Tuesday, May 18, 2004

The topic of boardgames came up recently, gentle reader, and the conversation ended with more questions than answers. Why are there so few modern classics, I wondered, and how can we fix this problem? A tentative answer struck in the form of a pleasant saleswoman from March of Dimes who painted, in broad and vivid strokes, a fundraising idea gone haywire. We were sitting on a flight to Tennessee when she turned to me.

“What do you do?” she asked genially.

“Nothing of value,” I replied. “And you?”

She apparently did something of value, and talk eventually settled on flawed ideas for fundraising. She once witnessed a contest involving land, a cow, and some imaginary lines. Here’s how it worked: some fundraisers took a plot of land, imposed an imaginary grid on it, and then loosed a cow onto the grid. Contestants purchased raffle tickets with random coordinates, hoping beyond all hope that the cow would poop on the precise location of victory.

“It’s like bingo!” I exclaimed, happy to have had an epiphany. “Maybe a dirtier version of bingo.”

Scatology will forever hold an unwholesome appeal, as evidenced by the wonderment created by this anecdote. But wait! What if we reinvented all the boardgames of old and released scatological updates of time-honored favorites? Imagine Poopopoly, if you will. The board would remain the same, for the most part, but all the pieces would resemble dogs. The game dynamics would likewise remain the same, except you could have your dog defecate on your opponent’s pricey hotels, thereby decreasing overall property values. I don’t know if you can see what I’m seeing, but I’m envisioning a soiled Shangri-la stretching from Baltic Avenue to Park Place.

Before you whip out your checkbooks, I’d urge you to pause and reflect. Not all games lend themselves to reinvention, after all. Clue: Bathroom Edition would be a colossal failure.

“Hey, I’m ready to guess! It’s Colonel Mustard with the Knife…in the bathroom.”

“Actually, you’re wrong. It’s Miss Scarlet with the Wrench…in the bathroom.”

And can you imagine an updated Twister? Let’s not imagine an updated Twister. My fervent hope, when all is said and done, is that you’ll understand an important entrepreneurial truth: a lot of thought should go into your product proposal. Impulsive action will only send you up Shit Creek without a–I need to phone the makers of Slip N’ Slide. Immediately.