From the board to the streets: a case study of Local Property Trader

Abstract

The boardgame of Monopoly has undergone various iterations since it was first published in 1934. Versions have included location-based varieties of the game, involving mobile media devices that have taken the boardgame to the city streets as a way of engaging players with location in new ways. This article examines a new version of Monopoly, titled Local Property Trader that works with NFC/QR code technologies in order to encourage players to move around the city and interact with local businesses. In doing so, the project hopes to highlight how location-based games can use social media data to update a traditional game into more contemporary contexts. Correspondingly, the differences and similarities of taking a boardgame and reworking it for the city streets are explored through ideas surrounding location, player and map as key points of intersection between the two media forms.