 7 Other Gen Y Board Games

It's hard to gain a monopoly on the elusive Millennial consumer demographic, but Hasbro is betting their Holiday profits on doing just that. The stalwart board game manufacturer set social media afire last week with the unveiling of Monopoly for Millennials, a modern adaptation of their 20th Century mainstay. Instead of winning through capitalistic accumulation of cash and property, players from the Millennial generation (aged roughly 22-38) can advance in the game by collecting a wealth of experiences, such as travel, crashing on a friend’s couch, and chowing down at the latest vegan hotspot. The game’s slogan? “Forget real estate. You can’t afford it anyway.”

True to form, Millennials have taken offense, claiming the game trades in cheap stereotypes, and makes light of the unique struggles of a generation that came of age in the shadows of global upheaval and a deep recession. While Hasbro’s execution may have missed the mark, the idea was prescient. Millennials now make up the largest generational demographic in the country, and with the elders among them now raising families and approaching middle age, it stands to reason they will soon be spending many more nights in than “experiencing” their pricey urban surroundings. Since everything that’s old will eventually become new again, now could be the moment that board games are jettisoned into the 21st Century. In the spirit of innovation that is a hallmark of the Millennial generation, I propose the following legacy games be re-imagined for Millennials as follows:

(Not) Sorry!

As in its predecessor, Sorry!, players in this Millennial adaptation compete to travel the game board fastest, puckishly stymying one another’s progress along the way. However this time around, when leapfrogging a fellow player, sending them back to Start, or otherwise negating their hard earned gains, there will be no apologies. Fun for the whole family, Not Sorry! empowers western culture’s most involved generation of parents, Baby Boomers, to play along with their Millennial spawn, reassuring them that they are completely justified in every aggressively self-serving move they make, and entirely deserving of every advantage presented them by the random draw of a card. As with snowflakes, no two Millennial game pieces are alike. However, every parental piece is made in the likeness of a helicopter, so as to swoop in and remove their offspring from the board in the event that multiple derailments prove emotionally traumatizing. Because being a Millennial means never having to say you’re sorry. 

• Number of Players: 2-4
• Age: 22-38, 53-71
• Winner: The player whose parent eventually buys the game board and installs them in the winner’s circle.

Time’s Up Twister

Time’s up for the handsy and invasive presumptuousness of traditional Twister. In that 20th Century color coded bacchanal, players are forced by the patriarchy, personified by Milton Bradley, to contort their bodies around a large plastic mat in order to touch circles of a designated color, often requiring non-consensual touching of other players. Have no fear, Millennials! Time’s Up Twister respects all of your personal spaces, social boundaries, and emotional triggers by providing separate mats for each player. To avoid any inappropriately prolonged glances that may eroticize the empowering poses in which Millennial players, historically pliant thanks to a generational devotion to hot yoga, strike during the game, each board is placed in a separate room. While a fall meant disqualification in traditional Twister, in the Millennial redux, fallen players are congratulated by their game-mates for stretching out of their comfort zone, and are encourages to vlog their reflections on the personal growth they achieved through the experience.

• Number of Players: 2 - the number of available rooms for safe spaces.
• Ages: 22-whenever the arthritis kicks in
• Winner: The first to transcend mere physical flexibility and achieve mental, emotional, and/or spiritual plasticity.

The Game of (Quarter) Life

While players of the existential classic, The Game of Life, were forced to travel the twists and turns of the game board, meeting challenges meant to simulate the trials and tribulations of life, in the the Millennial re-imagining, the journey has been modernized to mimic 21st Century existence. Players remain on a single square, staring down at a 4-inch screen providing digital summations of existence, while the board moves and life passes by around them.

As in the original, players can still collect currency, but instead of cash, direct deposits can be managed through the handheld devices, and the majority of the currency is automatically deducted to pay for said device and the apps needed to maximize its functionality. The oh-so Gilded Age “Millionaire Tycoon” status achieved by successful players in the legacy version is replaced with the Millennial-chic “Tech Billionaire.” The Tech Billionaire’s fortune will grow every time rank and file players perform a function on their digital device. The intrepid Tech Billionaire may even empower foreign enemies to undermine western democracy, and receive a pass from his or her Millennial game-mates because they wear the same gray t-shirt throughout the game.

