MR MONOPOLY
When Neil Scallan’s seven-year-old nephew, Harry, beat him at Monopoly last Christmas, it was the first time he’d played the game for 20 years. Which is surprising when you consider he owns 2,545 sets.
The 47-year-old collects Monopoly games but never opens the boxes, getting his pleasure from “the hunt, the finding and the winning” of an elusive edition rather than rolling the dice and passing ‘Go’.
Since buying his first set as a holiday souvenir 11 years ago, he has spent more than £ 120,000 pursuing his hobby. This summer, he broke the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of Monopoly memorabilia thanks to his 1,677 different individual sets (he has another 868 duplicates).
The lure for Neil, who lives near Crawley in West Sussex and works in logistics at Heathrow, is in Monopoly’s variety. He has sets from 72 countries and limited editions made by companies including Coca Cola and Heinz. The box of his Texas version is shaped like the American state, while the Dodgers baseball team collectors’ edition is round.
His favourite sets are a commemorative edition released to mark the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997 and a competition prize produced by Kinder in Germany themed around their chocolate. “No one has run out of ideas yet for Monopoly,” says Neil, who regards the game as the “antique of the future”. “It’s unlimited what you can do with it.” particular type of board game was developed for children in Britain at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.
Designed to be both educational and entertaining, the beautifully illustrated race games – where the aim was to reach the finish first – were themed around topics including morals, good behaviour, history, geography, science and maths. Usually played under the watchful eye of an adult, they came with a booklet detailing the rules and the knowledge children were expected to acquire during play, perhaps about a particular king or country.
The design for these games evolved from the pattern of the Italian game Gioco dell’Oca (Game of the Goose). Popular in the 16th century, it is “recognised as the first modern race game,” says Catherine, and provided the template for European race games that followed. Players raced round a spiral track with spaces containing rewards and forfeits. The ‘death’ square sent a player
back to the start. “It was supposedly Napoleon’s favourite game,” says Catherine.
SNAKES & LADDERS
The emphasis on education gave way to a focus on family fun. By the end of the 19th century, there was an explosion in board games, which peaked before World War I stalled production. New manufacturing and printing techniques allowed games to be mass produced, and so available and affordable to more people, at a time when the prosperous middle class had more leisure time.
Popular new games included Ludo and Snakes and Ladders, both derived from early Indian games played by adults. The Indian Moksha Patam, which was adapted into Snakes & Ladders, was “quite a religious game. The idea was that you were travelling through life, meeting obstacles to reaching nirvana or heaven,” says Catherine. Snakes were the “dangers and temptations in life” that you can’t always avoid, while ladders symbolised virtues.
As time went on, illustrations on British versions of the game became more child-friendly and the moral dimension faded out following World War II.
THE GAMES OF THE FUTURE
Today, advances in technology mean we can play Scrabble on a mobile app rather than a table top but we’re far from bored with physical board games, even if we only play once a year at Christmas. We’re also playing away from home more – board game cafes are on the rise, many pubs are well stocked with games to entertain their customers and dedicated fans travel to games expos.
Designers are tapping into our desire to be social in a digital world by creating games that involve players more. Pandemic, released in 2007, is a board game that requires players to work together, rather than in competition, to find cures for diseases. “There had been other cooperative games but the success of Pandemic led to a lot of other people designing similar sorts of cooperative games,” says Catherine.
The appeal of playing games with friends and family seems to be universal. Today, Monopoly is published in 47 languages and sold in 114 countries – that’s despite its “fundamental errors”. ‘Game Plan: Board Games Rediscovered’ is at the V&A Museum of Childhood in London 8 October 2016 - 23 April 2017. Entry is free.