Tahoe Daily Tribune
Last week the Lake Tahoe community celebrated the launch of the Monopoly Lake Tahoe Edition at Edgewood Tahoe. Along with the Monopoly Man, several Northern Nevada businesses that are featured on the board such as Red Hut Café, Village Toys/Susie Scoops, and Fox & Hound were in attendance, as well as the League to Save Lake Tahoe and other local agencies. Popular Tahoe attractions including Mt. Rose – Ski Tahoe and Monkey Rock are also on the board.
Top Trumps USA Sales Representative Aaron Green introduced the idea to create a Lake Tahoe-specific Monopoly game in April 2022, and reached out to the community and local businesses about their interest. They received more than 1,200 suggestions emailed to them about what to include, and soon after the ball got rolling on bringing the game to fruition.
“We all know what Monopoly is; we all grew up with it and have a connection to it. How incredible is it to have Tahoe on a game board that the whole world plays?” Edgewood Tahoe General Manager Corinna Osborne said. “It’s great to play the game and have our destination represented. It’s a win-win for all businesses, community members, and tourists.”
The League to Save Lake Tahoe (aka the “Keep Tahoe Blue” organization) is the first nonprofit to be featured in a Monopoly game and hopefully Community Chest and Chance prompts such as “You picked up litter that wasn’t yours, and left Lake Tahoe better than you found it. Collect M10 from every player,” and “You always clean up after your dog does its business. Collect M25,” will inspire visitors and locals to do what they can protect and preserve Tahoe’s iconic natural environment.
Green says that for more than 25 years Top Trumps USA has been the number one licensing company for Hasbro special edition Monopoly games, creating customized official versions of this timeless classic to celebrate the uniqueness of U.S. cities and regions. In the last six months, Top Trumps USA have created and released special edition Monopoly games for Napa Valley, Sacramento, and Palm Springs as well.
“We choose places where people are proud to be from and where they like to go, like The Grid for in Kings Beach and the Fox & Hound (in Stateline). When it has a local feel, it means a lot to people,” Green said.
“This (Lake Tahoe Edition) features a unique mix of businesses and places you like to visit in the summer,” Green adds, mentioning places like Incline Village’s Monkey Rock, Emerald Bay, and the M.S. Dixie II in Zephyr Cove. When asked how hard it was to narrow it down to 22 squares, Green says, “We saw a lot of the same themes and same places come through in people’s recommendations. When you see hundreds of the same place through the voting process, you start to pay attention.”
Green admitted that used to vacation in Lake Tahoe when he was younger and hiked the entire Tahoe Rim Trail with his brothers, so he was a bit familiar with the area before taking on this Monopoly project.
The games were sent out to local retailers just a few days before the launch party, and now the Monopoly Lake Tahoe Edition is officially for sale at CVS as well as Mountain Hardware and Village Toys/Susie Scoops in Incline Village. The game costs $39.95 and can also be bought online at www.monopolylaketahoe.com.
Along with Monopoly, Hasbro created Play-Doh, Nerf, Transformers, Peppa Pig, and Magic: The Gathering. However, while Hasbro has ingratiated itself into family homes, CNBC recently reported that Hasbro cut 15 percent of its workforce following the weak holiday season. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks told its investors that while the fourth quarter of 2022 was challenging, it is confident that its latest Blueprint 2.0 strategy focusing on fewer bigger brands and its fast-growing licensing/direct-to-consumer businesses should help carry the company through to better earnings.