14 DAY TRIAL // Google partnered with game maker Hasbro earlier this month to launch Monopoly City Streets, a take on the classic game with a Google Maps twist. The game allows users to own any street in the world and build up properties on it, while also competing against each other. The title is well underway and Google is now revealing a competition for all amateur, 3D model builders to create a building for a chance to be featured in the game itself.
“Hasbro, the makers of the Monopoly game, have officially announced a competition that gives Monopoly-lovers the chance to design a building that will be included in the new interactive game Monopoly City Streets,” Tasha Danko, SketchUp Product Marketing Team, wrote on the Google Lat Long blog. “To enter this competition, you need to design a 3D building using Google SketchUp and upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse. The deadline to submit entries is Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 11:59pm, EST.”
The competition has been underway for a while, but there is still plenty of time to submit your entries. Google believes that participating in the contest should be easy enough even for those unfamiliar with 3D modeling. This because Google's SketchUp was designed with just these users in mind and it is meant to be picked up very easily. Willing users will have to install SketchUp, build as many building designs as they want and submit them by uploading them to the Google 3D Warehouse employing the “monopolycompetition09” tag.
There aren't that many restrictions concerning the actual models and Google encourages users to set their imagination free. Still, the models can't use any sort of photo textures, the file size must have a maximum of 2 MB and the file needs to be saved in the SKP format. Three lucky users, or just a very lucky one, will have their buildings featured in the actual game and the creator of the best design will also get a license for Google SketchUp Pro worth $495.