Given that it’s a mobile game, many potential players are worried that Monopoly Go is pay-to-win. Many Android and iOS games encourage players to spend money on resources or power-ups that allow them to access parts of the game quickly. However, most devs put forth some effort to make the experience seem fair to free players as well. We’ll take a look if that’s the case with Monopoly Go or if its gameplay is designed around forcing players to use microtransactions.
Monopoly Go isn’t pay-to-win, technically
In Monopoly Go, you must spend dice rolls to move around the board, earning you cash. You progress in the game by using that cash to upgrade buildings on a board representing a famous world city. When you finish one city, you can move on to another. The catch is that each location’s buildings take more and more cash to upgrade, which eventually slows down your progress.
While many free-to-play games have moved away from timers, this one sports an absolutely classic mobile game design. The catch with Monopoly Go is that you have a limited amount of dice rolls. You get five free rolls an hour when you run out of rolls, but there’s a cap. You can only store up to 30 free rolls when you start the game. Additionally, the free rolls no longer accrue once you’re over that limit.
So, you’ll inevitably reach a point where you have no more rolls in Monopoly Go, which stops the progress you’re making in its tracks. You can’t roll, so you can’t make cash, so you can’t upgrade and move on to new boards.
But, never fear; you can buy both dice rolls and cash for real money. The exchange rates are steep, too. You get 30 additional dice rolls or 60,000 in Monopoly money for $2. The craziest part of this is that you can spend up to 100 dice rolls at once if you use the multiplier. So, that’s the equivalent of $10 per press of the button.
Monopoly Go also never wastes an opportunity to remind you that you can buy dice rolls or Monopoly cash. Run out of either in-game, and you’ll get a screen-wide banner telling you that you can get right back in the game for a low, low price. Every time you launch the game, the latest deals will be advertised to you. They even gamify it by locking “free” stuff behind a small purchase.
Monopoly Go is generous with free items when you start playing it. However, after the first hour, it drops any pretense of being consumer-friendly. I’m shocked that it’s currently the most popular free game on the Apple App Store because its predatory business model is transparent enough that it should only fool a few people.
However, since Monopoly Go doesn’t give you any direct advantages over other players if you buy dice rolls or cash, it’s not technically pay-to-win. However, you can very much pay to win the game. If you’re prepared to drop tens of thousands (or more) of dollars, then you can just outright buy the dice rolls and cash you need to clear all the boards.