• Number of Players: 2 - All the Russian Bots On Facebook
• Ages: 22-38
• Winner: First to successfully fake own death to get out of student loan debt.

Password Reset

Based on the ‘60s game show, the original Password was a rollicking group game, in which a player had to prompt teammates to guess a specific word, using only one-word clues. In this digital age update, modeled on one of the most universal experiences of 21st Century life, players must reset the long forgotten password for an online account using only the security questions which they allegedly answered when they set up the account, probably in a fit of drunken impulsivity, to get the frequent flyer miles promised if they registered that day.

Watch your friends' aggitation grow into utter consternation as they try desperately to remember whether the urine soaked animal costume their high school sowed back together every homecoming as "mascot" was supposed be a bulldog or a bobcat. Test your powers of diplomacy when faced with having to name your best friend at a game night including at least 4 people who fully expect to hear their name. Learn who your true friends are by seeing who believes you when you swear that you named Kevin Spacey as your favorite actor in the early 2000s, and haven’t logged into that account in years. The best part? The game never gets old, because no matter how vehemently you swear that this time you will write down your password and put it in a safe place, when it comes time to play again, somehow it will have mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth.

• Number of Players: 3 or More
• Ages: 22 - Whatever age you are by the time you finally finish resetting all your passwords.
• Winner: Your friend from college who’s been “off the grid” since ’07.

Cannabis Land 

Like its predecessor, Candy Land, Cannabis Land is perfect for players with no reading and minimal counting skills, due primarily to the THC induced impairment of players rather than age. Players draw cards containing images of one of six cannabis-based products, and advance to the corresponding “dispensary” on the game board. Ironically enough, the, er, higher a player advance on the Cannabis Land board, the more likely they are to take a detour to Candy Land. Or Dorito Land. Or White Castle. In a slight variation from the original, rather than drawing a single card per turn, players are encouraged to take two and pass.

• Number of Players: Who’s counting?
• Ages: 21 and up, with a valid medical card.
• Winner: Last player to get distracted by a Scooby Doo re-run, Bob Marley bootleg, or the contours of the wallpaper, and forget all about the game.

Risk Averse

In this enlightened re-imagining, the draconian aggression of its imperialistic predecessor, Risk, wanderlusting Millennial gamers eschew colonialism for casual globetrotting. Who needs the stress and grueling work hours of building and defending a global empire, when you can leverage your travels to gain valuable life experience by sampling the great wines of the world, Yelping youth hostiles, and spicing up your Instagram feed with not-at-all-exploitive selfies of you posing with bewildered natives in totally organic moments of cross-cultural bonding? And unlike a mighty conquistador, the intrepid recreational traveler can always return the their parents' house between rounds of the game to catch up on Netflix and satisfy that fast food jones, because amazingly enough, despite galavanting across Mexico and Italy, the only place to find a Mexican pizza appears to be Taco Bell.

• Number of Players: 2-6
• Ages: 22-38
• Winner: The one who doesn’t end up in an Asian prison camp for broaching a border to get that “perfect Snap.”

Checkers

This classic remain largely the same, as Millennials enjoy the fast pace and rapid advancement of the game. However, despite decrying the game’s oppressive monarchical hierarchy, eager Millennial players tend to ditch it for a more egalitarian start-up game (with a detour to Cannabis Land in between) if they haven’t been promoted to King within four moves.

• Number of Players: 2
• Ages: 32-38 (Younger Millennials may find the gendered nature of the game problematic? Should non-binary royalty be forced to identify as a “King” in order to be fully accepted in the game?)
• Winner: Nobody. You are frittering away a Saturday night in the prime of your youth playing a game your grandfather thinks is a bit square.

Media Matters is an exploration of the news of the day, and what it can teach us about communications, contemporary culture, and life in the digital age.

About the Author

Jeffrey Harvey is a Washington, DC based writer and content strategist with experience in broadcasting, strategic communications, public relations, marketing and media analysis. He has written prolifically on subjects including technology, healthcare and arts and entertainment. His original one act play, Coffee won a staged reading at the Kennedy Center in the Source Theater Festival.