Where in the world...

Curious about the most popular cities in Monopoly City Streets? The cities below are currently the most searched cities in the game.

1. New York
2. Paris
3. Hong Kong
4. London
5. Tokyo
6. Dubai
7. Las Vegas
8. Barcelona
9. Miami
10. Madrid

Don't forget to submit your design for the Google SketchUp design contest. Click here to learn more. Or, click here to check out the competition.

A few odds and ends.

Over the past week, we have been actively monitoring play patterns and removing accounts of those who aren't playing the game by the rules. We have removed thousands of accounts, which has returned more than five thousand streets to the game. This will be an ongoing project for us as we are committed to making MONOPOLY City Streets a fun experience for players of all ages. Thanks to all who have provided tips about possible cheaters.

Have you taken the time to design a building for the game using Google SketchUp? Time is running out! Learn more about the contest here.

Also, as a reminder - please be safe about who you provide information to on the internet. We have not collected your e-mail address and will not be sending e-mails to you about the game (unless you have sent a specific request). So, be careful with your information and be wary of spammers.

Thanks for your continued support.

And we're back...

Thanks for your patience this morning as we took the servers down for maintenance. Now that we're back live, we have started the process of repossessing the cash and streets from players that are cheating and returning those assets back into the game. The removal of accounts will be an ongoing process and it is likely that a player you have reported may not yet be removed. Take note, however, that we are monitoring them and will take action.

As a reminder, the rules state (just like Monopoly) that there should be only one game per person. However, to accommodate families and others who might be playing together, we do allow up to 5 players per computer. We ask that those playing the game honor these rules.

We will continue to delete accounts as long as it is necessary. Thanks for all of your feedback.

Maintenance Notice

The site will be going down today between 10-11 AM eastern time for about 3 hours. When it comes back up, we will have implemented procedures to start dealing with the cheating that has been widely reported.

Also, many of you have asked for clarification about how many accounts one person can have on the game. The rules state (just like Monopoly) that there should be only one game per person. However, to accommodate families and others who might be playing together, we do allow up to 5 players per computer. We ask that those playing the game honor these rules. We will begin deleting accounts if we discover anyone abusing these rules.

Thanks for your continued patience and honest feedback.

Deflation hits the Streets

As promised, we have been working to combat foul play in the game and have begun correcting anomalies which have been used by a few to inflate their MONOPOLY City Streets coffers.

Last week, in the interest of adding more excitement to game play, we increased the value of many of the streets when we relaunched the game. However, as a result, rental income on the most expensive streets grew exponentially. During the past 24 hours, we have adjusted the rental income multiplier to correct overinflated rents which some have exploited in their quest to become a real estate mogul.

We did not take away any income from the past several days, but you will notice that starting at the most recent payday, you did receive reduced rents on your buildings. Over the course of several days, this adjustment will once again level the playing field among all players.

The incentive to buy bigger – and more expensive – streets remains overall, as those streets have more potential for development (and thus more rent) over the course of the game. So, you may have to adjust your buying and building strategy and begin negotiating with other players to get to the higher levels of the game.

We apologize for not posting the update about rent before the change was made to the game. But, we are confident that this change will be in the best interest of all players.

Next up in the quest to combat cheaters: deletion of accounts.

Server Maintenance

We are currently undergoing server maintenance and while we don't expect any interruptions, if you do experience any technical problems, please know that we will be up and running again very soon.

Thanks...and more to come shortly on rent issues and other concerns.

Mr MONOPOLY is watching!

MONOPOLY City Streets is now picking up momentum. We hope you've noticed an improvement in gameplay and are enjoying building your property empires. Predictably the big cities once again saw the most action; New York, Paris, Hong Kong, London and Tokyo were the most popular choices but there are still millions of unclaimed streets out there.

At the reset we promised two things, 1) an improvement in site performance and 2) an implementation of checks to combat cheating. Over the weekend, the MONOPOLY City Streets development team has been watching play closely. We warned players against cheating and will be taking action over the next few days to identify and delete accounts we know to be suspect. Players will be disqualified NOT sent to jail, will not pass GO and will have their property and assets seized by the bank.

For the majority playing fairly, this means more opportunity to buy, build and negotiate - there's still everything to play for...

