VGL Classic: Breaking the M-Rated Barrier

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was originally written on April 13, 2006.

Grand Theft Auto… The Suffering… Manhunt… State of Emergency… Postal… Mortal Kombat…

The number of games that are considered “unacceptable” due to their content grows all the time. Every day some misinformed politician will trot out the latest “murder simulator” and cry out “Won’t someone please think of the children.”

Meanwhile we gamers sit back and shake our heads at people who get all worked up over games that are not designed for children. They are not meant for children, they are not advertised to children and they are not purchased for children by anyone with half a brain.

But sadly, video gaming is still seen as a children’s toy by many. Its this reasoning that has caused the ban of Mature rated games at my library and many other libraries across the country. But eventually, there will come a time when you want to cross that line. When the people in charge realize that their friends and neighbors are playing these M-rated games because they’re adults and because they think the premise is exciting.

So with the recent release of 24: The Game, I started thinking about what games would be best to make the break from the limits of E, E10+ and T. Obviously, Jack Bauer’s digital adventures is near the top, but as I combed through the list of PS2 games, many more popped up as well. Through their connections to other bits of pop culture (and in one case, a piece of Literature with a capital L), these games would be seen as more acceptable than most. And maybe that’s all we can ask for as a first step. Continue reading →

VGL Classic: It’s The End of the Year As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was originally written on January 25, 2006.

It has been one year since the “Great Video Game Experiment” was started at the public library where I work. And in those twelve months I’d have to say it has gone as good as anyone could have hoped. In the end, the numbers don’t lie, and a success is all this experiment can be called.

Seventy-seven PlayStation 2 titles have been added to the collection so far with at least a dozen still awaiting processing. Sadly, Culdcept, one of the games purchased in the initial batch of games at the end of 2004, is still on that list. It’s a little short of the 100 game target I had thought was reasonable back when I started, but 77 seems like a pretty respectable number.

Jak II was the first game to come back broken at the end of July. We had a pretty good run before that. Seven months and not a single problem to be investigated. And then Jak II comes back with a complaint that it won’t start after 8 circs. I pop it in my PS2 at home (because we can’t afford a test unit to sit in the library at all times) and sure enough, the game wouldn’t advance past the Dolby Surround logo. It looks much less scratched up than some of the titles, but it just won’t play.

This has seemed to be a trend as the year moved on. Many younger kids brought back certain titles and say “they’re too scratched to play”. But when I test them on my regularly cleaned PS2 at home they work fine. So back on the shelf they go. But it wouldn’t be unexpected if they didn’t work. Library materials get beaten up regularly. It happens. However, a theft ring is something nobody expects. Continue reading →

VGL Classic: A Librarian’s Look at the Xbox 360 Launch

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was originally written on November 16, 2005.

New formats. They are the bane of media librarians everywhere. Which do you support? Do you support the nwe format and the old format in an attempt to please everybody? When do you drop the old format entirely? When do you start a massive discard project to clear shelf space for the growing collection of the new format?

With the Xbox 360 launching any day now it’s time to give a look at how building a game collection from start with this new format would work. Like what are the strongest launch titles? What will be replaced with a more “next-gen” product in the future? And, like any video game launch, which titles will be relegated to the dustbin of history?

You’ve also got to look at the numbers when it comes to the Xbox 360. Microsoft has confirmed that there will not be enough consoles for everyone who wants one for a very long time (some estimates place it around March for real regular shipments to begin). So you might want to ask yourself, will there by enough patrons walking through my front door to warrant adding 360 games to the collection? There’s also the fact that, aside from sports titles, every one of the 360’s launch titles will be rated Teen or Mature. There are no family friendly options at this point in the system’s life. Although general interest titles, like sport games and racers, are on the launch slate. So let’s look at those games. Continue reading →

VGL Classic: The Novel Approach

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was originally written on September 26, 2005.

During this past summer and all throughout the fall, an unprecedented number of licensed games based on television, film and comic properties will be released. And not a one high-profile title can be said to trace it’s source to a book. Although the case could be made that Shattered Union was inspired partly by Harry Turtledove’s alternate history series of Civil War novels. And I’m sure there’s a smaller publisher or two that’s putting out something.

