In January of 2016, when the world was still enjoying the warm glow of excitement left from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Hasbro sheepishly admitted that it had purposefully left Rey out of a new version of Star Wars Monopoly in order to avoid spoilers. The company seemed to rightfully recognize that argument as nonsense, so it promptly assured Star Wars fans that it would be releasing an updated edition of the game with a Rey token at some point in the future. Now, it turns out that the updated version of Star Wars Monopoly was never actually released in the United States.
This comes from the Associated Press, which contacted Hasbro to see whatever happened to that version of Monopoly that was supposed to include the main character from the new Star Wars movies, but Hasbro’s explanation is about as unsatisfying as the original “no spoilers” excuse. The company says that it did produce a new version of its 2015 Star Wars Monopoly game with a Rey token, but it never released it in the U.S. due to “insufficient interest.”
It was available elsewhere in the world, and Monopoly owners can call Hasbro’s customer service line to request a Rey token, but it claims that only 99 people in the United States have asked for Rey tokens so far—possibly because nobody knew that was a thing. Also, to be fair, Hasbro says the “insufficient interest” was from retailers, not consumers, so the issue may be that people simply like Rey more than they like to buy Star Wars Monopoly.
The current edition of Star Wars Monopoly includes droids, helmets, and spaceships instead of human characters, which is one way to sidestep the controversy altogether.