Board game riches games that permitted players to emulate the capitalist heroes of the age. One of the first such games, "The Game of the District Messenger Boy", encouraged the idea that the lowliest messenger boy could ascend the corporate ladder to its topmost rung. Such games insinuated that the accumulation of wealth brought increased social status. Competitive capitalistic games culminated in 1935 with "Monopoly", the most commercially successful board game in U.S. history. McLoughlin Brothers published similar games based on the telegraph boy theme including "Game of the Telegraph Boy, or Merit Rewarded" (1888). Greg Downey notes in his essay, "Information
History of the board game Monopoly sole inventor of the game, but sought out an affidavit by Darrow to repeat his statements to the contrary, and thus bolster their claim to the game. Parker Brothers subsequently decided to buy out Magie's 1924 patent and the copyrights of other commercial variants of the game to claim that it had legitimate undisputed rights to the game. Robert Barton, president of Parker Brothers, bought the rights to "Finance" from Knapp Electric later in 1935. "Finance" would be redeveloped, updated, and continued to be sold by Parker Brothers into the 1970s. Other board games based on a similar principle, such