Hasbro has announced the following updates to the Game of Monopoly.
General Rule Changes:
Monopoly – Players may now buy properties without any paying any money up front, but will require balloon payments later in the game. Properties (and their mortgage values) will climb drastically as the game progresses, only to fall slightly at the worst possible time during the game. If payments are not made each time ‘Go is passed, the bank will take possession of the property and offer it to other players. Repossessed properties may depreciate the value of other properties within the color group.

Exceptions:
Landing on the Electric Company will take all of your cash-on-hand, Free Parking will now become a Parking garage, which will cost you money unless you have one of the ‘Validated Parking: Get out of Garage Free!” cards. Players may no longer trade properties between themselves, but must pay 6% of the property value on all such transactions. The four railroads will be changed to airlines, and landing on one during peak travel times will cause you to lose a turn. The ‘Income Tax’ space will now take 28% of your belonging instead of 10%, while the Luxury Tax space will be discontinued. The banker is automatically exempt from going to jail.

Component Changes:
The bank will now come with insufficient cash amounts to play the game. PETA has requested that the dog and racehorse tokens are removed from the game, and NOW has asked the same for the flat iron and thimble, which perpetuate sexist stereotypes. These will be replaced by tokens representing a gender-neutral bicycle, a CFC light bulb, a laptop, and salad tongs.

Available Expansions:

Monopoly: Politicians and Regulations Expansion allows bankers to distribute money that they don’t have to players who will never be able to give it back. Includes quotas, red tape, campaign contribution spinner and enough blame tokens to go around.

Monopoly: The Bailout Expansion: Contains 700 billion dollars in play money.

BANKING VARIANT

If you are the owner of the game, you may delegate players to be "Bankers". Set aside 3/4 of the currency provided in the game, designating it as the common "banker money" pool, which may only be used by banker players. The banker does not own this currency (bankers keep their personal currency separate from the common "banker money" pool).

When the active player wishes to obtain a "loan" from a banker player, the player must "mortgage" the property space they are on. The banker takes currency from the common "banker money" pool, and gives it to the active player. The banker may not loan more than 9x of his personal stock of player money from the common "banker money" pool during the game (for example, if you have $1000, you may only loan out $9000 to other players, including other players designated as bankers by the owner of the game).

Each subsequent turn, the player receiving the "loan" must pay 5% of the total loan received to the banker player providing the loan. Also, the purchase and usage prices of all properties increase in proportion to the amount of new money that has entered the game (initially against the 1/4 available to all players as a common pool).

SECRET RULE (do not disclose to non-bankers prior to playing)

If the banker players are able to collectively obtain an amount of currency equal to the 1/4 originally left to the non-banker players, the game ends and the banker players may all declare victory, with the one having the most money being known as "Primus Inter Impares".

CEO Variant

Any player that is wearing a suit gets to name their own salary, payable whenever they pass "GO". Also, any "suit" that happens to run themselves out of money is rewarded with an amount of money equal the sum of all the non-suit-wearing players' net worths x 2.

What? Monopoly wasn't released in times of financial crisis?

Take that, Monopoly!

Hear hear, I second this notion. Monopoly was passed around as an early "board" game through few select circles since the beginning of the Depression, then transformed into its current incarnation by Darrow in 1935. I would consider those years as a time of financial crisis much greater than what we're facing today.

Still, I find the idea of this forum post incredibly hilarious and creative. Let's just hope that in a couple of years a game fashioned on oilcloth won't be our only source of entertainment. I have come to enjoy my cardboard game boards and plastic/wooden tokens.

variant 1: Players no longer buy and sell properties. They write and sell useless books on how to get rich in the property market.

variant 2: Exactly the same as the old game, except that players treat their money like it was just Monopoly money.

variant 3: The World Edition. The properties are all places in Iraq. The money is Iraqi money. Iraqis aren't allowed to play.

Yes, this post is about what the game would be like in THIS financial crisis.

awesome. The final expansion just made this thread great!