"Playfulness and mischief": The strengths of subtle storytelling in Monopoly Go

• Scopely's Phil Williams offers a peek behind the curtain at Monopoly Go's creative process.
• "Surprise" is an important element to the game's ongoing success, as opposed to repetitive experiences with a new coat of paint.

Scopely’s Monopoly Go holds the record for the fastest mobile game to surpass $6 billion across the App Store and Google Play.

At Pocket Gamer Connects London, we caught up with the game's director of content design Phil Williams to find out more about the role subtle storytelling plays in Monopoly Go’s success, the events that keep things fresh, and how the game resonates with players across a range of cultures.

Williams shares Monopoly Go’s narrative team has recently grown and continues to hire for more roles. Currently, his team sits just shy of 10 people.

"My team’s a content team. We’re kind of… I was going to say gatekeepers, but that makes it sound too restrictive. Maybe, we’re a source of knowledge of narrative," he introduces.

"Some of our designers are hugely experienced in the game. They've been working on it since its beginning. So, they know that background, that development, how we got to where we are now. We all come from a deep storytelling background."

Team members also bring experience from art, animation and marketing, so Williams doesn’t strictly consider it a narrative team but a broader creative, storytelling one.

We ask what role storytelling plays in Monopoly Go when there isn’t an explicit story found in-game. Williams answers that the team doesn’t "push" story on players, but there is a sense of "deep" narrative experiences.

"Like, Mr. Monopoly - there’s intentional decisions behind his character," says Williams.

"He’s playful and whimsical. He’s got a childlike perspective of the way he treats his unimaginable wealth. So that in itself is something that really helps us when you think about a billionaire through childlike eyes."

He gives the example of a restaurant business imagined with the whimsy of a child: "A child wouldn't build a Michelin-starred, minimalist experience. They would do the most extravagant ice cream palace or build a rollercoaster of food. That's what Mr. Monopoly does. So that playfulness and that mischief is probably the biggest storytelling thing that overarches everything we do."

Monopoly Go’s storytelling approach is "very much show, not tell".

‘Tis the season

We explore with Williams how Mr. Monopoly’s character and childlike ideas manifest in-game. He ties these factors into Monopoly Go’s seasons, which often follow the real world's seasons too. Last autumn, for example, saw the team look at the key themes and beats of September, October and November, including Halloween and Thanksgiving.

"Monopoly Go has to be a fun experience, whereas autumn and winter can be kind of dark and cold, so we wanted the idea of being in the warmth and looking out," Williams says.

"We talked about the Danish ‘hygge’ feeling, which is that feeling of cosiness, warmth around the fire, telling stories. November, especially in the US, has that feeling of ‘Thanksgiving is coming, the holiday season is nearly here’. There’s lots of traditions, lots of family and friends. So it sparked ideas of how we were going to bring this into our minigames, into our album. It led onto things like the anticipation of Christmas."

He adds that the team aims to keep the game "as global as possible", but does come up with geo-specific ideas too. A Six Nations campaign themed around rugby, for example, was well-suited to a European audience but had less relevance in the US.

On the other hand, Thanksgiving was deemed suitable for Europe as well as the US because, while it isn’t celebrated everywhere, people are aware of the holiday from films.

"We don't need to segment too much, but we do have the opportunity to do that when it's appropriate," Williams clarifies.

Scopely has a cultural and sensitivity team which serves as an important resource, ensuring nothing gets through that would be unintentionally inappropriate for a certain market. This team verifies everything, even if it may seem "completely innocuous", and ensures cultures are treated respectfully and accurately.

"That also allows us to think about how we incorporate all of our global audience into the game," adds Williams.

Last year, Metacore’s Shuhei Watanabe shared tips on hyper-local campaigns and avoiding offensive or ostracising content in Asia, like tattoos in Japan.

Crossovers, characters and communities

Other Monopoly Go events have focused less on real-world seasonality and instead leaned into IP crossovers, with big brands brought into the social casino game including Star Wars, Marvel and Harry Potter.