Send us an email

Just a reminder: the email address for reporting bugs, complaints or other problems is: monopolycitysts@gmail.com. It seems that many game play issues are still being listed here in the blog.

We also hear your frustration about cheaters -- we are listening and we will be taking action.

On the plus side, we are not experiencing any server issues and we're not hearing many complaints about major bugs or malfunctions -- and we're also getting great feedback from people about how much fun they are having with the game. That's great news!

Cheating and reporting problems

First of all, we know there are people cheating and we are watching. Cheaters beware...and clean up your act -- or you WILL be evicted from the game.

Secondly, when we reset the game we added a feature in the FAQ for reporting problems. This blog should be a place for shared information, commentary and strategies. All other issues should go to the email address listed in the FAQ.

Lastly, we will be removing profanities from this blog and ask that you keep your posts G-rated (ok, maybe PG-rated) in the future. There are kids of all ages on this blog and we need to keep it clean.

Thanks.

Registration Issues

We know some of you are having trouble registering....we are trying to find out exactly why that is happening.

Who owns those streets?

There are dozens of streets in the game owned by Mr. Monopoly....he is the boss, after all. At some point in the future, Mr. Monopoly will be putting them up for auction so it's still anyone's game.

We're back!

Monopoly City Streets is back online! If you're having difficulties getting in, clear your cookies and refresh your browser. That should help. Also, once you register, you'll want to check the price of a property before you buy...some streets may be too expensive for you to buy right away.

Good luck!

Changes...

Since we are restarting MONOPOLY City Streets game play, we have decided to make a few changes to the game at the same time. Why? We want to make it more competitive and fun…and also to prevent any sneaky cheating (which a few of you were up to…you know who you are). A short summary of some key changes:

Streets can only change hands ONCE per day
In other words, no street can be bought or sold more than once per day. So, be wise about your street selection.

Bidding Cap Removed
For level 3 players and above, we have removed the bidding cap of M1.5 million on streets. Have fun.

Addition of "For Sale" signs
Having a hard time finding a street to purchase? Now when viewing the zoomed out map, you will see red “for sale” signs that will indicate where streets are available. Click on the sign to visit the neighborhood and buy, buy, buy.

Tax
There is only one certainty in MONOPOLY City Streets. Tax. Just like in real life, tax now plays an integral part of the game. The first 5 streets that you own are tax-free. The current tax rate is 3% per street. For example, if you own 15 streets your tax will be 30% of your total rent collected every day. If you own 25 streets your tax will be 60%, etc.

Street Protection
Many of you noticed that if there is an offer made on a street, it was protected from hazards and the bulldozer while the street is under negotiation. No longer. Streets will no longer be protected when they are included in negotiations.

Forced Repossession of Streets
It pays to play regularly. If, after 2 weeks, there has not been any activity on your account, the bank will automatically repossess ALL your streets. Ouch. So, keep buying, building and negotiating - you never know what chance has in store for you…

For the updated guidelines click here.

Cheaters
We are monitoring activity of players. If we are suspicious that you are engaging in unsportsmanlike behavior in the game, you do run the risk of being disqualified (or in Monopoly terms, sent to jail without a 'get out of jail free' card.). As you know, this is a free game and we want people to have fun negotiating deals, buying streets and building a crazy new cityscape.

And, two things you won't see (we know you'll ask...)
E-mail verification: Monopoly City is a family board game. And, by extension, Monopoly City Streets is a family game. We are limited as to the type of information we can collect from younger players (especially internationally) and as such have not added e-mail verification.
Updated street data: There are millions of streets in the world and we are not able to update the street data at this time. But, if you want to learn more about OpenStreetMap and Monopoly City Streets, click here.

We hope that this sheds some light on the changes to the game. Thanks again for your enthusiasm for Monopoly City Streets. Enjoy!

You may have noticed...

We're in the process of resetting the game. We're busy behind the scenes making changes and testing. We'll be back soon.

For those who may be vising the blog for the first time, a bit of background. Our inspiration for MONOPOLY City Streets was taken from our latest game board MONOPOLY City. We wanted to bring the updated gameplay to life in a unique way and a new game was born.

At launch, we were blown away by the sheer numbers of people who wanted to try their hand at global real estate domination (1.7 million in day one alone!). We made headlines all over the world and this resulted in even more MONOPOLY fans rushing to be a part of the action.

