General

What is the Commonspoly?

Commonspoly is a non-profit, open-source board game that encourages a culture of cooperation and questions the violent model of neoliberal privatisation. This board game is an ideal device to introduce commons theories and cooperative ways of living together, in a fun and instructive way. It’s especially great for boring, rainy afternoons!

Commonspoly turns modern Monopoly on its head and returns to the basic principle of the traditional game; to imagine a viable world based on cooperation instead of competition. However, not everything is perfect. You will have to fight against The Speculators. In this game, we are running against time! And the help of every player is needed and welcomed, because there is only one way to win: helping each other. Let’s get down to business. We have urban, health, environmental and intangible common goods to preserve!

Who is the owner?

This version of the Commonspoly is just a fork. What’s a fork? It’s a concept taken from the free software movement to name the different versions and developments that come from the same original source to satisfy different needs. So, this is just a fork of the Commonspoly board game licensed under the Peer Production Licence. This licence lets any commoner, cooperative and non-profit organisation use and adapt the game, as long as they do so for non-commercial use.

Read more about this licence here: www.commonspoly.cc/licence

This version (fork) of the game is run by ZEMOS98. a non-profit organization and right now all revenues produced by the game are to cover the costs of producing and printing 1.000 copies and to the further improvement of the game. By buying the Commonspoly game you are supporting a small but really socially and politically committed organization. Learn more about us on www.ZEMOS98.org

How the game was born?

Commonspoly was launched as a proposal for a working group during the 17th ZEMOS98 festival hackcamp. Participants had to develop a brand new set of rules for an alternative, contrast to the Monopoly board game in just three days. Later on, in May 2015, an exhibition of the game was hosted by the Commons Fest in Athens, presented by Vassilis Chryssos and Carmen Lozano. This prototype game was played a few times, resulting in a notable improvement in its rules.

Sales

Can I buy in in a shop?

Hello! The game is only for sale in shops in Spain right now. We will have soon some libraries in some european cities with the game available. Check anyway our map!

In the meantime we ship it almost everywhere in the world. Remember, it is of course cheaper if you order more than one. So, if you think you can gather a bunch of commoners together, it will actually turn out less expensive and better for the environment. If not, no worries. We will send you yours right away!

Do you ship to my country?

We can ship all over the world. However, not all countries and regions are listed in the shipping system. If you can’t find your country or region on the list or if you have any questions about Commonspoly or the purchasing process, please write to hello@commonspoly.cc and we will find the way to send you your game.

Do you sell it on Amazon?

We deliberately skipped Amazon (or similar options). There are good reasons for this. We work with a small but very professional shipping company from Seville and this makes the delivery prices higher than Amazon and other options. This is why we strongly encourage you to organize a group of people from your workplace/town/neighbourhood so we can send you more than one (which will be much cheaper, in bulk).

Languages

In which languages do you have the game?

The physical version of the Green Edition (launched in Nov 2020) is in spanish and english. Digitally you could download the french and portuguese versions here: www.commonspoly.cc/download

Delivery-Time

What is the estimation for the delivery if I buy the game in your website?

In Spain, usually we process the delivery within 48 hours max. in working days (based on the spanish working days calendar). Once the delivery starts it really depends on where you are asking to have the game. Please, send us your exact address and we will provide you an exact estimation. If you are in a rush and you live far away from Spain, we don’t think we can make it before 2 weeks.

Is it possible to pay for an express delivery service?

We are working with an independent delivery company to avoid Amazon. This has some counterparts like not being able to quickly send you the game all over the world and also it is more expensive than other type of services. However, we strongly believe in independent services as an alternative of the big ones. You can pay for an urgent delivery anyway. Ask us!

How can I change my delivery address, which was entered in wrongly?

If you have entered any wrong data, please urgently write to administracion@zemos98.org to correct it.

Receipt / Invoice

Is it possible to send me an invoice/bill from Commonspoly as well?

You can receive a proper invoice of your game. Please, write us to administracion@zemos98.org to obtain it.

Downloads

Is it possible to download all the elements of the site?

You can download all the materials of the game (The box, the board, the cards, the tokens, the Game Sheet, the Game Master’s Guide and the Player’s sheets from commonspoly.cc/documentation

Can I have the editable files?

Printable PDFs of the game are available online as you may know. You can freely download them from the website: commonspoly.cc/documentation

For the editable files, we need to be careful due to legal reasons. The files are prepared in a private software (Adobe Illustrator) and they include some paid fonts. At the same time, our philosophy is completely open source, so we just want to ensure two rules before we spread them via email:

1- To know your purposes. We assume you have a social goal by asking for the editable files but we just want to know what you would like to do with them and we would like to be in touch with you if you need anything else.
2- To let you know that every version of the game should respect the license of it: commonspoly.cc/licence. Please, carefully read it and remember to include the license in your own version.

Thank you so much for understand these issues in advance and long life to the Commons!