Back in the mid 19th century, a successful but relatively unknown lithographer produced and image of Abraham Lincoln. While pictures of famous people have always helped launch the careers of successful artists, Milton Bradley kind of screwed up by printing a clean shaven Lincoln. Everyone knows that Lincoln’s source of power was his mighty beard and funky hat, so Milton’s picture became about as popular as the idea of giving anyone who wasn’t a white land owning male rights at the time. Desperate to use his amazing lithography skills, Milton needed to find a way to combine his knowledge of printing and his love of capitalism.
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While Milton pondered what to do, a relatively new game called the Mansion of Happiness was a big hit in good God fearing Protestant middle class households. The game promoted the idea that virtue and good deeds assured happiness and success in life. Players raced around a game board by spinning a teetotum (a spinning top – since dice were wicked) on a quest to reach the last game square first, the Mansion of Happiness. The end square depicted happy men and women making music and dancing before a house and garden, which is a veiled reference to Heaven. To get to Heaven, players needed to land on the good virtues – things like temperance and chastity. If a player landed on audacity or immodesty, that would set them back – and others would get into Heaven first.
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The game’s rules noted:
“WHOEVER possesses PIETY, HONESTY, TEMPERANCE, GRATITUDE, PRUDENCE, TRUTH, CHASTITY, SINCERITY…is entitled to Advance six numbers toward the Mansion of Happiness. WHOEVER gets into a PASSION must be taken to the water and have a ducking to cool him… WHOEVER posses[ses] AUDACITY, CRUELTY, IMMODESTY, or INGRATITUDE, must return to his former situation till his turn comes to spin again, and not even think of HAPPINESS, much less partake of it.
Milton had the foresight to know that “good virtue and deeds” as life goals was just quitter talk for “I don’t mind being poor.” But, he did recognize that people like games – especially where players seem to believe they have a choice in where they land, but in reality, the spinning top nets one the same odds as rolling dice. In other words, the design makes you believe you’ve got a choice. Milton borrowed the concept and invented the Checkered Game of Life. The gameplay was similar – but instead of mincing around worrying about high minded concepts like passion – players needed to hope to land on more tangible ideas like college and industry. Instead of a happy Mansion representing Heaven, players wanted the“old age” square, where they got 50 points – halfway to the 100 needed to win. Players hoped to avoid such things as “crime” and “gambling.” Milton, much smarter than the inventors of the Mansion even threw in a “suicide” square, presumably for those losers who wanted to go back to thinking about morals.
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The game was a huge hit – selling 45,000 copies in its first year. This allowed Milton to found the now famous Milton Bradley Company, producer of almost every game that wasn’t made by the Parker Brothers. On the hundredth annivesary of the Checkered Game of Life, the company released the now infamous Game of Life, adding one more piece to the vast tapestry of things that will eventually destroy human existence.
The Checkered Game of Life was a little too boring and abstract for modern day American children and families, as collecting points and trying to avoid the sins of gambling have no real quantifiable cash value. After all, it’s hard to imagine “happy old age” if you don’t have a very specific occupation, a million dollars, and little blue and pink sticks representing your 2.5 well adjusted children. So, the creators of the Game of Life and its subsequent versions spiced things up – first adding specific salaries and a poor farm, then specific careers, then stocks and insurance – but most importantly, Life as we know it added benchmark events in a specific order – graduation, marriage, buying a house, having children, and retirement. After all, the original game may have showed people that true happiness means wealth, but the modern version showed us that there’s a proper order to it.
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The Game of Life teaches valuable lessons, such as the importance of using arbitrary life goals as ways to get cool stuff. For example, in the game – players collect presents by adding family members. Have a kid? Spin the wheel and get some money! Get married? Spin the wheel and get some money! Of course, that’s out of order – because all good people get married first, then buy a house, then have children. The most important subtext of Life though is that there’s a specific path – defined by accruing wealth. You have little say in how much of that wealth you acquire or how you do it – but he who dies with the most toys, wins.
The game ends when players reach the retirement square. Everyone gets to retire – but winners get to retire in style in the Millionare’s mansion. Being a millionare of course, isn’t enough to win – so players have to count their cash to see who the real winner is. If you’re unlucky enough not to have a million dollars – you end up in the Country Acres retirement home, code for saying “your plastic children hate you because they won’t inherit any money.” Of course in real life, many people never make it to retirement – which just makes them losers, like the people who landed on the suicide square and opted to play that other game with high morals.
These days, everyone’s in some kind of crisis. Mid life crisis, quarter life crisis, the crisis of adolecense, old age – whatever. Most of us know we won’t end up in millionare mansion – we’ll be lucky to end up in one of those homes where they feed you almost every day. In fact, now we’ve got to hope we don’t end up destroying our planet before we get a chance to think about playing shuffleboard and staring whistfully out the window thinking of the good ole days.
So, whenever you’re down and out, wondering why you’re so worried about money – you can thank Mr. Milton Bradley. He may not have invented consumerist values and capitalism, but his company did a great job of cementing its values in your young mind.
Here’s hoping you all end up landing on the right squares.
