Bitcoin Forum

So I saw the post about Bitcoin Monopoly and decided to do a little research.  I found a printer that will make a Bitcoinopoly game.  The problem is they would need the design information by the first week in October in order to have the game ready by Christmas.  Obviously this would be best because the game would make awesome Christmas presents.

In order to accomplish this I would need at least 32 Bitcoin Merchants willing to sponsor a spot on the board.  Cost would be between $400-$500 see below (US not Bitcoins).  Sponsorship would include your company name, BW logo, and a copy of the game.  If I can get 32 merchants to step up in time I’ll get production underway.  If not, we’ll just have to try again next year.

I also need an idea of how many people would want to purchase the game.  Cost would be approx $30 plus shipping. See below

If this doesn’t take off, no big deal considering the short time frame.  However, I thought it would be pretty cool  if we could accomplish it.

Comments and thoughts welcome.

UPDATE:

I’ve found a different printer to produce the game.  I need to print a minimum of 1000 games to make it cost effective, but they are about 15% cheaper and will start production with a 50% deposit and the remainder due before delivery.  Also their production quality seems better and is more flexible so now all sponsorship locations on the board are full color and we can get more creative with the board.

Aside from the custom look of the board, the only significant difference from a normal monopoly game that I can tell is that they use regular plastic pawns instead of pewter pieces.  The extra cost for pewter pieces is significant enough as to put the whole production into jeopardy, so I elected not to include them.  There are places online to buy your own custom pieces if you feel like you really want them.

New sponsorship prices:
(All sponsors must be confirmed by Oct 1. PM me immediately.)
Locations sold on a first come first serve basis.

All Properties include corresponding deed cards -
20 Regular Properties $325
4 x Railroads $375
2 x Utilities $375
Park Place $400
Boardwalk $425

Locations on board without deed cards:
2 x Tax Sites $325
Go to Jail $400
Jail $425
Free Parking $450

Community Chest or Chance Card Sponsorship
32 x $150

Special Mention on back of game box $75
“Bitcoinopoly was made possible through contributions by:”
Followed by listed names

Now obviously if you add all those numbers up it greatly exceeds the production cost, but the reality is I don’t think I’m going to come anywhere near filling all these spots by Oct 1.  My goal is to sell enough of them to cover the first 50% deposit and maybe some of the rest of the cost, with the remaining cost coming from preorder sales.  If we end up getting close to the amounts needed, I will cover the difference because I assume I’ll recoup the cost, but if we don’t get close then I have to assume there isn’t great enough demand.  Also, once I put the first 50% deposit down, I’m still on the hook for the remaining 50% deposit regardless of whether I make enough preorder sales to cover it or not so I am taking a certain amount of risk in production.

Cost of the Game:
(Tentative)
Preorder before Oct 1 will be $17.99
Preorder before Dec 1 will be $22.99
All sales starting Dec 1 will be $27.99
All costs plus shipping

I will setup order forms as soon as I can, but anyone looking to do sponsorship should PM me immediately.  Again sponsorship must be confirmed by Oct 1.

As always questions and comments are welcome.

Bitcoinopoly sounds like a good game...

would the price of BTC go up and down in this game? that would be crazy cool

Chance card and it read:

1) "An early adopter invested 100,000$ into BTC everyone's bitcoins go up 10% in value"
2) "A News station says you can buy drugs with BTC, value goes up 300%"
3) "Mt. Gox was hack! value of everyone's BTCs goes down 20%"
4) "If you didnt secure your wallet, you loss all your coins!"

 ;D

I will sponsor as STARE Magazine.  Let's get 29 more.

ftfy :)

I wish I could sponsor a spot, but it's not in BitCard's budget.
Good luck getting those spots filled!

Your going to make a clone of a game meant as a critique of capitalism...to promote a capitalist free market currency?

Actually if you look at the business' that either are full bitcoin or accept bitcoin, it's basically the same thing.
If you have one shop that sells for 1btc and another that sells the same thing for 2btc, you're going to go for the 1btc item. It's common business practice.

On a side note; if the op got all the sponsors he's looking for and got the game made, they'd probly sell like hotcakes making him Bill Gates.

Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest has some pretty stupid ideas in it also, but it's still fun to watch :)

And indeed, the Monopoly franchise has made Hasbro hundreds of millions of dollars (billions?) so if the game was intended as a capitalist critique then the joke is on the creator.

I'm not sure which printer you contacted (there are dozens that do this) but your numbers seem way off.

$500 x 32 spots = $16,000 to print 500 black and white boards (average minimum) - that works out to $32 per board?  After the bitcoin community pays for the boards and an obvious healthy profit for yourself, what happens to the $30 per game you sell?

Actually if he contacted Late for the Sky Productions who makes all the state versions of monopoly, then it's very possible it would cost $16k or more for 500 boards, so $30(average price if you go to the mall) a board for 500 boards would be his profit. Just my 2 cents.

Reasonable concern (sort of).  It isn't the "bitcoin community" but 32+ businesses that get advertising in exchange for the upfront cost.  I'm not asking them to donate the money.  It's a business transaction.  Also, you're using my highest figures to do your math, so you're going out of your way to make your numbers the highest possible.  So, while you're concern is reasonable, maybe a friendlier phrasing of the inquiry next time would be agreeable.  However, given the circumstances of recent events in the community, I suppose it can be forgiven.

To address your concern, your numbers are based on faulty assumptions which reflects a failure to be clear on my part.

