Practicum #4 - Reddit and Gaming

At this point in the semester, Reddit has become a daily habit for me - I usually check it 2-3 times a day for a nice break. Digg, on the other hand, while it is a daily routine for me, I only visit it once a day to keep track of it for this project. However, I have become a bit sick of Reddit lately, as they have made Julian Assange their hero by sending in far too many entries on him and wikiLeaks. So, I decided I would check out Reddit's gaming section and see how it relates to what we have learned about gaming thus far in class.

Redditors seem to take much pride in their gaming. There are occasionally arguments between proponents of Computer gaming versus proponents of console gaming, although console gaming seems to be the more popular on Reddit. MMORPG'S are largely ignored. The most popular games are "old school" Nintendo games. For example, the top entry was related to Zelda, a game franchise for Nintendo systems. The entry was a picture comparing Ganon to the school bully in the television show "Doug," which I hope some of you remember from your childhood. Other popular entries included a shortcut in the Rainbow Road level in "Mario Kart 64," a Nintendo 64 game from the late 1990s. My personal favorite, which I have included with my post, consisted of picture of a Squirtle from the old Pokemon games, which were widely played on the Nintendo Game Boy in the late 1990s. Posts like this one occur often, in which someone "notices" a small detail from an old game that not many fans of the game know about. Overall, like the rest of Reddit, in order to enjoy the gaming section you must have a specific set of tastes regarding gaming, and in order to contribute you must have extensive knowledge of the subject matter that few people have.