By ADRIANA PRATT (ABC News)
The votes are in and the iron is out. From now on, a cat will round the board in iron's place.
By visiting Monopoly's Facebook page, voters chose which piece they most wanted to preserve in the nearly 80-year-old board game. The car, thimble, boot, Scottie dog, battleship, hat, iron and wheelbarrow's fates hung on the click of a button.
Fans from 120 countries voted in the contest, said Jonathan Berkowitz, vice president of marketing for Hasbro Gaming.
"It's been an exciting campaign and a lot of Monopoly fans around the world have gotten involved," Berkowitz said.
As the clock ticked toward 12 a.m. on Tuesday night, the competition grew tighter between the wheelbarrow, iron and shoe.
As of 6:30 p.m., each held 8 percent of the total votes.
"The shoe was surprising to all of us because there's definitely a large fan base out there for shoes," Berkowitz said. "Thankfully my race car has pulled through."
In the end, Monopoly fans locked the iron in jail forever. Hasbro will immediately cease production of the piece, Berkowitz said.
Now, the cat's being let out of the bag.
"Because there's a Scottie dog, there was always a conversation about, 'Should there be a cat?' so that's how it ended up being one of the options for the voting," Berkowitz said.
Hasbro will release an exclusive version of the game that includes all the old token pieces, along with all the new candidates, on Feb. 15. The new version of the board game, in which the iron will be replaced with the cat will be released in the fall, Berkowitz said.
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Courtesy: Monopoly Facebook
