text: Just this month, numerous conversation-starting toys and board games have come out. Hasbro released a gender-swapped version of Monopoly entitled Ms Monopoly, where women players earn more than men. Meanwhile, Mattel released a slew of culturally diverse Barbies (including a “Día de los Muertos Barbie” that garnered accusations of cultural appropriation).
  The response hasn’t been unanimously positive. Hasbro and Mattel have been accused of attempting to profit off culture wars. “There’s already this vibe in the [board] gaming community that anything Monopoly does is a cash-grab,” John “Hex” Carter, a board game designer and consultant, said in an interview with the Guardian last week. “Because the market is already flooded with so many different versions of it. So the motivation behind a game like Ms Monopoly is transparent: to make money.”
  Mattel’s gender-neutral doll has won over some in the LGBTQ community. “So many children and parents never saw themselves represented in toys and dolls, but this new line raises the bar for inclusion thanks to input from parents, physicians and children themselves,” the LGBT advocacy group Glaad wrote on Twitter.
  Despite the progressiveness of its Creatable World dolls, Mattel is quick to assert itself as apolitical.