It was late. Sunday night. Spring Break was still young. The kitchen table had been cleared and stood ready for play. My roommate’s dad hoisted the dusty, yellowed game box from the top shelf of the hallway closet. After a few minutes of scrambling to be sure we had all of the property cards, the game was on.
Two hours later, from Mediterranean Avenue to Boardwalk, all was owned. Though the name of the game it be, no monopoly existed. Anticipating the up-and-coming stall, I had already made a few attempts at trade, but to no avail. At the time, my entrepreneurial spirit was no match for the missing ingredient at the heart of each and every of those sales failures: pain. But now, only a few minutes later, things had changed…
Pain: The realization that the game had suddenly become less interesting. Pain: The discovery that it could go on for hours at this rate. Pain: The desire to win and an new understanding that the only way to do so is by obtaining a monopoly.
As you probably have already guessed, my next trade was successful. I’d like to think my former sales efforts primed the pump, but I honestly think it all came down to one thing. Pain.
Pain made things happen – it kept the game moving, the fun happening, and produced a winner in the end (sadly, ’twas not me). Professor Sweet is spot-on in class. I’m hoping that, someday, I’ll take these in-class and out-of-class lessons to heart and win a game or two.
Trinity Blank 
Jake Botkin 
Luke Owen
Pain seems to be the most prominent reason that people buy. If they had no need for an item, why would they buy it? Also Jordan it is all about the red places. If you own all the red and capitalize on them. You will win next time!
i very much enjoyed the dramatic effect of this blog post. Very good story writing! As for the content, I agree pain is such a big deal. Pain is one of the biggest motivators. We even try to sell our own pain points to others. For example: Someone could say, “we should play monopoly. I haven’t played in so long.” In this scenario, the protagonist is pushing her ideals on others. By the way, monopoly is a good game!
This is a very unique and fun way to describe pain, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Pain is such a large part of the buying and selling process. It is the whole reason that someone is willing to buy something. This example describes how pain can be used as a motivator to buy because relieving that pain is of benefit to you, and the only way to relieve that pain is to buy.
I too find that in Monopoly you end up making more daring and even absurd moves just to keep the game interesting.
I love that you were able to hone in on the nature of the pain that was felt. It’d be easy to focus on the “economic benefits” of various trades, but the pain points you found didn’t depend on those features, but more psychological motivators. Especially the urge to shorten the length of the game seems to be a powerful motivator for some of my family members who may have taken more coercion to join the game in the first place.