Twenty years ago I made "Micropoly", a board game about Microsoft's monopoly. The company names on the properties are a bit dated by now!

https://web.archive.org/web/20001018211021/http://www.microp...

Here's the board:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010615183227/http://www.microp...

And this is the XML file that defined the board, properties, utilities, cards, etc, which were generated by a Perl script and some PostScript:

https://donhopkins.com/home/micropoly

<CHANCECARD TITLE="Download">
<IMAGE X="130" Y="70" SCALE="0.55" EPSFILE="graphics/gatespie.eps"/>
<TEXT X="10" Y="40" SIZE="10">Go directly to Reinstall Windows.</TEXT>
<TEXT X="10" Y="25" SIZE="10">Do not pass Start,</TEXT>
<TEXT X="10" Y="10" SIZE="10">do not collect $200.</TEXT>
</CHANCECARD>

<CORNERS>
<CORNER NAME="Start Menu" INDEX="0" NAME1="START" NAME2="MENU" NAME3="" CAPTION1="COLLECT" CAPTION2="$200 SALARY" CAPTION3="AS YOU PASS" IMAGE="DrawMicropolyStartMenuCorner"/>
<CORNER NAME="Reinstall Windows" INDEX="1" NAME1=" REINSTALL" NAME2=" WINDOWS" NAME3="" CAPTION1="JUST" CAPTION2="REBOOTING" CAPTION3="" IMAGE="DrawMicropolyReinstallWindowsCorner"/>
<CORNER NAME="Free Software" INDEX="2" NAME1=" FREE" NAME2=" SOFTWARE" NAME3="" CAPTION1="" CAPTION2="" CAPTION3="" IMAGE="DrawMicropolyFreeSoftwareCorner"/>
<CORNER NAME="Goto Reinstall" INDEX="3" NAME1=" CORRUPTED" NAME2=" REGISTRY" NAME3="" CAPTION1=" GOTO" CAPTION2=" REINSTALL" CAPTION3="" IMAGE="DrawMicropolyCrashAndReinstallCorner"/>
</CORNERS>

Micropoly

The Microsoft Monopoly Game

Micropoly is the Microsoft Monopoly Game! It's a parody of Microsoft that's fun to play, a free board game based the rules of Anti-Monopoly, and a political statement protected under the First Amendment.

This web site exists to freely distribute the full set of graphics and rules for Micropoly, in the "open source" spirit of the original folk game monopoly invented by an Atlantic City Quaker woman.

You are encouraged to download the graphics, print out copies of the game set for yourself and friends, and have fun playing Micropoly!

The Goals of the Micropoly Project:

To make a political statement about the effect of Microsoft's monopoly on the economy.

To raise awareness of the original folk game monopoly invented by Quakers and illegitimately patented and pirated by Parker Brothers.

To promote the alternative Anti-Monopoly rules, invented by Ralph Anspach in 1973, that teach why monopolies are bad.

To distribute the graphics and rules of Micropoly as a free "open source" game, true to the spirit of the Quaker who originally invented monopoly.

To develop a computerized version of monopoly, that can be customized with any local theme and artwork, and played over the Internet.

To imitate life imitating art imitating life imitating art, and so forth.

Micropoly synergistically illustrates several important points, by drawing parallels between the time of the Great Depression and the end of the Twentieth Century:

Monopolies are bad, and competition is good.

The original rules of monopoly require everyone to play as a monopolist. That's why companies like Microsoft and Parker Brothers like the lesson it teaches: being a monopolist is good, and in order to win you have to make the biggest monopoly. But the rules of Anti-Monopoly divide players into monopolists versus competitors, resulting in a dynamic, unpredictable, more interesting game. Competition has the same benefits in real life!

The "open source" philosophy has been around a long time before computers.

The Atlantic City Quaker woman who invented the original board game spread it around to her friends for free. She would invite people over to play, and they loved the game, so they made their own copies with crayons on oil cloth. This free folk game spread around the country and was played by many people, long before Parker Brothers knowingly decided pirated it. Today we have computer networks, desktop publishing, color printers, and the "open source" model of software development, so it is much easier to spread the free Micropoly game all over the world.

Big companies abuse the patent and legal systems to pirate and exploit other peoples original ideas.

Parker Brothers pirated monopoly from its original inventors, illegitimately patented an "open source" folk game, perpetrated an extremely successful propaganda campaign to convince the world that Monopoly(TM) was invented by Charles B Darrow, and aggressively drove other companies out of business with frivolous lawsuits.

They waged a nasty 10 year legal assault on Ralph Anspach, inventor of the "Anti-Monopoly" game, ruining his successful game company, even though his case finally made it to the Supreme Court and won!

As a result of his hard fought victory, the true story of Parker Brother's Billion Dollar Monopoly Swindle has been published for all to read, and it's safe to call a game "anything-opoly".

We are very grateful that he never gave up, and won in spite of Parker Brothers' dirty tricks. We thank him, because he made it possible for us to publish Micropoly, and generously offered to let us use his superior Anti-Monopoly rules, which so perfectly illustrate the point of Micropoly.

The similarities in the monopolistic behaviors of Parker Brothers and Microsoft should be obvious.

Openopoly

The software used to produce Micropoly will be freely distributed, as well as the Micropoly content, to serve as an example of how to make your own personalized monopoly game.

We are developing a free "Openopoly" architecture based on XML, whose purpose is to automate the production of custom monopoly games, both printed board games and multi-player online computer games.

Micropoly will be the first example of such a custom game, so anyone will be able to drop in their own text and graphics, turn the crank, and produce a version of monopoly localized for their own city, university, company, church, sports team, or favorite political cause.

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