As many of you experienced, the initial stampede led to slower servers, which in turn resulted in compromised data. You may have also discovered a few bugs while you’ve been getting to know the game and we’ve been hard at work to fix those problems.

In the interests of fair play we’ve listened to player feedback and are re-setting the game to start fresh and give everyone an equal opportunity to live out their property magnate fantasies. Yes this means that all the property you’ve purchased, developed, traded will be lost and you’ll have to start from scratch, but just think of what you could achieve if you put everything you’ve learned into play!

But, we’re not just restarting the old game. There will be an assortment of gameplay improvements and rule tweaks based on the torrent of feedback and a closer synergy with the new MONOPOLY City game. We’ve also dramatically ramped up our hardware to deal with the demand to ensure a smoother game play experience for all.

Thank you for bearing with us over the last few days as we’ve been making our improvements we hope you’ll revel in the opportunity to put your brushed up MONOPOLY skills into practice.

RESTART DATE SET.

When we launched MONOPOLY City Streets last week, we were thrilled that so many of you wanted to try your hand at global real estate domination. As many of you experienced, the initial rush led to slower servers, which in turn resulted in compromised data. You may have also discovered a few bugs while you’ve been getting to know the game and we’ve been hard at work to fix those problems.

To prepare for the restart, we will be taking down the game on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 at 15:00 GMT. We anticipate that the game will be down for 12 to 24 hours as we reset and test the game. When the site comes back live, the game will restart.

But, we’re not just restarting the game. We’ve made some improvements to the gameplay that we think address many of the concerns that you have brought to our attention while you played the game. We will provide additional details about these changes soon.

This restart does mean that everyone will be starting over with $3 million to spend and will need to register again.

Thank you all for your awesome support in the last few days. We appreciate all of the input, suggestions and most of all your patience.

Hot properties.

As you can imagine, we’re hard at work behind the scenes to prepare for the reset of the game later this week. In addition to working out bugs, we’re also adding hardware in the background. This activity may result in the servers going down for a few minutes at a time. If you get a server down message, please try again.

Just for fun we wanted to share the top 10 most searched streets or neighborhood in the world of Monopoly City Streets.

1. Wall Street
2. Broadway
2. 5th Avenue
4. Oxford Street
5. Hollywood
6. Route 66
7. Times Square
8. Nathan Road
9. Rue de la Paix
10. Rodeo Drive

Please check back tomorrow as we are planning to have details about the date and time of the restart of the game. Thanks for your help, support and patience.

For the record....

Between the blog posts and the twitter page, we're trying to respond to as many questions as we can, but in some cases we just don't have all the answers yet. Many of you have told us the twitter page is especially helpful -- that's good to know. It's also been fun to see how many fan pages have cropped up and how many players are helping each other out with basic game play rules as well as strategies.

The game developers have been working non-stop on improving game play for the reset and we are passing along your comments. We can't promise we can do everything you ask, but we will do our best to make the game play fair and fun.

A few answers to FAQ

Thanks for all of the comments, questions, sharing of bugs in the game, suggestions for improvements...and most of all thanks for your patience and support. This evening, we just wanted to provide a few answers to frequently asked questions about game play that have been asked repeatedly on Twitter and the blog.

Q: I can't seem to register. How do I start?
A: Purchase a street and then you will be invited to register. Keep in mind that your first street will become your "home" page for the game.

Q: Is there a way for me to change my starting location (for example, when I login I get sent to London, but I’d like to start in Chicago).
A: No. Your starting location is determined by where you purchase your first street. You don’t have to stay there, it is simply your “home” page in the game.

Q: How can someone bulldoze my bonus building? I thought they were safe?
A: A bulldoze card can destroy any building on a non-protected street, a bonus, or a hazard on your own street. Yes, a bonus building can be destroyed. A bonus building protects your street from a hazard being built on the street and protects all of the other buildings on the street from the bulldozer as long as the bonus building is still standing.

Q: Does owning streets that are connected to each other have any special power/rent opportunity?
A: No.

Q: When do I get payday? It’s been more than 24 hours since the time I registered/last received payday?
A: Rent is paid out once every 24 hours, which starts and ends at Midnight GMT. You need to log in or refresh the page to receive rent.

