Monopoly Contest is Rigged!

So while I was scheduling my games of Twilight Imperium 3rd edition and Nexus Ops for ConQuestSF 2006, I noticed a link to visit the Hasbro website to help their designers come up with new properties for their new edition of Monopoly to come out this year called Monopoly - Here and Now. This is supposed to deal with all the major population centers in the present day United States and have one monument per city shown on their respective property title deed.

So the contest gives you three choices per city... right.

You tell me which of these you would choose to represent a given city in America.

Ready?

San Francisco - The Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Ave., or Fisherman's Wharf?

Gimme a break! Who is NOT going to pick the Golden Gate? Sure enough, I vote for it and surprise! 80% voted for it. Circus Fantasticus! What else can fail to impress me today....

I know, let's try Las Vegas! -- The Las Vegas Strip, Tropicana Blvd., Hoover Dam?

Contest or joke? You decide!

It's gets better... get a load o'Phoenix -- Camelback Mtn., Copper Square, Desert Botanical Gardens. Now, talk about desperate! Phoenix is so devoid of modern wonders they had to scrape up this panoply of mediocrity. Camelback Mtn. got 78%. I never heard of it, I guess all the locals voted for it. Looks like a lump of orange rock to me.

Here's a puzzler even Klik and Klak from Car Talk would be hard pressed to solve: Seattle - Pioneer Square, Pike Place Market, or Puget Sound. Where the hell is the Space Needle you dopes! If you can add in the Gateway Arch for St. Louis (and that got a whopping 95% cuz what else can you name in St. Louis?) you can certainly make room for the Space Needle in Seattle. What about Mt. Ranier? You put in Brokeback, er excuse me, Camelback Mountain for Phoenix. Not exactly man-made is it? Hasbro is a confederacy of dimwits (you thought I was gonna say 'dunces' didn't ya?)

I'm glad I hate Monopoly. Because this so-called public constest is so Hasbro-ized it's sick. Hasbro is to gaming what Microsoft is to operating systems. The Borg!

Anyway, if you wanna waste your time at the Hasbro site, do me a favor and look at the votes then vote for the underdog at each city. That way their pre-made tokens and cards for the Golden Gate will either have to be trashed and reprinted as Fisherman's Wharf complete with reeking whiff of seafood (which can cost the company a pretty penny) or make up some prevarications about how the contest was 'broken' or sabotaged by 'hackers', or they'll simply fudge the numbers to reflect what their ad agency already calculated last August during the company's 'creativity' session.

Think I'll play some Nexus Ops, instead.... (oops, that's Avalon Hill/Wizards of the Coast/Milton Bradley/Hasbro Inc.)