The First Edition Of Monopoly (1906)

[admin]

Monopoly's first creator is almost impossible to know because it was informally played by many people with their own boards and rules, until a lady patented it under "The Landlord's Game". But later on Parker Bros claimed it as their own and began suing anyone else who had any resemblance to the game, which everyone knew wasn't true. There were a few people who stood against them, but many gave in to the lawsuits and quit. Ultimately, if I remember correctly, the courts ruled that The Landlord's Game was the original, but Parkers had become a powerhouse at that point and dominated the competition, becoming the sole owner of the game you know today.

tldr: Monopoly became a monopoly

[admin]

The original version was designed by Lizzie Magie to illustrate the pitfalls of monopolies, She was from a political party (Georgists) that was against monopolies and advocated a type of property tax to remedy them. She created the game to show how easily capitalism could be manipulated and ultimately concentrate wealth to one person. It was really good at showing that, but people loved the aspect of becoming wealthy and winning

There was also a cooperative version, in which the players worked together to achieve certain goals. The purpose was to demonstrate that unregulated monopolies ruined things for everyone else.