Do want to ruin your family? Do you? Do you want to try to have a fun afternoon of togetherness and entertainment, that devolves into mindless stupidity and tedium, tempered with nastiness, back-biting, bitching, invective, people getting upset, people getting angry at one another, and people getting bored out of their skulls just trying to finish this bloody stupid ridiculous fricking game??? Do you want something that will turn a nice day of family togetherness into the most painful thing since having wisdom teeth extracted without anaesthetic?

No? Well then for god’s sake, do not even think about Monopoly.

The game is evil. I’m sure Satan himself invented it and is sitting back laughing at how much misery it causes. If there’s a Monopoly set in your house now, go call a priest and have an exorcism performed. Burn the wretched thing.

Do not expose your kids to Monopoly. You will ruin their lives. And the lives of their families when they grow up and have kids. Break the vicious cycle now. Do not inflict this evil on future generations.

The whole thing is a rather splended rant about something which has done more to put generations of people off board games for life than any other game.

It’s a legitimate complaint, of course. But there’s a another issue too. Star Wars is all about lightsabre duels and space dogfights. What does it have to do with a board game about property speculation? Especially such a dreadful one?

Monopoly is an awful stupid game that has almost certainly done more than any other game to put generations of people off boardgames for life. It needs to die. It persists because people who themselves do not themselves play boardgames keep buying it as Christmas or birthday presents for their grandchildren or great nieces and nephews out of misplaced nostalgia for their own childhoods.

With the notable exception of Scrabble, that’s probably true of a lot of older household-name family boardgames. Boardgames have evolved tremendously in recent year, and games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne are superior in just about every possible way. But out of all those supposedly ‘classic’ games, Monopoly is still by far the worst of the lot.

The world does not need a totally cynical Star Wars tie-in edition.

6 Board Games That Ruined It for Everyone starts out by eviscerating Snakes and Ladders

Snakes and Ladders is the original sin of board games, the first mistake that curses innocents with the knowledge that things suck. It takes the infinite imagination engines that are children and makes them to do the same thing over and over until they’re done or done even trying. The last person to destroy fantasy worlds so brutally was Sauron.

But saves it’s worst for that horror of horrors, Monopoly:

The whole point of the game is proving that capitalism is utterly broken and unfair, and people still play it to get their go at winning. Parents would be better off buying their kids a rack and a My Little Inquisition scalpel set. There’s the same aspect of taking turns to torture each other, and at least that way the kids learn about anatomy.

The author then goes on to suggest other, better games, amongst them Settlers of Catan and Power Grid.

Saying that, designing a good family game, as opposed to one aimed at boardgame enthusiasts isn’t easy. Gamers are comfortable with complex rules and games that take all day to play. Also hobby games don’t need to remain playable with a group of players of widely-variable skill, which probably the main reason why so many family games rely heavily on luck rather than on strategy.

So what is the reason Monopoly remains a popular seller, and why haven’t games like Settlers of Catan superceded it?