You have a game of monopoly, right? But the setting is the Silicon Valley instead of New York, and instead of staking out real estate you stake out patents. The patents on the board can be for real things that exist now and have been patented (like one-click shopping, the CD, the Segway thing), or made-up stuff in the future (like maybe a reliable robotic vision algorithm). Go around the board, see who discovers it first (the money put down to "buy" the IP is the money spent in R&D to develop it). Then when people land on your square you charge them licensing fees to use that technology in their products.-- shunt, May 09 2002 Custom-opoly http://www.boardgam...m/makyourownmo.html [lubbit, May 09 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] Free Parking = Venture Capital Railroads = Backbone providers
Community Chest cards = Public Relations cards: 'Receive a good product review, advance to GO'; 'Your product has violated the DMCA. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO.'; and of course 'Get out of jail free'
Chance = Partner with Microsoft: 'Microsoft uses you as a pawn. Advance to the nearest backbone provider and pay the owner twice the lease rate.' 'Win infringment lawsuit against Microsoft. Lose 1 turn.' 'Microsoft needs your technology. No one dares stand in your way. Pay no royalties next turn.'
And when you pass GO, you receive 2,000,000 Starbucks.-- phoenix, May 09 2002 Completely trivial annotation that in no way adds to or detracts from the idea at hand: The original Monopoly's properties are based on Atlantic City, NJ streets.-- half, May 09 2002 5 offices on a square = a factory-- po, May 09 2002 UnaBubba: It's the last sign that Australia was part of the Empire.
[Years of toil conquering countries, and what do we have to show for it? Monopoly]-- [ sctld ], May 09 2002 I keep reading this as a plan to corner all the unallocated internet protocol addresses, to be sold at microsoftian prices.-- neelandan, May 09 2002 Atlantic City makes no secret of it. There is a huge Monopoly board hanging from the side of one of the Boardwalk hotels.-- waugsqueke, May 09 2002 Duhhh... I can't believe I said that -- I LIVE in NYC. I should know my own town's street names. Just wasn't thinking.-- shunt, May 09 2002 random, halfbakery