Funskool seeks online votes to get Mumbai on Monopoly board

Toy manufacturer Funskool India, which sells popular game brand Monopoly, has taken up the task of getting Mumbai city on the game board of ‘Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition Board Game’, which will be launched all over the world in September.

Votes will be cast on the Internet globally to select 22 cities for Monopoly’s world edition game board. Funskool, the Monopoly game brand distributor in India, is urging people all over India to cast their vote for Mumbai, the only Indian city among the 68 cities nominated across the world.

According to Royappan, Funskool has collaborated with Sify.com and gaming portal Zapak.com to carry display ads urging surfers to vote for Mumbai and spread awareness about the initiative. Funskool is conducting in-store activities at the retail outlets of Crossword, Lifestyle and Shopper’s Stop. E-mail notifications will be sent to the customer database of Lifestyle and Shopper’s Stop.

Votes can be cast by logging on to the website, Monopoly.com. Twenty cities will be selected from amongst the 68 nominated cities and, in addition, there will be two wild card spots as well. Each voter can cast a maximum of 10 votes in a day to select the first 20 spots on the board. Votes can be cast online till February 28.

For the two wild card spots, a maximum of one vote can be cast in a day. The top 20 wild card cities will be nominated on this basis. The final voting to select cities for the two wild card spots will take place from February 29 till March 9.

The 22 cities selected for the final game board will be announced in August.

Funskool India is a joint venture between tyre brand MRF and American toy company Hasbro, which is also the publisher of Monopoly worldwide. Funskool is looking at launching an India specific edition of Monopoly in May 2008. Monopoly already publishes a Wonders of the World version that features the Taj Mahal.