Toy Fair 2018; The Future of Monopoly

When it comes to board games there are not many that can compete with my undisputed champion of the world in Monopoly. Obviously this is a personal preference but the property trading game has been a staple table top experience for most of my life.

Even though we now have junior editions of the game I started my son young on Monopoly, we have a Disney set among others and he immediately recognised the characters from his favourite films. This allowed him easy access into the game. The reason I love playing the game with him is the lessons it teaches. When other children in his class were struggling getting to grips with larger numbers he already had a handle thanks to the game. In this regard I much prefer the paper money versions.

So to the future of Monopoly Winning Moves had an impressive booth at Toy Fair complete with various titles but two stood out to Top Trumps and Monopoly. 

I'll cover Top Trumps in a separate piece but for now it is time to look a few of the Monopoly Sets they had available or coming soon. The former property trading game has evolved into a genre hopping phenomenon. I have mentioned my Disney version of the game but we also had a World Cup edition from 1998 and the Pokémon Kanto region version of the game. Among the sets jumping out at me like the Football editions featuring Man City and a Zelda edition was the above pictured Uncharted Edition. This had me intrigued, knowing the adventures of Nathan Drake like I do I could not help but be excited to hope for a board mixed with exotic locations and mysterious treasures. The property may be a little older to rasp for some younger players but I hope it will serve to help gravitate players of all ages back to the dining room table.

The second set which really attracted me was one associated with pure nostalgia. With its recent high profile addition to Netflix it feels like a perfect time for Friends to end up on a Monopoly board. This rather great piece of partnering from the team at Winning Moves seems perfectly timed to catch both a returning audience as well as a new generation of watchers.

​This article is called the future of Monopoly and as far as I am concerned the future is bright for our favourite Top Hatted entrepreneur. The ability of the Winning Moves team to attract varied and intriguing properties has seen some rather funky boards hit our shelves but this kind of active partnering can only help to raise the brand to even greater heights.

In this world of digital games there is still a place and indeed a need for the tactile and social interaction of board games and Monopoly surely is sitting on top of the world at the moment.