The NY Times has released their first video game editorial in the form of an Oregon Trail spin-off by GOP Arcade highlighting how the Republican Party engages in voter suppression tactics, especially in areas with many voters of color. In the game, you can play as a white programmer from California, a Latina nurse from Texas, or a black salesman from Wisconsin. As might expect, it takes somewhat longer to finish the game as some of these players versus others.
On Nov. 8, a new generation of Americans will make their own heroic journeys — to the polls. Some paths will be more intrepid than others, particularly for blacks, Latinos and pretty much anyone who brings the kind of diversity to our polling places that they have historically lacked. Thanks to laws passed by Republicans to fight the nonexistent threat of voter fraud, the perils will be great. Long lines and voter ID laws, not to mention pro-Trump election observers, will try to keep these voters from the polls.
More on voter suppression at Vox.
Oregon Trail is one of the most-played video games in history, and certainly one of the most popular educational games. Here’s the history of how the game was developed.
Forty years and ten iterations later, the Oregon Trail has sold over 65 million copies worldwide, becoming the most widely distributed educational game of all time. Market research done in 2006 found that almost 45 percent of parents with young children knew Oregon Trail, despite the fact that it largely disappeared from the market in the late ’90s.
A recent frenzy of nostalgia over the game has yielded everything from popular T-shirts (“You have died of dysentery”) to band tour promotions (“Fall Out Boy Trail”) to humorous references on popular websites (“Digg has broken an axle”).
“It’s hard to think of another game that endured for so long and yet has still been so successful,” says Jon-Paul Dyson, director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong. “For generations of computer users, it was their introduction to gaming, and to computer use itself.”
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