One of the creators of the iconic early videogame The Oregon Trail talks about the unexpected impact the game has had, not having made any money from it, and picks his favorite way to die in the game.

“It only happened once every several hundred times, and so people could’ve played it for months and all of a sudden, ‘What? I got bit by a snake and died? This has never happened to me before!’”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oregon-trail-movie-creator-bill-heinemann/

#TheOregonTrail #videogames #PCGaming

  • @danc4498
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    919 days ago

    He and his two co-creators, Rawitsch and Paul Dillenberger, turned it over to the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium shortly after they invented it.

    Heinemann says it doesn’t bother him.

    “I didn’t do it for money,” he said. “I did it for just the love of the game and the love of teaching.”

    I wish I could have that mentality.

    • Stefan BohacekOP
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      719 days ago

      @[email protected] Well, it is a huge privilege, for most people, to be able to generously share their work for free.

      (I count myself incredibly lucky to be able to do that myself, even if the impact is nowhere near of this man and his fellow co-creators.)

  • @[email protected] I absolutely adore the idea of sitting there working on The Oregon Trail and thinking “of course people will will pay this hundreds of times over the course of months, what else would they possibly choose to do?” hahahaha

    • Orbituary
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      619 days ago

      Captive audience for many. I would look for any excuse to go to the library so I could load up Oregon Trail. I wanted the option to go hunting. Shooting a bear was my favorite. “YOU DIED OF BRAIN WORMS FROM EATING UNDERCOOKED BEAR MEAT.”

      Of course, it’s been 40 years, so my memory might be a bit off on that death message.