East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, United States
Global games giant Parker Brothers is launching a worldwide vote to find the 22 greatest cities in the world to be included on the new MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition game board.
Beginning 22 January 2008 at midnight GMT/Universal Time, MONOPOLY fans around the world can visit www.monopoly.com to cast their online votes to help create the first-ever worldwide edition of the game. Voters are invited to cast their ballots for ten great cities each day of the vote, which will be open until 28 February 2008. The city that receives the most votes will be placed on the highest rent property. To facilitate voting for MONOPOLY fans worldwide, the website is available in more than 30 languages.
The twenty cities that receive the most votes will be part of MONOPOLY history as the first cities selected to be on the World edition game board. However, two spaces on the board will be reserved for cities that are nominated through a wild card vote. Any city in the world can be nominated for these property spaces.
"MONOPOLY is the world's most popular board game and it transcends cultural barriers," said Helen Martin, Global Brand Leader for MONOPOLY Brand. "More than 750 million people have played the game since it was first introduced nearly 75 years ago and its popularity shows no signs of slowing down."
"The final result of MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition voting may be just as surprising as the votes conducted in each country," said Martin. "It will be exciting to see how the vote will turn out! We hope that fans will vote early and often for their favourite cities."
MONOPOLY is sold in 103 countries around the world and available in 37 language versions. For more than 70 years the official MONOPOLY board has represented elite locations in individual cities. However, recently Parker Brothers invited fans of the game to help update the board in their respective countries to reflect what the game board would look like if it were created today instead of in 1935. The votes resulted in the "Here & Now" versions of the game in each country - with often surprising results! In France, Paris never made it onto game board. In the United States, powerhouse-city Dallas landed in the low-rent district. In Australia, fans logged more than 17 million votes. And in the UK, more votes were cast during the UK online vote than were cast in local elections taking place at the same time.
The cities voted onto the final game board will be announced in August 2008. The new MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition will be available in stores around the world in Autumn 2008.
The following 68 cities have been nominated for the global vote:
Amsterdam Helsinki Queenstown
Athens Hong Kong Riga
Barcelona Istanbul Rio de Janeiro
Beijing Jerusalem Rome
Belgrade Kiev Santiago
Berlin Kuala Lumpur Seoul
Bogota Las Vegas Shanghai
Boston Lisbon Singapore City
Bratislava Ljubljana Sofia
Brussels London St. Petersburg
Bucharest Los Angeles Stockholm
Budapest Lyon Sydney
Buenos Aires Madrid Tallinn
Cairo Melbourne Tokyo
Cape Town Mexico City Toronto
Caracas Montreal Vancouver
Cardiff Moscow Vienna
Chicago Mumbai Vilnius
Copenhagen Munich Warsaw
Dubai New York Washington, D.C.
Dublin Oslo Zagreb
Edinburgh Paris Zurich
Frankfurt Prague
Since 1935, more than 250 million copies of the MONOPOLY game have been sold in 103 countries and 37 languages. More than 200 different editions of the game have been published, but the most popular continues to be the classic "Number Nine." Affectionately known by its original product number, "Number Nine" is based on the streets of Atlantic City and is nearly identical to Charles Darrow's original submission to Parker Brothers. The MONOPOLY name and logo, the distinctive design of the game board, the four corner squares, the MR. MONOPOLY name and the character, as well as each of the distinctive elements of the board and playing pieces are trademarks of Hasbro for its property trading game and game equipment. (C) 2008 Hasbro, All Rights Reserved.
Hasbro is a worldwide leader in children's and family leisure time entertainment products and services, including the design, manufacture and marketing of games and toys ranging from traditional to high-tech. Both internationally and in the U.S., its PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, TIGER, and WIZARDS OF THE COAST brands and products provide the highest quality and most recognizable play experiences in the world.
Source: Business Wire (Business Wire India)