DIG 4813 Gameplay Journal Entry #5: Game Glitches

In this gameplay journal for this week I’ll be talking about certain glitches that occur in video games and how one particular glitch I’ll be touching upon can affect the experience that player’s will have playing the game. As Menkman would describe it, glitches have “no solid form or state through time; it is often perceived as an unexpected and abnormal modus operandi, a break from (one of) the many flows (of expectations) within a technological system.” (341). And according to this fact, I would say that glitches are instances in games that are unwarranted events that change the properties of the current game and usually only have an effect of the current game session that you are in. They are also usually occurrences that either have a hamper on the gameplay experience or are pathways that lead to exploiting the game mechanics.

This video here by The Masterpiece on Red Dead Redemption II’s Gold Glitch from two years ago. In this glitch, the player can exploit the gold drop rate in a certain spot of the world with the menu system and reloading the game in order to get infinite gold. By this logic, this glitch is an instance where an unwarranted/unexpected event in the game that is used to gain an advantageous position in that said game. By reloading the game, players can gain an infinite amount of gold to sell for an infinite amount of money. By doing this action, the part of the experience that requires the player to act and work towards gaining funds for things like upgrades and clothing is removed from the experience, thus effecting the play perspective.