The Star Wars event, for example, spanned the Skywalker Saga and The Mandalorian, with legacy characters and locations like the Jedi and Tatooine, themed tokens and signature dice. The Scopely team comprises many Star Wars fans, according to Williams, who were excited by this collab, and they quickly came up with the idea to implement pod racing.

"Right from the very beginning those key meetings with Lucasfilm were our product leaders - myself representing content - and marketing leaders having conversations about how this was going to look, the story we wanted to tell, how we were going to bring those worlds together," he shares. "Then our in-house video agency Flamed made our incredible assets."

Meanwhile, marketing teams worked on campaigns that aligned with the development being done in-game. Williams describes it as a "circle" of conversations: "Anything that happens marketing-wise has that parallel within the game, so there's connection. That's something we're definitely building on in 2026."

He also recalls his excitement at Anakin Skywalker actor Hayden Christensen appearing in ad spots for the game: "I was fanboying to the max. When we presented that to the team, only a few people, me included, knew about it, and then just seeing the reactions internally was amazing."

We ask how collaborations like these come about. Williams acknowledges Monopoly Go’s status as a "huge game" and Hasbro and Monopoly’s globally recognised brands as key factors. It’s important that when the team considers potential brands to work with, those partners "really fit" not only with Monopoly Go’s values, but in the type of reach they have too.

"They have to be those kind of recognisable, top-tier brands as well."

At the same time, Monopoly Go’s community team keeps an "ongoing conversation" going with fans to gauge interest in potential crossovers. There are brand ambassadors who work on Discord and help maintain a relationship with "VIP players", and Williams talks of checkpoints to hear positive and critical feedback. The team also looks at feedback on Reddit and Facebook.

"It’s not just about questionnaires. It’s about watching, hearing discussions, actively participating and making sure we're listening to what they're talking about. It definitely informs our decisions," he says.

"We're always talking to our community and Harry Potter is a great example of this. It was one of the top voted-for franchises that our players wanted us to partner with."

Williams adds that not every creative decision is led by fans, however, and crossovers aren’t at the heart of Monopoly Go. Ultimately, the game has its own identity.

"We love the opportunity to do this, and players love it. It's having a really good impact. But we want to make sure that our non-IP seasons have the same love, care and attention. This won't be something that takes away from that core experience of Monopoly Go."

The team wants to surprise players, so tries to come up with ideas fans don’t expect. Monopoly Go’s own characters can also drive its storytelling - like Lizzie the inventor and Peg-E the robot’s dynamic; each character brings their own potential to events, but Williams reiterates this isn’t done explicitly.

"There’s nothing where we say ‘here’s the story behind this and here’s the narrative and the lore you need to understand’. But having those conversations, those decisions, helps us keep things grounded and consistent. And, it hopefully sparks some fun and maybe even silly ideas."

Working together

Hasbro oversees everything the Monopoly Go team does. Williams calls the company "a brilliant partner", rarely pushing back against Scopely’s decisions, but able to have input if desired. He says the two companies have a high level of trust and a strong relationship, helped by Scopely understanding the Hasbro brand and history of Monopoly.

Meanwhile, operations within Scopely are also like a partnership. Williams describes collaborative efforts between teams and calls the art department his own team’s "closest partner".

"Everything we do, we brief art, but that isn't a baton-handing exercise. We're kind of best buddies. We don't say, ‘art, do this and then I'll execute’. We work with them. We'll brief ideas and then we'll have a collaborative back and forth with the art directors and art leads and the artists themselves."

Williams adds that collaboration with game designers is also important, as Monopoly Go aims to introduce new features and experiences with each season. Therefore, Williams’ team must work closely with the game design team to ensure features fit the theme.

He explains that while certain festivities come round each year, the Monopoly Go team still strives to surprise players with each new season - never simply launching a reskin of a previous experience.

Though Williams can’t reveal any major plans for Monopoly Go's events and seasons in 2026, he does emphasise that desire to surprise.

"We have some fun projects coming with some beloved... stuff," he cryptically concludes.

Last year, Scopely co-CEOs Walter Driver and Javier Ferreira shared with us the company’s "iterate to greatness" thesis which led to $10bn in revenue.

Scopely will be at Pocket Gamer Connects Summit San Francisco, which takes place on March 9th.