Irrationally pissed at Fisher-Price (2011) | Hacker News Reader

Irrationally pissed at Fisher-Price (2011)

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35 pointsa1o9 comments

I had a similar experience about a decade ago. Went over to a friend's house for to play some classic board games. He brought out Life [1], and I was immediately angry at what they did to that game. Instead of cash, each player now had a Visa-branded "debit card" [2]. To deposit or withdraw money, you inserted your card into a little card reader thing and entered the amount.

My anger was actually for two different reasons! First, for similar reasons as explained in the article. Maybe I was being a bit "too nostalgic", but I also thought it was gross to start advertising payment networks to the kids who'd be playing this game.

But I was also mad because one of the things I like to do with these games is brazenly cheat at them. Steal from the bank, evade taxes, etc. I have a reputation among my friends for this and so I have been banned from banking within Monopoly, Life, etc.

Because of my reputation, everyone was happy about the new payment system, and even happier that I was mad about it. They thought I was no longer a threat.

BUT! The "debit cards" used in this game weren't mag-stripes or chips or anything fancy. They just had raised bumps on them that actuated contacts in the card reader. After looking at my card for a while, then at Bob's—I guess I'm "Alice" in this story—I realized I could modify my card to look like his if I inserted a cocktail sword [3] into the slot right along with my own card. The card reader then saw Bob's card instead of my own!

I stole so much money that night, and struck a blow against The System in the process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Life

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Life:_Twists_%26_T...

[3] https://cocktails.fandom.com/wiki/Cocktail_Sword

It also sort of defeats the small educational value for children that Life, Monopoly, and other board games with physical money have -- that is teaching basic math skills involved in making change (even if physical cash is becoming less common in everyday life).

My kids had one of these. It's a clever design. And it's true, the old style was much more interesting. Theoretically, you could press a new record for the old-style. Which would be a cool project.

I actually didn't have the old toy, I was looking for something like it but I just imagined it in my head and searching on the web I found the linked blog post as a result, so I read and at firt I was happy because the thing existed but then disappointed after I understood it doesn't exist anymore.

Actually with 3D printers that would be a fun elementary or middle school project

It's about the record player. It used to be a toy music box, but now the records just tell a chip which song to play

Related from a few years ago:

Taking apart the 2010 Fisher Price re-released Music Box Record Player

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29048819

I had one of the original Fisher-Price records player as a kid, and I remember trying to understand how it made sound, by running my fingers under the tonearm and figuring out that the bumps on the plastic records were an encoding of the song. It's actually one of my earliest memories.

The new version completely misses the point, and I think it's perfectly rational to be pissed off by it.

When my own kid got old enough, I got him a music box that plays music from a paper tape. It came with blank tapes and a manual punching tool.

One word: “enshittification” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

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