If you have been in an American public school between 1980 and today, it is highly probable that
you have played or watched someone playing <a title="Oregon Trail Series" href="http://www.mobygames.com/game-group/oregon-trail-series">The Oregon Trail</a>. ((“Oregon Trail Series,” accessed January 17, 2013, http://www.mobygames.com/gamegroup/oregon-trail-series. Some history of the game is given here: Devin Monnens, “Oregon Trail Ver. 3 (BASIC 3.1, 1978),” Desert Hat, November 7, 2010, <em id="__mceDel"><em id="__mceDel"><em id="__mceDel"><a href="http://deserthat.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/oregon-trail-ver-3-basic-3-1-1978/">http://deserthat.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/oregon-trail-ver-3-basic-3-1-1978/</a>.</em></em></em>))

Originally released by the Minnesota Educational Computer Consortium (MECC) for teletypes in the state's public schools,
the <a title="Oregon Trail Canonization" href="http://vgc.gameology.org/content/oregon-trail-canonization">game has progressed</a> from being played on a mainframe computer, to magazine type-in game, to mobile devices and <a title="Facebook: Oregon Settler" href="https://www.facebook.com/appcenter/oregon_settler">Facebook</a>.((

“On the Oregon Trail to Canonization,” A Video Game Canon, March 31, 2011, <a title="Oregon Trail Canonization" href="http://vgc.gameology.org/content/oregon-trail-canonization">http://vgc.gameology.org/content/oregon-trail-canonization</a>. “Oregon Trail: American Settler,” App Center, Facebook, accessed January 17, 2013, <a title="Facebook: Oregon Settler" href="http://www.facebook.com/appcenter/oregon_settler">http://www.facebook.com/appcenter/oregon_settler</a>.)) 

More accurately called a simulation, The Oregon Trail puts the player in the shoes of an American migrant traveling to Oregon City through obstacles of weather, violence, starvation, and disease. The franchise is almost certainly the most
successful educational game series, which, combined with its powerful iconic value, almost
certainly guaranteed its inclusion in the case set for the second phase of <a title="Preserving Virtual Worlds" href="http://pvw.illinois.edu/pvw2/">Preserving Virtual</a>
<a title="Preserving Virtual Worlds" href="http://pvw.illinois.edu/pvw2/"> Worlds</a> (PVW2).((Preserving Virtual Worlds 2, accessed January 17, 2013, <a title="Preserving Virtual Worlds" href="http://pvw.illinois.edu/pvw2/">http://pvw.illinois.edu/pvw2/</a>.))
When PVW2 began, we attempted to identify the significant properties of games in our case set
with the hope of creating a generalizable methodology for game preservationists in the future.
Examining which features changed or remained the same throughout a franchise's history was
one way we went about identifying those properties, and The Oregon Trail, with <a title="Four Decades on the Oregon Trail" href="http://www.icheg.org/blog/chegheads/2010/02/four-decades-on-the-oregon-trail/">its four-decade</a>
<a title="Four Decades on the Oregon Trail" href="http://www.icheg.org/blog/chegheads/2010/02/four-decades-on-the-oregon-trail/"> history</a>, was the perfect candidate.((

Jon-Paul Dyson, “Four Decades on the Oregon Trail,” CHEGheads, February 8, 2010,
<a title="Four Decades on the Oregon Trail" href="http://www.icheg.org/blog/chegheads/2010/02/four-decades-on-the-oregon-trail/">http://www.icheg.org/blog/chegheads/2010/02/four-decades-on-the-oregon-trail/</a>.))
The comic below illustrates some of our adventures, with
otters representing the researchers. Why otters? All I will say is there might be an Easter egg in
the PVW1 final report.