Greenfield mayor Chuck Fewell looks over his copy of “Greenfield-opoly,” which features local attractions in place of the traditional Atlantic City landmarks that made the original game famous.
GREENFIELD — Local businesses are up for sale at bargain-basement prices.
Even some of Greenfield’s major parks are up for grabs for less than $300.
To get in on the action, all you have to do is roll the dice.
A Cincinnati game maker has created a localized version of a “Monopoly”-like board game — called “Greenfield-opoly” — that features a number of local landmarks.
More than 700 copies of the game hit store shelves at the Greenfield Walmart on Dec. 20. A week later, fewer than 200 remained.
The localized board game is the creation of Late for the Sky, the Cincinnati-based game making company that has found its niche localizing the perennial favorite “Monopoly” game to resemble cities and towns throughout the country.
The small family-owned business has created games based on more than 700 cities in 23 states so far, sold at Walmart stores.
The Greenfield version includes popular spots like the Riley Museum, Hawk’s Tail Golf Course and the Pennsy Trail.
Restaurants include Carnegie’s, The Mug and Mozzi’s Pizza. Destinations like Lark Ranch and Tuttle Orchards are also featured.
Even the Riley Festival gets a spot on the board, while an image of the arched entryway over Riley Park graces the front of the box.
Greenfield Mayor Chuck Fewell received the game as a gift from a member of his staff.
He was thrilled to see Greenfield portrayed in such a fun way, and he quickly took the game home to play with his family over the holidays.
“We’ve really enjoyed it,” he said. “’Monopoly’ is always fun anyway, but it’s nice when you know the places that you’re playing with on the board. What a great way to spark some interest in different places around the city.”
Michael Schulte, marketing manager for Late for the Sky, is happy to hear the localized games are bringing people joy around the country.
The widespread familiarity and popularity of a game like “Monopoly” makes it a fan favorite, he said, especially with a board customized to represent individual cities and towns.
“It’s a game everybody has played at some point in their lifetime, but to have it about their town makes it a little bit more special,” he said.
Based on customer feedback, Schulte said playing the games have conjured up fond memories for players nationwide. He often gets calls from customers who want to thank the company for bringing back fond memories of their hometowns.
“They’ll say things like, ‘I remember going to this park when I was a kid,’ or ‘I used to work at this restaurant,’” he said.
A few callers are less than happy with which landmarks and businesses are included or excluded, but you can’t please everyone, said Schulte.
The company purposely sticks to online research when scouting out which landmarks, restaurants and destinations to include for each town.
“We don’t collaborate with local government or other local organizations because we don’t want to show favoritism for any certain landmark or business. It makes it a lot less biased,” Schulte explained.
Jayne Hoadley, owner of Greenfield Chocolates in downtown Greenfield, was surprised to see her shop included on the “Greenfield-opoly” board.
“Someone texted me a picture of it, and I was really surprised,” said Hoadley, who is a big fan of the localized game concept.
“I love it. I think it’s so important to showcase our little city,” she said.
Late for the Sky’s game boards focus mostly on local points of interest, like the Riley Festival, but inevitably some remaining spots need to be filled with local restaurants and other businesses.
“We’ll go into city websites to see park names or check the chamber of commerce websites. We’ll cross reference social media to make sure we’re not missing any festivals,” said Schulte, who has worked for the gaming company since 2004.
His father helped found the company more than 35 years ago, and is proud to have been churning out fun games ever since.
At first the company was customizing the “Monopoly”-style board game around different colleges and universities, but started localizing the game based on various cities and towns about five years ago.
Schulte said the games have since been snatched up in cities large and small.
The games are typically promoted by word of mouth, he said, with people eager to share the game with friends and family through social media.
“Most of the marketing is completely grass-roots. Somebody sees it, posts a picture of it, and it spreads like wildfire,” he said.
Schulte said there’s no real rhyme or reason to which cities are featured on the board game.
“We have reps out there who go and work with the store managers, and if there’s enough interest, we walk it through with them to see what we can do in their city or town,” he said.
The company chose to focus on running sales exclusively through Walmart due to the retail giant’s ability to move product quickly and in mass quantities, said Schulte.
“We’ve been in business for more than 35 years now making specialty “Monopoly”-style board games, but we’ve never had a relationship like Walmart before, where they’re all over the country and they have such a reach,” he said.
Being a small company with just 35 employees, he said, Late for the Sky has the ability to periodically update the listings on its customized game boards and make adjustments over time.
Even the text on each box is fully customized for each city, as evidenced on the box for “Greenfield-opoly”: “Choose your token and advance to Go Greenfield! You may soon be the mayor… or out of the game for having too many root beer floats from The Mug!”
