The Landlord's Game

In 1902 to 1903, Magie designed the game and playtested it in Arden, Delaware. The game was created to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate. Magie also hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood. The Landlord's Game has some similarities to the basic rules of the board game Zohn Ahl, played by the Kiowa Indians of North America. There are hints that suggest Elizabeth Magie might have known Zohn Ahl and incorporated some of the game's ideas.

In 1903, Magie filed for a patent on the game which was granted in 1904. Magie and fellow Georgists formed a company, Economic Game Company, in 1906 New York to publish the game. Besides Magie, the incorporators were E. H. Monroe of Chicago and E. G. Lenbusher of New York. Magie approached Parker Brothers to publish this and one other game in 1909. The other game was accepted while Landlord's was rejected as too complicated.

In the United Kingdom The Landlord's Game was first published in 1913 by the Newbie Game Company, formed by a Liberal Committee from the village of Newbie in Dumfries, under the title Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit; despite the title change, it was recognizably the same game. Landlord sold well in the northeastern United States amongst its left-wing intellectuals, while Brer was unsuccessful.

Scott Nearing, socialist professor of economics at Wharton School of Finance from 1906 to 1915, lived in Arden in 1910, where Magie invented the game, learned about the game and taught it to his students. College students made up their own boards to use with her rules. Various versions of the game popped up over the following years under a variety of names, Monopoly, Finance, and Auction being among them. …

The set had rules for two different games, anti-monopolist and monopolist. The anti-monopolist rules reward all players during wealth creation, whereas the monopolist rules incentivize forming monopolies and forcing opponents out of the game. In the anti-monopolist or single-tax version (later called "Prosperity"), the game is won when the player with the least money doubles their original stake.

The board featured a track around the outside edge of the board split into blocks representing properties and had their purchase price, and their rental value listed in the block. New York City's Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Wall Street were the top properties in price and rent. The published game included Chance cards with quotes attributed to Thomas Jefferson, John Ruskin and Andrew Carnegie.

For the published 1906 version, minor changes were made to what had been described in the 1904 patent: the property names were changed, and the rule regarding increased rent for multiple railroads owned was added.

The game's first patent was the first issued for a game while claiming four features in the application, the most important feature was a continuous path game. At the time, most games had a start and end spot. With the first patent having expired in 1921, Magie applied for another patent with five new claims.

The claims of Magie's second patent could not include those of the first (now in the public domain) and leaned more towards the single tax theory of play. One common misconception is that Parker Brothers acquired the rights to Magie's original invention of Monopoly play and the unique design by purchasing the later 1924 patent. Parker Brothers acquired Magie's patent to The Landlord's Game but although both patents had the same name they covered different claims. The substitution or confusion of the early patent for the latter is still commonplace.