Offshore Oil Strike: Fun for the Whole Family?

The premise of a board game from 1970 has become eerily prophetic in retrospect—players build oil rigs, drill offshore, and cringe when their rigs explode. The biggest difference from the current reality is that clean-up only costs $1 million—about one percent of the actual cost for BP. Brian Merchant considers the context in which the game was designed on Treehugger:

It's interesting to consider that the aura around offshore drilling at the time must have been pretty different from today -- you'd think it was dangerous, alluring, adventurous by the board game -- someone thought this game would be a good idea, maybe even hit. It wasn't, and evidently was pretty unpopular. But it nonetheless remained as a slightly prophetic, and ironic artifact from a company that's now touted as being Beyond Parody.

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If only the adventure had stayed one-dimensional. Check out the full story here.

Image courtesy of Metro via Treehugger.