A board game for 2-5 aspiring plutocrats
...and their class enemies
In the board game Billionaires and Guillotines, players take on the role of 2-5 rival plutocrats vying to grab the wealth of the world before their actions trigger a revolution where they all lose… a lot more than their assets.
Our crowdfunding campaign launches April 3!
A snappy trailer (1min)
A brief overview (5min)
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You can download and print a beta-testing version of Billionaires and Guillotines now!
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We live in a world run by oligarchs, who fix the games we play so they always win. But with Billionaires and Guillotines we finally get a chance to take our revenge.
Keir Milburn
Red Plenty games, co-director of the Abundance think tank, author of Generation Left (2019) and Radical Abundance (forthcoming in 2025), and co-host of Novara Media’s #ACFM podcast
We live in a world run by oligarchs, who fix the games we play so they always win. But with Billionaires and Guillotines we finally get a chance to take our revenge.
Keir Milburn
Red Plenty games, co-director of the Abundance think tank, author of Generation Left (2019) and Radical Abundance (forthcoming in 2025), and co-host of Novara Media’s #ACFM podcast
Will you play the aristocrat or the war profiteer? The tech overlord or the property speculator? In any case, you’ll try and build a private space program, marry (and divorce) a celebrity spouse and start your own scam charity in this raucous game for aspiring billionaires and their enemies.
As the revolution approaches, the billionaires have one chance to cooperate to delay their downfall… but otherwise, may the best (or worst) tycoon win.
Billionaires and Guillotines is so easy that 2-5 envious losers can learn and play in under an hour. It is heartily approved by many satisfied players who hate games and the uber-rich.
A full tutorial
But don’t take it from us, trust our satisfied customers!
Players take on the role of rival billionaires, vying to grab the wealth of the world…
They collect precious assets to fulfill their dreams…
But their reckless greed and competition unleashes economic, political and ecological crises…
Crises lead to rebellions and, eventually a revolution, and all the billionaires lose… a lot more than their assets!
At the eleventh hour, the billionaires panic and have a chance to cooperate to suppress the revolution or distract the people…
Billionaires can try and bribe the government to favour their investments or undermine their opponents…
The billionaires can take on roles that give them special powers…
and yes! in our first optional expansion pack, you can play the rebels!
But are you an earnest reformer trying to work with the billionaires to alleviate the crises…
…or are you a revolutionary accelerating the revolt?
Only you know for sure…
Team
Designer and workshops
mhaiven at lakeheadu.ca
Max Haiven is a writer and teacher and Canada Research Chair in the Radical Imagination.
He is author of Clue-Anon (a board game about what makes conspiracy theories so fun… and dangerous) and Billionaires and Guillotines (a tabletop plutocrat simulator, to be published in 2025). He is the founding curator of Pluto Games, a new platform for publishing radical board games from Pluto Press.
His most recent books are Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire (2022), Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts (2020) and Art after Money, Money after Art: Creative Strategies Against Financialization (2018). He is currently working on a book for MIT Press tentatively titled The Player and the Played: Gamification, Financialization and (anti-)Fascism
Max led a team that recently published the collection The World After Amazon: Stories from Amazon Workers (2024) and has produced several podcasts: What Do We Want? (about what brings social movements together and drives them apart), The Exploits of Play (about gamified capitalism and its discontents), and Conspiracy Games and Countergames.
Haiven is editor of VAGABONDS, a series of short, radical books from Pluto Press. He teaches at Lakehead University, where he directs the ReImagining Value Action Lab (RiVAL). As part of Sense & Solidarity, he offers strategy and communications workshops for social movements.
Talks
Max travels widely in North America and Europe (and further afield) and is often available to offer talks online or in-person based on his work as a game designer and the research that animates his book The Player and the Played: Gamification, Financialization and (anti-)Fascism, which is under contract with MIT Press.
- “The exploits of play: Gamified capitalism and radical game-making”
- “What is the anti-fascist game? What the far-right knows and we must learn about fun”
Workshops
Max is available to offer workshops to diverse audiences, from community and activist groups to university researchers and has offered workshops to people including climate activists at London’s Kairos club, undergraduate students at Princeton University, graduate students at Brazil’s Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB) and at several academic conferences and gatherings.
