Rich Uncle Pennybags is getting a lot richer thanks to Monopoly Go! Forget collecting $200, the mobile sensation is pocketing a lot more than that these days.
On Hasbro’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday, the toymaker revealed that the mobile video game has grossed more than $3 billion in revenue since its launch on April 11, 2023. That makes Hasbro the top licenser of video games in the past year, the company says.
Hasbro works with mobile games company Scopely on Monopoly Go!—along with other licensed titles, such as Scrabble Go and Yahtzee with Buddies. (They did not make Pokémon Go—that was Niantic.) Monopoly Go! has been the pack leader, becoming so popular that a week ago, the companies introduced a Monopoly Go! board game (based on the mobile game, which is based on the board game—yeah, we got dizzy thinking about it too).
For the full year, Monopoly Go! is expected to generate roughly $105 million in licensing revenue for Hasbro—and company officials admit they could be underestimating that, as they’re still getting a sense of how players interact with the game.
“We don’t quite get the seasonality yet,” said Chris Cox, Hasbro’s CEO on the call. “However, where I do think we have some bullishness is on the mid- and long-term [prospects] for the game. When you look at games that reach this ‘hyperscale’ like Monopoly Go! has . . . 10 of the 20 best-performing games have been out for five or more years. So, this is a game that’s going to be a really strong and positive annuity for us for a long time to come.”
Since its launch, players have passed “Go” more than 100 billion times and made more than 15 billion visits to jail, according to Scopely. More than 150 billion Landmarks have been built (the game is more than just an electronic version of Monopoly—players build landmark structures, such as bridges or a Mr. Monopoly Statue of Liberty, with money they earn from circling the board or sabotaging other players).
The game made history in its early days, too, laying claim to the bragging rights of the most successful mobile title launch ever in the U.S., crossing the $1 billion mark just seven months after its debut, with players sending out more than 150 million invitations to friends.
Monopoly (the original board game) has been a staple in people’s living rooms for more than 100 years. While the popular legend is that an unemployed salesman named Charles Darrow came up with the game during the Depression, somewhere around 1935, that’s not quite true.
A Quaker named Lizzie Magie, in fact, created the game in 1904 to showcase the evils of property ownership. (The original title was “The Landlord’s Game.”) Magie was a supporter of the Quaker tax reformer Henry George, and the game focused on players extorting others.
It was a hit in the Quaker community—a big one. One enthusiastic fan was a hotelier named Charles Todd, who would sometimes play with his guests. One regular visitor was (you guessed it) Charles Darrow, who asked Todd to write up the rules for him.
Once the game took off, Parker Brothers learned its true origins and had to do some damage control. It bought the rights for $500 from Magie in 1935, who believed her original game—and its philosophies—would be distributed. And it was—well, for a couple hundred copies at least, before it was discontinued. Turns out people had more fun with Darrow’s tweaks to the game.