Practicum #7 - Paul Puglisi

I guess in my final blog post, I will summarize my thoughts on Kongregate. I found aspects of it to be very entertaining. I am a fan of mindless casual games, so that aspect of the site appealed to me. I am not all that into RPG's or MMO's, which the site also features, but I think it is good that the site includes these games because it allows for them to appeal to a wider demographic. The networking aspect of the site was not very appealing to me. I tried to make conversation with other players in the chat room features and in the in-game chat, but most often they were not very willing to make conversation with me. Those who had created games were willing to talk with me, but eventually the conversation turned to how awesome their game is and how I should play it. The forum/message board feature was interesting. A lot of discussion went on there. So many topics were discussed, including non-gaming/serious topics, which I thought was a little weird. Creating games myself was very difficult, so I was unable to participate in that aspect. Overall, personally I think Kongregate serves the purpose of entertainment and distraction. However, I can see how game creators enjoy the participatory and networking aspect of it.