The Game of Life Twists and Turns

I was a "gamer" as a child. I loved board games. While I'd play Monopoly endlessly with my friends (alternating between tycoon and trust-buster depending on my mood) I was never too fond of the game of Life. My spouse, in contrast, grew up playing Life incessantly with his siblings and has played it with our daughters. (I pass on playing Life with them and try to steer them to pretend to be Teddy Rooseveldt and play the National Parks version of Monopoly with me).

But reading about this new updated version of Life, I think I might really enjoy it now. It seems to better reflect my attitudes about money and life. However, I suspect that my spouse will find the changes hard to adapt to...

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Editorial Observer
Love and Debt: The Game of Life Now Takes Plastic

By LAWRENCE DOWNES
Published: June 4, 2007

If life’s a game, I can only hope it’s not a game like the Game of Life. That’s the one where you drive a plastic car along a winding path, going to work or college and picking up pink and blue pegs for children until you end up at a McMansion and get to count your money. I played it with my young daughter a couple of times and found it excruciating, probably because of how effectively it boiled life down to its plodding essence, a march to suburban retirement. It made me long for the solace of death, but that is not an option in this game.

The Game of Life may be tedious but it’s indestructible. It was invented in 1860 by Milton Bradley, updated 100 years later to the version baby boomers know and revised several times since. The subtext of virtue battling vice was ditched ages ago, but the basic format has always been one Mr. Bradley would recognize.

But maybe not anymore. A new edition, perhaps the biggest rethinking of the game in 40 years, is coming out in August, to be sold beside the old one. Called the Game of Life Twists and Turns, it splits the route to bourgeois bliss into four paths of fulfillment: money, education, family and fun. Or, as the board has it, Earn It! Learn It! Love It! Live It!

The idea is that life is not just about money. It’s about money and experience — or Life points, which you get by earning degrees, buying things, having babies or traveling. You don’t slog to retirement now; you go around in circles until time is up. Even more radically, the game eliminates cash. In a brazen bit of corporate branding, Life® now takes Visa®. Your children (ages 9 and up) will be playing with plastic.

Last month Hasbro sent me a prototype, and I sat down to play with my 11-year-old daughter and a friend of hers, age 12. From a large array of starting careers, I chose strawberry picker. It suggested limited possibilities, but I figured that a hard-wired competitive streak would carry me through. I picked a green skateboard (you can buy a car later) and set out to Earn It!
After four turns, I was $343,400 in debt.

It soon became clear that this was not a big deal. This is not a game that forces you to ashamedly flip real-estate cards upside down to scrounge up cash. You decide what you need, and borrow it: $200,000, $500,000 or $1 million for a house, $20,000 for a college degree. You can’t really skimp your way out of debt, because with every turn, things happen, expenses pop up and money comes your way — or not. All you can do is roll with it.

Everything depends on the Lifepod, a battery-powered device that acts as central banker, accountant, lottery, maternity ward and dice roller. It pays your salary, tracks your Life points, totes up your debts and deducts money automatically from your account if, say, another player gets married and needs a gift.

Life went on and soon I had a Ph.D. and a $40,000 salary. I won a promotion, to nanny. I erased my debt and earned enough money and Life points to humiliate my competition. But “earned” may not be the best word, since my victory hinged on my having won the lottery three times.
Later I watched the girls play with two friends, a boy age 7 and his 10-year-old sister. The girls all lined up on Learn It! and went into debt for college. The boy went the family route, though he was taken aback when he had to STOP! to get married. “I didn’t want to get married,” he said. Then he had a baby girl. “I don’t want a girl baby. I want a boy. Can I take her to the orphanage?”

Here’s how it ended: The girls all had their Ph.D.’s and mountains of debt. The little boy never went to college, but was flush with lottery winnings and Life points, from all those kids. He won. His sister wistfully regretted having put her education ahead of motherhood.

If she plays more, she may learn to strategize better, though it seems that the promise on the box — A thousand ways to live your life! You choose! — is not quite right. The new game has all the passivity of the old one, and whether you are a Ph.D. nanny or a 7-year-old daddy, you don’t control where you end up.

Money, points, everything ... the electronic Lifepod tracks it all! That part is true. You don’t have to keep track of money anymore. You don’t count it, flaunt it or even know exactly how much you have. The Lifepod does it all for you, and when it adds up money and Life points to pick a winner, it uses a secret formula that changes with every game.

The message is clear: Stop worrying and get on with Life. With godlike electronics, Hasbro has made the Game of Life easier and a little more interesting. And for all of us who don’t check balances or reconcile statements and go to sleep each night on towering, fluffy cushions of debt, it’s now a lot more lifelike.