From: njs@cbnewsh.cb.att.com (nicholas.j.sauer)
Subject: Re: Monopoly Stock Exchange
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 15:23:42 GMT
Keywords: expansion

In article <10996@cis.rand.org>, urban@cis.rand.org (Michael Urban) writes:
>
>Thanks for posting this.  

No problem.

>I wonder if the folklorish Free Parking
>rule is the result of imperfect memory of this expansion on the
>part of adults who had seen or played with it as a child.  

That was also my guess after seeing this expansion.

>If this
>were the case, we would expect to find that people started playing
>with the Free Parking bonus sometime roughly in the mid-50s.  I
>have not been following alt.folklore.urban lately...
>
>I also wonder why Parker has not published this very inexpensive
>and marketably gimmicky expansion in forty years?

Actually, 54 years.  The expansion bore the copyright date 1938 on it.
Why PB hasn't reissued it is an absolute mystery to me.  Particularly,
in 1985 when they were doing all this 50th anniversary stuff.  The thing
that kills me is that the "tin can" commemorative edition (yeah, I just
have sucker written all over my face) rule book actually has a picture 
containing the thing in it.  There is no reference to it in the text on
the facing page other than a note telling what it is in a listing of items
in the photograph.  So, instead, for the 50th anniversary we get crap like
Advance to Boardwalk and Free Parking games.  Actually, I really shouldn't
call Free Parking crap until I play it at least once but, Advance to Boardwalk
was no gem.  

I would guess the reason is that PB, being a megacorp, is completely out of
touch with the "hardcore" gamer market.  This is because they have fallen into
the same sort of gigantic market as television and are trying to appeal to a
"lowest common denominator" type game player rather than people like you and
me who have a more specialized interest in games.  So, any sort of game they
put out (while it will sell to a larger audience) will not appeal to someone
who has a "broader" taste in games.  I should state that this is all just
speculation on my part and only based on my subjective view of the US game
industry.  I agree that the Stock Market expansion would sell well but, I
don't think PB definition of "sell well" would match ours enough to get them
to reissue it.

>Anyone have the tools to calculate if the additional Advance To Stock
>Market cards skew the probabilities of landing on properties in an
>interesting way?  In particular, the oranges (St. James etc. in the
>USA) might lose their position as best return on investment.

I think in the standard game that Free Parking is the third most landed on
space in the game (counting effects of Advance to... cards and everything).
So, I would imagine that these six cards would jump it up to number one 
pretty easily.  The above statistical info came from the Monopoly book if I
remember correctly.  I would not recommend this book too strongly though.  The
author (or is it authoress) presents a chapter or two on the Monopoly rules
with the view that she is providing official answers.  Unfortunately, in at
least one case her answer is completely in contradiction to the actual rules
(which, ironically enough, are printed at the end of the book).  She also
provides other answers which I would say clearly fall into the "house rule"
category and, again, have no text in the rules to support her "elaboration".

Nick Sauer