UPDATED: Voters choose cat to replace MONOPOLY’s iron token

Grumpy cat, Tardar Sauce, couldn't care less.

Monopoly / Facebook

You fought over them as kids, now it's time to fight for their lives.

MONOPOLY is, like guns and religion, a topic best avoided in polite conversation. It has been, after all, both a centerpiece to undesirable family reunions as well as many kids' first foray into unchecked capitalism. In February, the company will retire one of the game's eight iconic tokens, and new, more modern additions are up for popular vote online.

Love or hate the game, most of us will admit ownership of a particular token -- likely a source of traumatic sibling rivalry -- and yours may well be headed for “jail” without "passing Go" or "collecting $200." This is not the first time MONOPOLY tokens have changed: The original, Great Depression era tokens included the iron, racecar, thimble, shoe, top hat, battleship, cannon, purse, lantern, and rocking horse, but in the early 1960s, the last three of those were replaced by the Scottie dog, the wheelbarrow, and the horse and rider.

This winter, voters will bring MONOPOLY into the new millennium by choosing which piece from the current lineup will retire and which of 5 proposed "modern choices" will take its spot. Candidates include a diamond ring, guitar, toy robot, helicopter, or -- Internet Age favorite -- cat. You can also vote to save your favorite old icon.

Global voting kicks off today online, and you can vote every day through February 5.

Hasbro

How will the Scottie dog handle the news?

UPDATE: Hasbro announced Wednesday morning that, following a month of voting, fans from around the world chose to replace the classic iron token with the newly created cat. Conceived in 1935, the iron survived a World War II metal shortage from 1943 to 1945, during which tokens were made of wood, as well as a similar redesign in the 1960s that saw three older tokens replaced. In 2013, however, it received only 8 percent of the popular vote, falling shortly behind the wheelbarrow and shoe. The Scottie dog raced out of the gate as an early favorite, securing its top spot with 20 percent of the overall vote.

As for the new addition, internet voters were (seemingly) able to tear themselves away from looking at photos of cats online in order to push the new cat token over the top with a secure 31 percent. Fans wishing to own a game with the discontinued piece may still do so through mid-to-late 2013, when new games will hit the shelves.