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Do not pass Mount Tabor or Powell’s City of Books on your way to jail. Do not collect $200.
These are just some of the rules in Monopoly: Portland, Oregon Edition, one of more than 300 varieties of the Hasbro board game licensed through the company Top Trumps USA, among them 50 cities (already including Portland, Maine). For $45 as of Nov. 17, players can clink the classic Monopoly game pieces around a Rose City-influenced board, screwing one another over through nefarious land deals and rent hikes—OK, maybe Monopoly is a historically accurate Portland game after all—while occasionally drawing Chance and Community Chest cards packed with local references.
Instead of referencing Portland’s major thoroughfares for the property squares—and risking rank-pricing the city’s neighborhoods—Top Trumps USA opened a public poll last year, inviting people to email the company with board suggestions. Darcelle XV Showplace was an early given, for example, placed strategically in the upper center of the board where Kentucky Avenue classically stands by Free Parking. Instead of using MAX lines and risking alienating one of the five colors, bridges are used instead: Burnside, Fremont, Hawthorne and Morrison (the St. Johns Bridge is pictured on the board, criminally obscured by the game logo).
Some location clusters make sense, like the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Oaks Amusement Park, and the Oregon Zoo. (“Places to take a 4-year-old,” a WW staffer quipped.) Others are a little more confusing. Darcelle’s, for instance, is paired with Huber’s Cafe and Chown Hardware—not a common evening’s itinerary. Hollywood Theatre and Movie Madness are paired with Multnomah Falls, maybe because they all have a connection to streaming? The hotels Benson, Lucia and The Nines represent the city’s hotels, ignoring P-Town’s no-tell motels.
Only a handful of the city’s cultural institutions are represented: OMSI, the Oregon Zoo, the World Forestry Center, the Portland Japanese Garden, and Hollywood Theatre. That means no Portland Art Museum, no Schnitz, no Crystal Ballroom or Mary’s Club. Pittock Mansion, where Mr. Monopoly hobnobbed on a promotion visit last year, didn’t make the cut either. Only two restaurants are listed—The Elephants Deli location pictured on the board is in Beaverton,—and no city parks. Two listings are not locations at all. One is the Portland Rose Festival, perhaps understandably the board’s most affordable listing, given its recent financial struggles. The other is the Western Meadowlark, Oregon’s state bird. Perhaps players buying up the Bird Alliance of Oregon or the area’s designated wildlife refuges was too distressing?
One possible motive for the contrarian choices: Top Trumps USA revealed at a Nov. 17 press conference that it took paid sponsorships for some game considerations, raising questions about how heavily the public’s input was weighed over the year the game was developed. A rep could not answer by email which businesses paid for sponsorships, but the game can be purchased at Portland Nursery, the Oregon Zoo and Powell’s locations, as well as through Amazon.
Any salty board-game enthusiasts unhappy with Portland Monopoly might be interested to know that versions of Portland-Opoly, an unofficial sealed version of Monopoly, are starting to pop up on eBay ranging from $20 to $150. Portland-Opoly’s locations, especially in the Old Town Edition, at least make more logistical sense, with fun game pieces like a pewter pretzel and terrifying Big Smile. Mill Ends Park, Tom McCall Waterfront Park, Voodoo Doughnut, and the Bagdad Theater are among the Portland locations that fare better in this version, while Powell’s (which is Top Trumps USA’s Broadway) appears here on St. James Place.
