For 75 years, the board game Monopoly brought families and friends together and, through all those years, stayed relatively the same. It has had numerous spinoffs and licensed editions with Wizard of Oz, Looney Tunes, even a bible and U.S. Space Program variety, but for its 75th anniversary Hasbro is making some fundamental changes.

Gone is the colorful paper money and square playing board, and players will now collect $2 million instead of $200 for passing go. All financial transactions will now be handled by an electronic bank and metal playing pieces will be replaced with clear plastic. Hasbro reps say the classic Monopoly will still be available for sale, but the company has invested their time and resources in Monopoly Revolution, even shelling out for licensed music clips from the catalogs of Rihanna, Beyonce, and the Rolling Stones (though songs will not be sung by the original artists). Players will traverse the circular board with transparent plastic versions of the classic game pieces and, most notably, Mr. Moneybags is gone.

But are all of these updates necessary, or even desirable? Electronic components--while increasing in popularity among boardgames--require battery upkeep, and songs that are popular now may lose their luster in a relatively short time, especially considering the game's release is not scheduled until fall 2010.

Over its seven decades, Monopoly has been played by an estimated 1/6th of the world's population: that's over a billion people. It's easily distinguishable pastel money and real estate opportunities have offered innumerable children the means to learn basic concepts of money management and investing. One wonders if those same lessons can be learned with a Monopoly credit card and talking bank machine. Even basic addition skills will no longer be necessary as physical dice have been removed from the game. Aside from these concerns, there is the nostalgic attachment to a certain way of playing that many Monopoly players may miss in this new edition.

Notably, the creative world wept when Polaroid stopped producing film for their instant cameras in 2008. Even Polaroid's attempt at digital camera/printer combinations were ill received and lacked the unique quality of a Polaroid instant print. Sure enough, Polaroid announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that they would be reintroducing the instant film camera in an attempt to recapture the hopefully still nostalgic audience it once had. Time will tell if Monopoly's new digital direction will fare better, or if players will prefer to risk paper-cuts and keep playing the old-fashioned way.

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Classic Monopoly Headed for a Makeover in 2010, AssociatedContent.com

Monopoly Makers Get Round to New Makeover for the Game, PressofAtlanticCity.com

'Monopoly' Gets a Makeover, but Will Die-Hard Fans Buy It?, Yahoo Finance

Polaroid Resurrects Instant Film Cameras, Wired