More than just a game

For a game designed to emulate the competitive, fast-paced nature of our economy, it was perhaps inevitable that the Monopoly tokens themselves would one day have to submit themselves to the American consumer’s quickly changing tastes for their survival.

Hasbro, the maker of Monopoly, has announced that it will be retiring one of the game’s classic tokens.

For those of you whose Monopoly skills have fallen to the wayside in the face of games like beer pong or kings, here is a refresher on the tokens:  the race car (introduced in 1935), iron (1935), wheelbarrow (1952), boot (1935), top hat (1935), thimble (1935), battleship (1935) and Scottie dog (1952).  

One of these tokens will be killed based on the results of a poll on the official Monopoly Facebook page.

Until Feb. 5, Facebook users can vote on their favorite token. The loser will be permanently knocked off the roster.

Will Scottie “go to the farm” to hang out with my childhood pets?

Was Rihanna’s acting in a movie of the same name enough to kill any affection for the poor battleship token?

I admit, I was that boring child who always chose the Scottie dog because it’s the cutest token, similar to how I identified with Belle of the Disney princesses or Sporty Spice of the Spice Girls just because they both shared the same hair color as me — the point being I wasn’t very imaginative.

Fortunately for my childhood sense of nostalgia, many people seem to have shared my selection process.

The Scottie dog is safely in the lead for now. But if you didn’t choose the Scottie dog, your token may be in peril.

Thus far, the tokens seemingly related to work and domesticities are losing, with the iron, the wheelbarrow and the thimble still floundering in the single digits of voter preference.

I admit, I never quite understood the appeal of these tokens, but the American consumer is notoriously fickle.

To help us decide, the Monopoly website has posted the case file of each token — each are now currently resting in jail to await their sentence — that displays a line from the prosecution and defense, such as the thimble’s defense that it “can be used as a hat for tiny mammals.”

Of course, the losing token will need to be replaced, and Hasbro has already unveiled its five potential candidates, including a guitar, helicopter, ring, robot and cat, which will also be based on the results of a Facebook poll.

This isn’t the first time Monopoly has switched around its tokens, but it is the first time we have a choice in the matter.

If all the hoopla over the fiscal cliff deal has left you feeling frustrated, feel reassured that if you think you can’t directly influence the American economy, you can directly influence the next best thing ­— the game based off the American economy.

­— gwinslow@indiana.edu