Vancouver has taken the spot of New York Avenue on the newest edition of Monopoly, Monopoly Here & Now: World Edition. People all over the world voted avidly for their hometowns. Even governments and public officials got involved. In fact, Vancity Buzz, before we were known as Vancity Buzz, prompted Tourism Vancouver to add a banner to their front page.
This was great publicity for Hasbro. However, the voting system was definitely flawed in terms of accurately ranking cities’ greatness. How London, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo did not crack the top 6 is beyond me. But wait… it doesn’t say anywhere on the web what we were voting for. A quick google search reveals absolutely nothing. Were we voting for greatness, livability, beauty, or size of the voting population? We were just voting, for the sake of voting.
There was no substance behind this contest. This was a dumb gimmick by Hasbro which will not translate into the huge sales they are hoping for. Nobody wants to buy something where their city lost, except if you live in overachieving Latvia or Toronto of course.