Digital Gaming
Donyae Williams
Prof. Batchelor
3431-A
2/27/17
Digital Gaming
To go back in time and live in a time period you couldn't and get a bit of their lifestyle and culture. The changing Digital Humanities (DH) is expressed perfectly in the digital gaming subfield and can show us a new way of seeing DH.
Both games were turn-based strategy games. This means that every action you take will have an effect, which leads into the games survival aspect. Theres a kind of butterfly effect that you have going on in the background of the game happening. Each time you take an action your survival rate either goes up or down. Depending on anything in Oregon Trail it was being sick, lost, or someone just dies. Taipan! on the other hand a little bit more linear. The focus was directed towards the market prices and whether you can get away or fight off raiding pirates. Both games are perfect in telling a tale of how life was back in the past. You can relive a time period and see how your choices impact the future of yourself and those around you. Your really in control and its a perfect blend in realism and agency in which you determine your own fate. Oregon Trail was more slow paced where you have to hunt to eat or sell that food and other things in a trade system they would have at multiple places. This made the game more open to a lot more variables, which played a major role in getting to Oregon or not. In Taipan everything was based on luck from city to city the problem being prices. The goal of the game is to reach a certain amount of money to end the game. You have to avoid pirates that try to sink you from reaching the cities and prices that go up and down while feeding your crew. The games is much easier then it seems and its defiantly possible to reach the end if you choose to or just keep going. That one aspect of the game i do enjoy having the option to keep going or not.
Gamification is a perfect way on how Human culture is influenced by digital gaming. Patrick Jagoda says "We have seen the structure and logic of games creep into social media application, consumerism, crowd sourcing and social media applications." Repetitiveness is a big thing it can get old quick if your not playing it wanting to enjoy it instead of just picking it up. The game is turn based but it doesn't really connect with the player as it should due to it just being another survival game. It needs more suspension for todays audience due to the type of media were use to now.
Look at the culture value that these games bring. They send you back in time and show you life on a digital plane; accurately showing you the outcomes of your action without real world consequences. Which is good a good thing in our type of society which learns from our mistakes. Its a good historical application as well in showing people how life was back then as well as having many media applications. In the form of apps or social media like movies and other new source media.
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