When I was a kid I always assumed the London one was real and the Atlantic City, (I thought it was New York at the time) was the knock-off. I must have been a teenager before I realised.
I see the Canadian edition came out in 1982, by which time I was too old to enjoy the game in any manner other than ironically, hence the American version is the one is the “real” one for me.
Incidentally, I recall an article in some games-themed magazine that had an article about a scale of game complexity with Monopoly at the lowest level (unsurprisingly) along with Junta, which struck me as odd since I played a lot of Junta in college and found it got downright Machiavellian at times.
Life is an especially interesting case, in that the amount of money you make is purely random. Aside from no-brainer decisions (of course you always buy insurance), there’s no skill involved.
People bad mouth Monopoly as boring, and yet Life exists! I played it once, and when I got to the end, and found that whether you win or lose came down to one random roll at the end, I never played again. Stupid game! Chutes and Ladders has more strategy!
I once read (don’t recall where, I’m afraid – can’t give a cite) that “Monopoly” was marketed in Germany for a while in the late 1930s, with a Berlin-themed board. One of the most-up-market, costliest (dark blue) properties, was the then select quarter in Berlin, of Insel Schwanenwerder.
It appears that at the time, a number of the Nazi bigwigs owned luxurious residences in this prestigious part of the city. It was widely rumoured that engaging in financially corrupt doings, had made this possible for them – according to the official ideology, their position required of them selfless service to the Party and the nation, not seeking material gain. Because of their featuring this part of the city, the makers of the game were suspected of thereby making a satirical dig at the regime. “The powers that were” suggested very strongly to the makers, that they take the game off the market; which they promptly did.
No doubt after 1945, German “Monopoly” was free to develop as it would. Out of interest – are modern German sets for the game, set in Berlin; or “otherwise”? (Interesting fantasising possibilities, about a Cold War four-zone Berlin version of Monopoly, with appropriate special features and rules…)
Penguins and leopard seals?
The name was a giveaway: the version sold in Spain is also called Monopoly rather than Monopolio, and it was around at a time when English wasn’t particularly fashionable (my generation was the first one to have more people learning English than French as a second language). Plus there were regional variations within Spain: the box we had at home had Madrid streets, my cousins had Barcelona. IIRC there have also been versions for Bilbao and Seville, perhaps others.
I played Monopolio from Mexico years ago. I don’t remember the street names, but I recall we had to guess the card meanings from the cartoon on them.
I had never heard about that, but the German wiki backs up your memory:
[Quote=Wikipedia.de]
Die erste deutsche Ausgabe, die (vermutlich nach dem Erfolg in den Vereinigten Staaten seit 1935) auf den Markt kam, wurde 1936 in der Lizenz von Schmidt Spiele vertrieben. Sie enthielt als teuersten Straßennamen „Insel Schwanenwerder“.[10] In diesem Berliner Nobelviertel wohnte auch der nationalsozialistische Propagandaminister Joseph Goebbels. Er soll das Spiel 1936 offiziell wegen seines „jüdisch-spekulativen Charakters“ verboten haben, andererseits soll es ihm dabei mehr um die teuerste Straße „Insel Schwanenwerder“ gegangen sein, wohin in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus zahlreiche Nazi-Funktionäre zogen.
[My translation:]
The first German edition that hit the market (probably after the success in the U.S. since 1935) was licensed in 1936 by Schmidt Spiele. It had “Insel Schwanenwerder” as most expensive street. This is where the national-socialist minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, also resided. He officially banned the game in 1936 because of its “Jewish-speculative character”, but his main motivation allegedly was the most expensive street “Insel Schwanenwerder”, where many Nazi-officials moved during the national-socialist era.
[/Quote]
No, the streets carry generic names and are not associated with a special city.
Thanks – very interesting. Original 1936 Berlin Monopoly sets must be rare and treasured items. “Jewish-speculative”, eh? – oh, well, those guys were a funny lot.
Thanks again. Seemingly a great number of variations on the game – lots of different themes, both of places existing in the real world, and “not”. My brother and niece are “Simpsons” freaks: they have a Simpsons-themed Monopoly, set in the family’s home town of Springfield.
I read the German wiki article a bit further, and there is indeed a modern Berlin version, as well as a “Monopoly Deutschland” version with various German cities. And of course Monopoly wasn’t available in East Germany, and every import strictly forbidden.
I gather that – as with the above (my bolding) – the same was true of the USSR: nonetheless, Monopoly was a popular game there – people using smuggled-in, or home-made, sets, and playing in secret. I’d be willing to bet that this went for East Germany, too – with, here and there, surviving 1936 sets being pressed into service.
I’m guessing it’s because Americans generally don’t know the game Ludo (our version is called Parcheesi), so “Cluedo” would make no sense to us (besides looking vaguely like a Spanish word). “What’s this, Clue-doo? Clu-ay-doe? What’s that supposed to mean?”
I beg to differ! 
So is that what your name actually means? You’re a good at that board game?
No. But someone did get me a portable version of it called “Ludo in a tin” so we could make “Prince Albert in a can”-style jokes about it.
Moving to the Game Room.
Oh, so that’s what Parcheesi is. (See also “Trouble - with the pop-a-matic bubble”).
I read somewhere once that the reason it was called Cluedo was because the first version the designer made used a Ludo board as its base. Which you can kind of see.
#/media/File:Ludo-3.jpg){kind=link}
My experience was exactly the same, but growing up in New Zealand - the British version was the “Real” monopoly and while I was aware there was a US version, I always thought it was the localised variant for the Americans rather than the original product.
Also, what GuanoLad said - Monopoly, Scrabble and Cluedo were prettty much it for mainstream board games besides things like Snakes & Ladders.
Ooooh, so that’s why the Cluedo name…
And nice to encounter someone who wouldn’t look at me like I wore my eyes on stalks if I said Parcheesi! None of my American coworkers knew the game.
+1
The curiosity of the set in Aus was that it was “Go To Jail”, rather than “Go To Gaol”.
I presume the UK sets also had this linguistic misnomer?
The family board game of choice for us unsurprisingly was Squatter, where you did play for sheep stations.