Prototypicality

QUOTE

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said…

“People only see what they are prepared to see.”

(American essayist and poet.)

CONCEPT

Prototypicality

Prototypicality refers to how much a particular item or example represents its broader category.

For instance, when you think of the word "bird," you might picture a robin or sparrow because these are prototypical birds—they fit common characteristics like wings, feathers, and flight. However, less prototypical examples, like penguins or ostriches, still belong to the bird category but don’t immediately come to mind because they deviate from the typical traits.

Prototypicality affects how we categorize, recognize, and process information in everyday life.

STORY

A Monopoly on … Board Games?

In the early 1930s, during the throes of the Great Depression, a man named Charles Darrow was struggling to keep his family afloat. Jobs were scarce, and the weight of economic uncertainty pressed down on him every day.

But where others saw scarcity, he saw opportunity—an opportunity that would soon be hidden in a box under countless Christmas trees.

Darrow had stumbled upon a board game created years earlier by a woman named Elizabeth Magie, who had designed it to teach a lesson about the dangers of monopolies and greed.

He made a few tweaks to Magie’s design and started crafting his own version, selling it to friends and neighbors. The game allowed players to buy properties, build houses, and bankrupt their opponents—a thrilling escape from the financial realities of the era. Word spread quickly, and Darrow soon couldn’t keep up with demand.

Sensing an opportunity, he approached Parker Brothers.

Initially, they rejected him. They said the game had “52 design errors” and was too complicated to ever succeed. But Darrow continued selling his hand-made versions, and soon, the public’s enthusiasm for the game was impossible to ignore.

Parker Brothers eventually came back, recognizing the game's potential, and struck a deal with Darrow.

By the late 1930s, Monopoly had become a nationwide hit, providing a sense of control and success in a time when it was badly needed. Ironically, a game designed to warn against greed had become a symbol of financial ambition.

Monopoly wasn’t just a board game anymore—it was *the* board game, the prototypical definition of the genre, setting the standard for what a successful game could be.