1.  The boards are not black and white.  They are four color which obviously requires much higher printing costs but looks much better.  The logos are black and white, but that might change. (See #2)
2.  The printer I've contacted is probably priced high.  I'm looking into alternative options that would be cheaper.  The $400 - $500 amount is consequently also probably high. However, it obviously makes sense to get commitments at a higher price and lower it, rather than the other way around.
3.  The price wasn't for 500 games it was for between 750 and 1000.  I don't know if that many would sell which is part of the reason for this poll.  However, once again, start high and work your way down.
4. The $30 per game is about the going price for the game, but again it is also probably a highest estimate.

Finally yes I will make a decent profit for three months worth of work.  I'm not going to retire off of it, but I'll consider it a decent Christmas bonus for myself and the workers that help me pull everything together.  But I also think this would be a pretty cool contribution to the Bitcoin community, and I think a decent number of people agree with me.  I also had some ideas on other ways I could use the profits to contribute to the Bitcoin community, but I'd like to save those for later on.

I hope that answers your question.  If not or you have additional questions, please feel free to post them.  I am at your service.  I assume your concern over the pricing means you're looking into sponsoring one of the spots, so I look forward to you joining the board as well.

Get Mt. Gox to put up the majority of the money so they can have Boardwalk and then other businesses can buy in cheaper

Can I use my Get Out of Jail Free card to trade Illinois Ave. for New York Ave.? Sorry about that, but the ghost of Gregor MacGregor (Google Poyais) briefly visited me.

I would seriously considering buying 1 or 2 spots and helping oput with whatever i can !

BUT I SERIOUSLY WANT THE OP TO CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING & BUILDING UP AN FREE MARKET VERSION OF THE GAME !

I am sure we as a community can bring it there together ! 
also check some of the new electronic gadget versions with an card reader etc ! maybe we can create a real blockchain in for the game ^^

http://mises.org/daily/1451

You have surely played the Parker Brother's board game Monopoly. It has been published in 26 languages and in 80 countries around the world. Since being introduced in 1935, in fact, an estimated one-half billion people have played it. It has taught the multitudes what they know about how an economy works.

The problem is that the game seriously misrepresents how an actual market economy operates. To review, in the free market, Mises wrote,

Neither the entrepreneurs nor the farmers nor the capitalists determine what has to be produced. The consumers do that. . . . Their buying and their abstention from buying decides who should own and run the plants and the farms. They make poor people rich and rich people poor. They determine precisely what should be produced, in what quality, and in what quantities. They are merciless bosses, full of whims and fancies, changeable and unpredictable.

Playing monopoly with Grandmother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKzEc6fEpyI

If you want to create an alternative set of rules for the game, I'd consider including them.

I think you are all missing that Hasbro owns all rights to monopoly. And C&D'ed other versions of monopoly.

Tough call.

Hasbro has copyrighted many aspects of the monopoly game, however as long as the aspects are not duplicated there is no infringement.

im pretty sure that this is not lawful, but i don't think its a big deal, after all i support PPI.

overall its a good idea i guess, how much would 1 game cost.

Why make a board game on print with an electronic currency? I don't understand that. Instead of investing in print...you should make it a regular online game. People use money from their own wallets and deposit it in their monopoly account. Maybe 1 BTC per game per player. The winner at the end of the game gets a percent of BTC if they win and the monopoly website gets 1 BTC per game. The 1 BTC per game will be for up keep on the website and money to allocate to programmers for payment for future bug fixes and features to be added. Also you can have an API off the exchange for the value of the BTC. Print is dead. Go green brother. Besides you can target a larger market with this. I’d see if you can get a group of programmers together to help you with the project and get donations from the community. Just a suggestion.

you suck, you know that right? half the fun of monopoly is counting the money. if you ever played any electric kind of monopoly you would understand, it simply isn't the same.

OK so one more time.  This is completely legal as long as we don't use anything that is copyrighted by Hasbro.  A LOT of people have done this before.  We're not treading on new ground.  We're just doing what has already been done except with Bitcoin which is obviously way cooler.  :)

Quite frankly, this isn't very professional.

If you are so concerned about copyrights...Just don't call it Bitopoly . Make sure you make one of the community chest questions , " YOU HAVE BEEN HACKED BY CTOON6...PAY $200 DOLLARS FOR A YUBIKEY...DON'T PASS GO! " 

lol. i take back my comment. but honestly, i think the entire concept of monopoly is copywronged.

LOL I was actually thinking something along that lines.  Instead of the Go to Jail space, have You've Been Hacked space and instead of Jail have Server Down or Offline.

Instead of Go have Genesis Block.

Instead of Free Parking have Community Bounty.

I honestly think this could be an awesome game if we can throw it together in time.  I'm going to start contacting businesses on Monday to see if I can put enough people together.  And I get what you're saying about a digital version as opposed to a physical version.  We're actually working on an online game for Bitcoins that is completely unrelated to this project.

But ctoon6 kind of has a point.  We still live in the physical world and there is something about having a physical item in our hands that makes it more valuable to us.  I think the physical game could be a really good thing for the community.  It is a great way to start a conversation about Bitcoins.  Invite people over for game night and inevitably they're going to ask what Bitcoins are.  Obviously the game isn't an accurate representation of how Bitcoins actually operate, but that's not really the point.  Instead it's more about tying a subject we want to tell more people about to a game they already know and enjoy.  The rest is sort of self fulfilling.

Of course if I don't get the game made that's all irrelevant  ;) Like I said, on Monday I'll start pounding the pavement so to speak.

instead of houses and hotels, you add GPU's and.... ?

what would the little pieces be besides the standard monopoly pieces?  and of course will prices be in BTC and the 'monopoly money' be (fake) bitbills ?