New Monopoly Cat Token: Hasbro Rolls Out 'Kitty' Game Piece
It's goodbye iron and hello kitty for Monopoly fans as Hasbro officially began rolling out the newest game token in the popular board game.
Several months after the board game maker announced the winner of its voting contest for the newest Monopoly token in February, the kitty is now being included in the new Monopoly boxes.
In a report by Yahoo! Games earlier this year, the month-long voting revealed that the iron had the least number of votes from gamers who wanted to keep the piece, and was booted out of the game. Notably, among the five replacement tokens - a helicopter, a diamond ring, a robot, a guitar and a cat - the kitty had the most online votes.
"We know that cat lovers around the world will be happy to welcome the new cat token into the Monopoly game," Hasbro Gaming senior vice president and global brand leader Eric Nyman said in a statement. "While we're a bit sad to see the iron go, the cat token is a fantastic choice by the fans and we have no doubt it will become just as iconic as the original tokens."
In a review, Gizmodo describes the new token as "this itty bitty metallic kitty measures in at about one-half-inch wide by one-half-inch long and blends in flawlessly with its team of capitalist cohorts."
Aside from making its debut in new Monopoly boxes, the cat token will also be introduced at the 2013 Internet Cat Video Festival in Minnesota.
Notably, this is not the first time that the board game is retiring a game piece. Before ending the 78-year-long run of the iron in the game, it had also dropped tokens like a lantern, a purse, a horseback rider, a cannon, a sack of money and a rocking horse. The dog and wheelbarrow were also just additions to the game in the '50s.