Workshops can be scheduled for as little as 90-minutes (though at least 180 are recommended) and as long as several days.
- “Making board games to build solidarity and the radical imagination” (for community groups)
- “Making board games for critical research and theory” (for academics)
Q&A with designer Max Haiven
What’s the Billionaires and Guillotines like to play?
Players take turns drawing cards and trying to buy assets to complete a collection before their opponents. As they do that, they inadvertently unleash social and environmental crises, and popular rebellions. The rebellions can eventually lead to a revolution, where all billionaries lose (this happens about half the time).
Unlike a lot of games, in Billionaires and Guillotines you can start playing with an easy set of rules and then add more complexity once everyone is comfortable. For example, later on you get to bribe politicians to enact policies that favour your billionaire, and take on special secret roles. You can even play a reformist or revolutionary trying to help the rebels.
You can start playing in 10 minutes and a first game usually takes about an hour as everyone learns the rules. The game was designed so you can also play it half-drunk in a noisy place.
You can download a free demo to print at home and play here.
Is this game actually fun?
Unless you’re a billionaire or a boot-licking toady, in which case it’s fun and also mildly unsettling.
I’ve playtested it with hundreds of people who “don’t like games” and they almost all think it’s fun (except Brian and Cynthia, who are bores anyway).
I hate games. Why should I care?
But there’s probably a cute someone in you life who LOVES games. This makes a great gift.
Also, the reason that I think a lot of people buy books from Pluto is to support the project of radical publishing. Our venture to publish Billionaires and Guillotines and other games is an extension of that project. We want to expand into new media that can reach and radicalize wider audiences.
Why did you start making games?
A few years ago I was studying conspiracy theories as viruses of the imagination. I became really fascinated with the game-like structure of many conspiracy theories. I want to explore that by making a game (it is called CLUE-ANON) and I got a bit carried away.
I think games offer us an unparalleled way of making sense of what kinds of agency we have or wish we had within the dominant structures that shape our lives, like capitalism.
Also as a social theorist of capitalism I got a bit tired of just writing books that explained how bad things are. I felt called to create something fun and beautiful that almost anyone can participate in.
Isn't this just your dumb hobby? Why is this important when the world is on fire?
Board games are indeed a hobby, but one with a very wide appeal that hasn't been fully explored by radicals. Especially in our world of digital overload and post-pandemic confusion, people are turning to board games as a structured social activity, especially young people.
But beyond that the reality is that play and games are elemental to our whole being. It's the fundamental and first way that we learn.
In an age of agony and heartbreak and frustration I think we need to think seriously about fun. Our enemies certainly are…
Could this game inadvertently encourage violence against billionaires?
Inadvertently?!
Honesty, they seem to be doing such a good job at encouraging violence I don't think we could meaningfully contribute to it.
But in any case, there is one very elegant solution: they should be forced to give up all their money, therefore eliminating billionaires entirely and, with them, any chance of accidental anti-billionaire violence.
Writing
"All games are political"
16 March 2025 ~ An article in Jacobin about the scandal around the game Daybreak and what it tells us about the politics of board games.
"Collective exercises of empathy with the unknown"
13 March 2025 ~ An interview on Pluto's blog about the motivation and ambition of Billionaires & Guillotines
Sign up to our Kickstarter
Don't be the last jealous loser to get Billionaires and Guillotines. Sign up to get notified when our crowdfunding begins in early 2025 and also special offers!
For educators
Teaching guide and exercises coming soon!
Unlike a lot of games about the economy, Billionaires & Guillotines is actually fun. Unlike a lot of fun games, Billionaires & Guillotines is also deeply informed by critical economic theory.
The designer, Dr. Max Haiven, is an academic specialist on financialization and written several books and dozens of articles on the topic.
In summer of 2025, we’ll release a teaching guide to accompany Billionaires & Guillotines, complete with supplementary readings, activities and assignments for secondary and post-secondary students.
Until then, if you have questions, please email Max.
