You know, they always joke that Monopoly is a game that can absolutely decimate a friendship. Still, I never expected the faster-paced mobile version to almost cause internal combustion within the Prima Teama. As we have all succumbed to the obsessive nature of trying to one-up each other in our Net Worth and general collection of Trading Cards, one particular part of this game has caused more fights than anything that has come up to this point: the blasted “Shut-Down” feature.
You’ve likely played Monopoly in person, with a group of friends, or with your family, and know that it can be devastating when you finally amass a fair fortune and start to lose it all slowly. But, you don’t need to worry about someone bringing a literal wrecking ball to the party to start destroying and decimating your recently built property like you do in Monopoly GO.
Between the hectic schedule of releases, we’ve all slowly found ourselves downloading Monopoly GO, as we figured it could be a fun and creative way to compete with one another during an otherwise maddening time. Between the releases of Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, and the upcoming Spider-Man 2, we’ve hardly had a moment to breathe and reconnect with one another. At Prima, we love the team aspect just as much as we love doing work and getting hyped up about upcoming and previously released games, so a more off-hand approach to games sounded perfect.
That is, until, we realized that you could swap opponents. Sure, there may be a giant “Switch Opponent” button, but since our brains are basically on auto-pilot playing the game while we are working on other projects, we just started swinging. After convincing more of the Prima Teama to join in, it turned into an all-out brawl between articles, and things started getting heated in the Slack chat.
While Meg Bethany Koepp, Managing Editor decided to start throwing hands with me, we realized that there was, in fact, a Switch Opponents button. Our truce began here, after relentlessly swinging for the fences at one another for what felt like a lifetime. As some of the OG Monopoly GOats in the Prima Games Slack Channel, we tried to spread this information to a new wealth of players who were slowly joining the ranks of the Elite in our crew. But, are we in for the worst surprise of our lives? Yes, without a doubt.
See, we discuss MANY different things in our work chat. New releases, general life, just about anything under the sun. This means that certain conversations regarding peace talks in the Prima Games chat can get swept under the rug in exchange for new information that has just been released to the crew. As quickly as our realizations came, they were gone.
Enter resident troll Matt Vatankhah. His hobbies include long walks on the beach (and subsequently getting buried up to his neck in sand), and coming into the world of Monopoly GO to try and push an agenda of violence upon our happy lands. Within hours of his arrival, our quaint maps were being reduced to rubble, due to his lack of knowledge about the “Switch Opponents” button. Maybe he knew and just wanted to cause some havoc, it’s hard to tell with him. I know I’m personally leaning more toward the second half.
However, this all came to a halt when he finally admitted in the chat that he discovered the Switch Opponents button. Peace treaties were drafted between everyone in the chat, and happiness once again helped us push toward our ultimate goals in the world of Monopoly GO. That is, until, it happened once again.
Matt once again returned with a vengeance, attacking Jesse Vitelli (do not contact him) shortly after he arrived in the world of Monopoly GO, causing our Monopoly GO channel to erupt into flames. Thankfully, after his most recent attack, things have been mostly quiet on the frontlines, but the early days of Monopoly GO were some of the most tense moments that we’ve had in the Prima Chat in quite some time.
While the name of the game is money, and you can’t help who you rob when you land on a Railroad, we’ve all finally realized that violence is not the answer. Sure, will another set of attacks launched upon us by the most unexpected of sources come our way soon enough? It’s very likely (I’m planning on launching a full assault on Matt with other crew members as we speak… or am I?), but for now, we’ll enjoy the calm before the storm. Maybe we’ve finally all realized that it’s better this way, or maybe, we’re just waiting for the perfect time to strike. No matter, we’ll continue passing GO and collecting our $200, all while keeping our eyes peeled for the snakes in the grass.
