After discussing my idea with Dr. Kelly, I have decided to expand my project into some of the precursors for video games. The direct predecessor was pinball, in that the games were the first widely successful coin-operated games, and the pinball arcades were the first place video games were widely used. My main concern in choosing pinball games as a subject is that they are currently nowhere near as popular as video games, so making the project relevant to more people would be difficult.
My other thought is to see if there is any research into card and board games that have an electronic version that is popular. The best example I have of this is with gambling – video poker – but I want to focus on games that are played for fun rather than money. I have played a version of Scrabble through Facebook, so I know they exist. My main issue is whether I should focus on this transition as the project, or the earlier physical games and use the electronic version as the ‘why is this important today’ part. Once I figure this part out, I can then decide on how I would teach the topic.