'Monopoly City Streets' Online Game Launches Tomorrow

08.09.2009
Get ready to get your Monopoly on, global style: Hasbro is preparing to unveil a live version of its Monopoly game with serving as the game board. The game, entitled , is set to launch this Wednesday -- yep, the same day as that .

Is it just me, or is the utterance of in the same sentence giving anyone else a sense of ?

The Monopoly City Streets Tour

jokes notwithstanding, the Monopoly City Streets game is managing to build a steady buzz in the blogosphere this week. The official game Web site calls it the "biggest live game of Monopoly in history" (the title of "best employer of superlatives ever," I assume, was already taken).

"A world of property empire building on an unimaginable scale will be launched," the site proclaims. "Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use Monopoly Chance cards to sabotage your mates by building hazards on their streets."

With as its base, Monopoly City Streets will actually turn the globe into a game board. Contrary to some media reports, however, itself didn't have a strong hand in building the game; rather, Hasbro's U.K.-based digital agency , using the Google Maps API, street data from OpenStreetMap, and occasional guidance from the Google team.