The people have spoken. After a cutthroat campaign, the incumbent, a.k.a. “The Iron,” has finally conceded to the new kid on the block—–or should we say new kitty on the block.
The Hasbro Inc. toy company announced on Wednesday the final results for the online contest to replace one of Monopoly’s classic tokens with a new one. Voters chose the iron to get the ax and the cat to join the crew.
“We put five new tokens out for our fans to vote on and there were a lot of fans of the many different tokens, but I think there were a lot of cat lovers in the world that reached out and voted for the cat to be the new token for Monopoly,” Jonathan Berkowitz, vice president for Hasbro gaming marketing told the Associated Press.
It makes little sense to have an iron move around a board in the first place, so it’s not so surprising the game piece lost the competition. But the final vote was actually very close, and Monopoly lovers almost selected the shoe and the wheelbarrow instead. In the end, the wheelbarrow and the shoes’ followings proved to be more loyal, and the iron is now officially a relic of that past. We can all rest easy that the Scottie dog is safe from extinction…for now.
Although most Monopoly players would consider the game’s current tokens as the “classic” Monopoly tokens, not all of them were part of the original game. Only six of the eight current pieces were in the first version of the game. The beloved Scottie dog and the wheel barrow were not added until after WWII. In the 90s the cannon and the horse were nixed. For nearly a decade a sack of money also served as a game piece, beginning in 1990, but it was discontinued in 2007.
Instead of a cat, voters could also have picked a robot, diamond ring, helicopter or guitar to replace the outgoing Monopoly piece.
Here’s to the cat for making the final cut and to Monopoly for its genius, marketing ploy that got board game players excited about the game all over again more than 70 years after its original debut.
