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I have always loved playing the Monopoly game, but it is so much work. You have to get everyone together in the same place, set up the board, and spend literally hours moving your pieces around. Some of our games would go on for days, as we had to stop our play and pick it up again later. You have to keep track of every transaction and it inevitably gets complicated as certain players start to go bankrupt. That is why I was so overjoyed to find out that I could play Monopoly online. I get to have the same great game experience without the drawbacks and inconveniences that made it such a rare event for me.

The neat thing about playing Monopoly online is that there are servers set up that are dedicated to it. That means that, practically anytime you want to play a game of Monopoly, you can probably find someone who is willing to play with you. You have access to players from all over the world, so at any given time, you’re bound to find a taker.

Of course there are disadvantages as well. When you play Monopoly online, it is easy for players to get bored and walk away from the game. Many games don’t keep running all the way to the end, since people tend to have other commitments (you know, like life) before things are over. Only the true diehard fanatics will always stay. You also don’t have the actual physical board there. There’s something neat about moving pieces around and actually watching your money accumulate, and you miss out on that with online Monopoly.

Nevertheless, despite these disadvantages it still is nice to be able play Monopoly online. I so rarely get the opportunity to set up the full board game with people in my house, but anytime I have half an hour or so I can start a game on the Internet. I have even made a few friends doing it. Apparently, there are quite a few board game addicts out there, and many of them have taken to the Internet to find new competitors. If you are good at Monopoly (and I am very good at it) you can earn their respect and even their admiration.

There are a lot of other online boardgames I’ve gotten interested in recently. I like to play Risk online a lot of the time. It can get kind of nasty when you’re playing against friends in person, but when you play on the Internet, it always stays sort of impersonal. It is just a good clean game played with strangers. If you win, nothing is gained. If you lose nothing is lost.