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Hasbro ditches iconic boot and wheelbarrow 'tokens' and unveils new Monopoly game

Conceived as a piece of shallow marketing, the demise of three of the ubiquitous Monopoly "tokens" may yet be seen as a powerful statement of the time in which we live.

Three of the game's eight tokens, used by players to represent their movement around the Monopoly board, have been cut: the thimble, the boot and the wheelbarrow.

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Monopoly gets a makeover

Monopoly gives iconic pieces the boot as the thimble, wheelbarrow and boot pieces are kicked out of the popular board game.

The fate of the thimble had already been confirmed by Monopoly-owner, the gaming giant Hasbro, but today the boot and the wheelbarrow also got the axe.

The decision was made as part of a branding campaign in which fans of the fame were invited to vote to keep – or remove – tokens, and to determine which tokens might take their place.

The tribe, to quote Survivor, has spoken.

More than four million votes were cast, Hasbro says, and fans were given 64 options including the existing tokens.

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The three winning tokens, which will replace the thimble, boot and wheelbarrow are a T-Rex, a rubber ducky and a penguin.

They will join the five surviving "classic" tokens: the dog, the racing car, the top hat, the battleship and the cat.

Interestingly, however, some of the proposed tokens which did not make the cut include modern cultural images such as the hashtag and the "crying/laughing" emoji face.

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Others which didn't make the cut included a monster truck, a computer, a bunny slipper and a roller skate.

It is not the first time Hasbro has used a public marketing campaign to update the game's pieces.

In 2013, a similar campaign saw another long-serving game piece – an iron – replaced with the cat.

Though the game itself was created some years before, metal player tokens were first used in the game from its 1937 edition.

That edition featured a battleship, a cannon, iron, lantern, purse, race car, rocking horse, shoe, thimble, top hat and wheelbarrow.

Three of those – the rocking horse, purse and lantern – were cut in 1942 and replaced with the dog, wheelbarrow and a horse and rider.

The cannon and horse and rider were retired in 2000 and not replaced.