The goal of Monopoly is bad business.

Monopoly was designed to represent failure of a system.

So which ones are based on success?

Monopoly, The Landlord’s Game (1903), was designed by Elizabeth Magie as a learning tool AGAINST competition over the land market in that it causes competition over a finite resource.

It was supposed to demonstrate the folly of greed over land ownership.

Of course, human nature as it is, it was a huge hit.

To be fair, the game came at a much-needed time to distract us through the wars and recessions of the 20th century. The escapist fantasy of control and money was exactly what people needed, even as its message that ‘This is no way to do business,’ was lost.

The goal.

Monopoly at its heart has but one goal: To economically destroy all other players.

In other words, we play villains.

In Settlers of Catan, players all strive to develop a new island into one with cities and settlements, producing raw materials like wheat and ore that players turn into yet more developments.

We build. We play heroes. The winner is the one who helped the inhabitants most.

In the games Cuba (where you grow sugar and export rum), The Estates (where you build apartment blocks from a hole in the ground) and Chinatown (where you populate New York with small businesses), the same applies. Not everyone is The Best to be crowned Winner, but everyone benefits, so everyone wins, and the wealth of the world increases by so many bottles of quality spirits.

Isn’t that a better reason for starting up a business?