Q: Do you only get rent on days when you log in or does it accrue?
A: You must log in to receive rent. It does not accrue.

Q: There aren't any streets left!
A: There are plenty of streets available for purchase, although they might not be in your home town.

Please continue to leave comments here or follow us on Twitter @monopolycitystreets

Cheating.....

Several of you have mentioned cheating going on in the game. When we reset next week, we will be adding new checks and balances - and rules about selling and buying - that should help. Also, for those of you still experiencing map issues, we are working on that as well and hope to have those resolved at the time of the reset.

Glad to hear the good feedback and thanks even for the not-so-good. Keep it coming.

What's your strategy?

Since we announced the reset, the feedback has been encouraging, thanks for sticking with us over the last 3 days or so. What's encouraging is that people LOVE the game and are enjoying their property magnate personas.

We have been working in the background to iron out problems and will announce the date of the reset once we're comfortable with the sites performance. In the mean time we recommend that you keep playing to develop your strategy. Play, negotiate, win!.. Let us know how you're getting on....

The big question.

Yes.

That's the answer to everyone's question about whether or not we are going to restart the game. Once we are comfortable with how the game is performing we will reset the game.

We are expecting that it will be in the middle of next week. We will give everyone at least 24 hours notice before we make the switch. Stay tuned for more details.

Login troubles?

Well, it's been just over 48 hours since we launched Monopoly City Streets. We've experienced growing pains along the way, but we are hearing that speed has improved and that people are enjoying the game. We're so glad to hear it.

We have also heard from players around the world about how their user names have been taken over by other players from different countries -- whether on purpose or by a double use of a user name. When developing the game, we built into the system checks and balances to make sure that each login name would be unique, with password verification supported by user-selected questions.

As you know, we've been experiencing slower server speeds than we'd like and this has affected the speed at which our databases can retrieve the information for login and passwords. We have already increased our server capacity three fold and will be expanding it even further during the next 24-48 hours. As we increase the server capacity, the checks and balances worked into the program should eliminate this problem.

If you are experiencing problems with logging in, please wait and try again. And, if you can't log in and want to start a new account, we recommend creating a very unique and difficult user name and password.

Thanks again for sticking with us!

If you've been playing...

As mentioned, we're working continuously in the background to improve the game. We're aware of the glitches that have been mentioned previously in the comments, but would like to hear what is working for you. Have you noticed changes to the game speed? Do you think game play is getting better? Let us know.

Just so you know...

We are listening. We understand and hear your frustration as you’ve tried to play Monopoly City Streets during the past 36 hours. We are reading every post and recording every glitch -- and we're working to fix them all.

Since yesterday, we've increased our capacity three-fold, which enabled more new users to get to play the game. While this means more people are playing at any given moment in time, it also means that game play is still sluggish.

Without getting into all the technical details, we can assure you that we are making significant upgrades over the next several days and are taking all the necessary steps to avoid similar issues going forward.

Thank you for continuing to check in with us.

What's going on?

So then... today has been a rather busy day to say the least. We appreciate your enthusiasm to try Monopoly City Streets. Thank you for your patience as we work behind the scenes to make the necessary changes to accommodate the traffic to the game.

We had planned for a lot of traffic on launch day and had been load testing the game - in fact, we've been testing and optimizing for a whole month. However, between the enthusiasm of Monopoly fans around the world, everyone who was excited to try out the new experience and non-stop mentions of the game on Twitter, blogs and everywhere else, our servers were overwhelmed. Based on the stats we have, we show a daily rate of about 1.7 million unique visitors, but the figure is likely far higher.

Please be patient as we work to make the necessary changes. In the meantime, if you'd like to help us design a building for the game, see an earlier posting about the SketchUp contest. And, if you'd like to follow us on Twitter, our official address is: MonopolyCitySts

Thank you again for your patience!

The biggest land grab of 2009...

We ANTICIPATED an opening rush when we launched the Monopoly City Streets online game, but the first few hours have surpassed even our greatest EXPECTATIONS.

We are in the process of increasing our firepower and expect to be running more smoothly within the next several hours.

Thanks for your patience as we work as fast as we can to resolve this and get everyone playing and trading on Monopoly City Streets.

It Is Working... but

The registration is slow due to the overwhelming response. Our servers are on fire! Thanks for everyone’s interest and patience - please keep trying.

