We love this web tech version of the classic board game - but we're not sure Google's lawyers will...
Who wants to buy property these days when there are billions to be made from web tech?
Over the last few years we've seen multitude varients on the classic board game Monopoly - but here's a design project that brings it right into the internet age. Graphic designer James Belkevitz has reimagined the Parker Brothers game for the Google era, jettisoning the property market for the multi-billion dollar world of web tech.
Buy up companies like Kelkoo, Tumblr and Pinterest, avoid the 'Go to Court' and 'Lawyer's Fees' squares, and try to land on 'Tax Avoidance Scheme' for a quick $1bn windfall.
It's a clever take on the often controversial business of the web, and it's not just a Photoshop parody: Belkevitz has gone the extra mile with this university project, creating a physical board game from his design.
Belkevitz has replicated all aspects of the Monopoly game experience
"I came up with the idea when a close friend who had an internet-based business had to shut up shop when one of the Google updates changed the way the algorithm worked," Belkevitz explains. "Over night, years of work on SEO had gone to waste, meaning he was no longer placed highly on Google for keyword searches."
Game cards contain true-to-life facts about the search company
Belkevitz made the game by taking an actual monopoly board to a book binders and asking them to recreate the foldable board. "I then got my design printed out and I applied it to the board directly," he says.
The game lets you buy web properties such as Tumblr and Pinterest
As Google's updates are named after animals, such as Penguin and Panda, he used small charms meant for bracelets as the metal pieces. He also created game money using the faces of the Google founders as well as game cards' with true-to-life facts about Google.
The game money features the faces of Google executives
We'd love to see this version of Monopoly go into production. But with its less-than-veiled swipes at the giant of global search (whose legal budget probably exceeds that of some small nations), we're not sure Parker Brothers will be snapping up this property any time soon...
