“I wanted to find a way to make my ideas and philosophy a little bit more practical and a little bit more accessible,” said Evan Atlas, lifelong Hudson Valley resident, author and, now, game developer.

Atlas is releasing an online game called Prosperity on June 15, designed to educate players on housing, affordability and development. It is inspired by earlier versions of the Monopoly board game and Georgist economic theory.

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Magie created Monopoly, then called The Landlord’s Game in 1903 as an educational tool against unchecked capitalism. Over the following three decades, players began making their own boards, leading to the game being copied by Charles Darrow who sold it to Parker Brothers. After the company learned Magie actually invented the game, Magie received a payment of only $500 — a little over $12,000 in today’s money — from Parker Brothers in exchange for her patent. Monopoly went on to become one of the world's most popular board games, selling approximately 300 million copies to date.

Atlas referred to Magie as a “philosopher” who was not trying to make money but instead a point about social and economic justice.

“The real reason that she sold her game was that she was selling it to a huge company, which she thought would be the force that could drive them into the public eye, that this would finally be her big break,” Atlas said. “People would play her game and get to see firsthand these ideas, and then instead her game was sort of quietly buried and replaced with Monopoly.”

For Atlas, his influences came from the 1879 book “Progress and Poverty” by Henry George, which George wrote after visiting New York City and seeing both wealth and poverty side by side. This led to his economic theory, Georgism.

“The main idea is what's called a land value tax, and the principle is that if you own a house here in New York, you're currently charged a property tax, so that will be the combination of the tax on the land itself and then a tax on the structure,” Atlas said. “The difference, which you would find in The Landlord's Game or mine, or in the economic theory of Georgism, is that the structure of what you build on a property should not be taxed, and that, as much as possible, we should actually shift as many taxes as we can towards the value of land.”

Prosperity will be a property-based game where players roll dice, move around the board, make purchases, pay taxes and navigate economic transactions. The game begins with “monopolist rules,” where if you own a square, you collect land rent and structure rent. Halfway through the game, players take a vote to either keep those rules or transfer to land value tax. Atlas said this would give players the opportunity to see the difference between the economic systems.

The game will also include an optional paid version, in which players purchase a ticket that goes into a monthly pool. The proceeds will be donated to one featured charity, with player engagement deciding who receives the funds. Some charities Atlas plans on supporting are Scenic Hudson and the Hudson Valley Farm Hub, chosen for their location in the Hudson Valley and connection to housing, environmental issues, land protection and food systems.

“My hope is that anyone can play it without me being there to explain it, and that people would understand why the land value tax is more economically just and does things like drive development,” Atlas said. “I feel like the game is hugely relevant right now, because there's all these conversations happening about affordability, housing, homelessness and to me all of these really tie back to this fundamental change in tax policy.”