Ready - Set - Go!

Welcome to MONOPOLY City Streets. Thanks for everyone's anticipation - please be gentle and enjoy. Game is now live at http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/. Keep trying if you don't get in first turn - F5 away...

Countdown to launch... 30 mins from now

For everyone eager to buy their first choice street, we're about 30 mins out from going live from 12:15pm GMT Wednesday 9/9/09

Design your own MONOPOLY Building Competition Launches

Starting today, you'll be able to play MONOPOLY as it's never been played before: The whole world will be up for sale. Anyone, anywhere will be able to own real streets and build their own online city.

The launch clock is ticking, and we still need some new mega structures – and that's where you come in.

We've enlisted Google's help to find three new MONOPOLY game pieces. You have the chance to have YOUR building design (and bearing YOUR name) included in the biggest game of MONOPOLY of all time.

Use Google SketchUp to design a 3D building, then upload your dream structure to the Google 3D Warehouse to enter it into the competition. You'll need to be at least 13 years old to participate, and you'll need to agree to these Terms and Conditions.

The deadline to submit has been extended to Tuesday October 6th 2009 11:59 p.m. EST.

If global MONOPOLY fame and fortune isn't enough, you also have a chance to win a Google SketchUp Pro 7 license (US $495 value). Two runners-up will also have their models used in the online game of MONOPOLY City Streets.

Here's how it works:

1. Download Google SketchUp for free. SketchUp is available for both Windows and Macintosh computers.


2. Learn to build 3D models with SketchUp by watching video tutorials and related YouTube videos. Download and work through a few examples using these self-paced tutorials: Introduction to SketchUp, Starting a Drawing Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.


3. From SketchUp, choose "Share Model" and upload your 3D building to the Google 3D Warehouse (you must have a Google account to sign in).


4. In the upload window, add the tag "monopolycompetition09" and make sure that you've checked "Allow 3D Warehouse users to contact me about this model" so we can contact you if you win!


5. Within 48 hours, your model/entry will appear in the Competition Collection in the Google 3D Warehouse.

Technical Guidelines:

· Buildings can be any size and any shape
· Buildings must not have photo-textures; they must be painted with solid colors
· The file size limit is 2 MB
· The file format should be .SKP

A few quick tips:

1. Keep it simple. Or not. Our judges will be looking at ALL designs – simple and complex.

2. Go crazy. Remember, the MONOPOLY world is a brilliantly fun place. Make your building the same! Go wild and have oodles of fun doing it.

3. Upload as many designs as you want. The more you submit, the greater the chance of your design winning!

4. For some inspiration check out some sample creations already in the Google 3D Warehouse Competition Collection.

Key dates to remember:

Tuesday October 6th 2009 11:59 p.m. ET - Competition closes

Friday Ocotber 9th 2009 midnight ET - Our jury will select 3 building designs from the top rated designs and notify the winners. We will also need to verify eligibility requirements at this stage

Tuesday 13 October 2009 midnight EST - Winners will be announced

October 2009 - The winners’ buildings become part of a global game of MONOPOLY

Enjoy!

FAQ's

Based on some recent questions - we've updated the FAQ's. If you find we've missed anything please comment and we'll do our best to update them as quickly as we can. MONOPOLY City FAQ's Updated

Almost there...

In the last 24 hours the chatter about Monopoly City Streets has really taken off, a lot of people are talking about it and asking lots of questions...

So, did Google build it? From the reports you would think so but the application was built by Hasbro's UK digital agency Tribal DDB

Have Google helped us? Of course, they've been great and have really gotten behind the project with all the support we needed.

Who else has helped us? The project was made possible by using the street data from OpenStreetMap, combined with Google Maps, API tastic!

Will you enjoy playing it? We really hope so.

Not long to go now...

Shhhh... Your chance to WIN MONOPOLY fame coming soon!

This global game will feature an incredible amount of amazing new buildings and building types from MONOPOLY. From humble houses to stupendous skyscrapers and everything in between, never before will you have had the freedom to tailor your property empire exactly the way YOU want it.

But…

We still need 3 new building designs and we’d like YOU to design them!

MONOPOLY and Google SketchUp fans worldwide be sure to check back from next Tuesday 8 September for entry details and the chance to show the world your ultimate 3D building creation.