PAWTUCKET, R.I. – Yes they did. Toy and game behemoth Hasbro announced today that it will be releasing an exclusive version of its all-time family favorite board game Monopoly in light of President Obama’s recent economic efforts.

The game, dubbed ‘Obamanopoly’, will feature many of the original’s longstanding elements like property spaces, board layout and a bank but with major rule changes celebrating the President’s newly launched policies.

Now kids can redistribute wealth, just like the President

One major twist: instead of buying properties, houses and hotels from the bank, players will now be able to finance them through a Mortgage Lender (an offshoot of the game’s Federal Bank), paying off each purchase in small installments stretched across 30 game ‘turns’.

“Instead of just a couple of hours, families can now enjoy literally months, years – heck, even unlimited playtime. It’s the game that keeps on giving!” exclaims Shrilly Bettercakes, Vice President of Fun! at Hasbro subsidiary Parker Brothers, makers of Monopoly.

Other changes from the original game include:

Foreclosures – Instead of mortgaging properties, players can simply stop paying on loans, while still earning full rent values.

GO – Changed to HOPE. When a player lands on or passes this space, they will collect a $2,000 ‘tax break’ and get two to twelve extra turns, depending on the dice roll.

Jail/Go to Jail – Jail is renamed ‘Gitmo’ and is therefore closed, effectively a free space. The ‘Go to Jail’ space is now a ‘Yes We Can’ space that instructs players to print between two and twelve $1,000 bills using the game’s added rubber stamp U.S. Treasury Printing Press and stack of blank bills, depending on the dice roll.

“You’ll never go bankrupt again!” Bettercakes replied to questions as to purpose of the added game pieces.

Free Parking – Changed to ‘Free Housing’, granting anyone lucky enough to land on the space freedom from all debts to the Federal Bank.

Chance and Community Chest Cards – Now Called ‘Change’ and ‘Entitlement’ cards respectively.

Examples include a Change card that forces the player with the most money to pay a $10,000 tax break to all other players and an Entitlement card that grants the player with the least amount of property their choice of half of the properties owned by the richest player.

For now, both Hasbro and Parker Brothers are remaining mum as to the shapes of the player pieces as well as property names, including the Railroad spaces, Water Works and Electric Company spaces.

As for the Income Tax and Luxury Tax spaces, Ms. Bettercakes tells us that “the player with the most money who lands on these spaces must pay fifty percent of their assets to the Federal Bank.”

Originally posted 2009-03-04 19:40:37. Republished by Blog Post Promoter