Games gone wild!

The MONOPOLY board game has moved online and its servers crashed. Too much buying and “getting out of jail”.

http://features.csmonitor.com/economyrebuild/2009/09/09/worlds-biggest-monopoly-game-crashes-online/

And the Beatles rock band as well (now a game).

The mechanical universe is handing the reign over to its digital counterpart, with Jobs its new High Priest.

We are building our 21st century Cathedral, not made out of glass but of bytes. The speed of thoughts. “Hit me”.

“Other men stop and talk, walking man walks” sings Taylor. The top billion “chat online”.

The rest, walk.

There lies our digital divide. It will be the greatest divide ever experienced by the human race, bigger than wealth,

and cultural divide. It need Moses to once again part the waters to “let my people go (online)”.

We will all miss the fake (to play MONOPOLY) as well the real paper money, board game turned online game, leather wallet to e-wallet.

Oh well, e-pickpocketing (ID theft) too while at it (there was an ID thief, female, asked to open a store account, using the very Customer service rep’s name who was helping her. That thief is now in jail).

Yet,  the benefits of this new Long Tail will outweigh our selective memories for the good old days.

Open course wares, e-learning, EMR, e-government, and if you push the e-velope, E-ucharist.

I guess Paul McCartney is the one who has witnessed these changes from the front row seat. On the Ed Sullivan show, the Beatles were performing in front of a live audience of 73 million, who glued to their B/W sets. And now you can buy Beatles the Rock Band game and its new digitally remastered CD set box.

I was watching the TIME and Life infomercial the other night. Something about Romancing the 70’s.

And how Anne Murray and Olivia Newton John all looked so 70’s (male and female musicians with hair,  but without a care in the world).  Gone were the burning monk and the burning girl (Yahoo features her today).

Music reflects the time. And these performers came across as neither anti-establishment (60’s), nor greedy (80’s). MONOPOLY should have been relaunched during that Yuppies decade. It would have sold more game boards than SUV’s. But then, who had the time for those long sessions with families and friends, when “greed is good” and “a thousand points of light” to be extolled on the Hill.

Alan Greenspan would agree with me that another balloon will pop sometime, given our behavior pattern of “creative destruction”. Monopoly was originally intended to teach consumers about the danger of over leveraging. Not to buy the whole block and end up being King of the hill (see my other blog about the lone tenant – the Shining).

Something is definitely out of control. In getting off the (60’s VW bus), the Games gone wild! on Miami beach and else where. Meanwhile, it’s your turn to roll the dice. I am yet to “get out of jail” (see Papillon blog).

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