The Game of Life: Idealism, Reality and Fantasy in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Versions of a Milton Bradley Game

The Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume IX, Number 1, Spring, l9?t The Game of Life: Idealism, Reality and Fantasy in the Nineteenth- and Twentieth .. Century Versions of a Milton Bradley Game Thomas A. Burns The Milton Bradley Company undertook to create and market as part ofits centennial celebration an updated version of the game that Milton Bradlei had first invented and marketed, The Checkered Game of Life. It was The Checkered Game of Life that had successfully launched the Milton Bradley enterprise. Perhaps the game makers at Milton Bradley, thinking somewhat magically, felt that since The Checkered Game of Life had proved an auspicious start for the company's first century, a modernized version might prove an equally fortuitous beginning for its second. Whatever the motivation-magical, commemorative, commercial, or likely a mixture ofaU three-it was apparent that a revision of the old Checkered Gamewas required. Although the Checkered Game had sold well in its first fiftyyearsof production, its sales since 1910 had dropped steadily until by the later 1950'sa marginal number of sets were being sold, mostly to a clientele of traditional and religious orientation. 1 The new game which Milton Bradley created for release in 1960 wasa "track" rather than a "clieckered" board game and so the "checkered" aspect of the original title was dropped to become simply The Game of L1fe Although the new Game of Life has not proved to be a second Monopoly,it has achieved considerable and general success in the popular board-game market over the past fifteen years. In this regard, the new Game of Life\1-ai reported in 1972 to be one of the Milton Bradley Company's largest selling games (Andrews, pp. 104-05). The prominence of the game in most toy stores Games of Life 51 nowsuggests that the situation has not changed since 1972 and that the game remainspopular. Thepopular success of The Checkered Game of Life in the latter part of the nineteenthcentury and of The Game of Life over the past fifteen years suggests thatthe two games represent comparable phenomena in their own times. The factthat the same company is responsible for the creation and marketing of bothgames suggests further that the success of each game in its own period is likely to be a function of the differences in the natures of the two games rather than a consequence of differences in marketing scope or procedure. The success of the new Game of Life and the eventual demise of the old Checkered Game in the early l970's probably indicate the validity of the insights of the game'srevisors as to how life in 1960 should be represented in the context of a board game. That the two games purport to represent life makes the comparison of the two versions of "life" especially attractive to those concernedwith the history of American life and culture and their popular expressivemanifestations. The notion that popular games of various types and of different content withintypes can reflect meaningfully the differential desires, behaviors and idealsamong cultures and various subcultural groups is an accepted position amonggame researchers. 2 The games played in the same culture at different timesare likewise regarded as indicative. With culture change, games undergo alterations, or they remain the same, either being conceived differently or comingto occupy different slots in the game preference hierarchy. 3 Of course itisalsopossible for culture change to have little influence upon game activities since not all changes in culture relate significantly to game behavior. Conceivedin the context of game research, the present study examines two differentgames of life popular at different times in American history in an effortto illuminate their differences. The interpretation of the differences betweenthe two games takes into account changes that have occurred in Americanculture between the games' periods of popularity and changes in the pointsalong the ideal-real-fanciful continuum of behavior being serviced by thetwo games in their respective periods. Dealing as it does with only two games by one manufacturer, the results of the comparison are clearly suggestiveand not definitive. It is hoped that the paper will make a contribution as much for the approach it takes to the detailed analysis of...