And who can blame the publishers that decided this? Books do not have a good history of being turned into good games. Just look at the Fellowship of the Ring game from a few years ago, the Dragonriders of Pern game that appeared on the Dreamcast and Harlan Ellison’s PC misstep I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (great title for a game though). But have no fear, a real time strategy title based on the Left Behind series is in the works for the PC. Scratch that, maybe you should be afraid.

But if publishers took a trip down to their local library they could find hundreds of titles that would translate into great games. However, at this point I should mention out that the great Guardian Gamesblog tackled the idea of literary games a few weeks back while this article was sitting half done on my hard drive. While our tastes in books and games differs slightly, feel free to check out their picks in addition to mine. Continue reading →

VGL Classic: The Bloomington Public Library and GameFest

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was originally written on August 26, 2005.

Kelly Czarnecki is the Teen Services Librarian at the Bloomington Public Library in Illinois and she has a dream. She wants to put on the greatest video game presentation in a library ever!

OK, maybe not, but Kelly is no stranger to teens, video games and making one amazing program out of it at the library. With the help of Matt Gullett from the library’s Information Tech Services department, Kelly created GameFest, a quarterly program where teens get together and play games, chat and eat pizza. The last GameFest was held on July 15th with a trio of game tournaments: Battlefield 1942, Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix. I had a chance to talk with Kelly and Matt about what makes GameFest tick and how libraries and games can co-exist for a long, long time. Continue reading →

VGL Classic: Book ‘Em

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was originally written on July 20, 2005.

After two articles showing a library adding PS2 games to their collection it’s time to look at another of the library’s main functions. Books! Yes, that’s right. In this age of DVDs, CDs and video games, libraries everywhere still carry books. And some of them are even about video games. But there has never really been one single book that people look at and say “This is what you must read to get the best understanding of video games.”

In fact, go to the Electronic Gaming section at any Barnes and Noble and what will you see? Strategy Guides and their up-and-coming cousin, the Making of Art Book, as far as the eye can see. That’s what people think of when they hear the words “video game books”. And why not? A generation of gamers were raised on Jeff Rovin’s How To Win At Nintendo Games” series after all.

There’s no doubt that they’re real books. Clocking in at several hundred pages each with not a screenshot to be seen. Actually, they may have been the first video game books that most of us were exposed to that were more than just screenshot catalogs. Yes, they were strategy guides, but Rovin brought a personality to these books that most other strategy guides lacked. Even today you’ll find gamers that react fondly when they hear the name Jeff Rovin.

But books about games, gaming and gamers have moved beyond the simple strategy guide. This is by no means a complete list of every video game related book out there, but it’s a good place to start with some of the titles that I have seen that can have an effect on the way people think about gaming. Continue reading →

VGL Classic: Six Months Later

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was originally written on June 24, 2005.

It has been six months since PlayStation 2 games were added to the collection of the library I work at. In those six months the collection has grown from the meager six titles originally offered on that first day to a healthy collection of 40. Best of all, not a single game has been lost or damaged (although several are on the extended overdue list). Not that I don’t cringe everytime someone brings back a disc that looks like they used it as a dinner plate.

Circulation numbers have been brisk. With two week loan periods and late charges of only 25 cents a day, people are jumping at the chance to check out games, any game. I don’t know why it’s surprising, but people (adults and children, but mostly children) will pull stuff off the shelf and check it out without even looking at what game it is they’re getting out. I asked one frequent game borrower (an adult) about this and he replied “Well I wouldn’t check out Harry Potter, but pretty much anything else, yeah.” Almost every game also has a reserve list of some size, WWE Smackdown VS Raw has been on hold since it was added. And not surprisingly for a library, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the most popular game in the collection. Even the processing department downtown has begun adding games to the county database quicker than ever. However, that’s not to say there still aren’t speedbumps. Continue reading →

VGL Classic: The Video Game Librarian

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This article is from the original batch of Video Game Librarian articles I wrote for Gaming Target between 2005 and 2007. It was the first Video Game Librarian article and was originally written on February 25, 2005.

Libraries and video games have never managed to hit it off. Several games, including GoldenEye and Halo, have levels called “The Library”, but that’s really where it ends. People in all corners of the Internet debate about the academic merits of games, but libraries are ignored. Until now. Public libraries all over the country have been adding video games to their collections. Its very possible that a library in your hometown has games on its shelf right now.

When I am not writing about games, I work at one of these libraries. I had floated the idea of adding games to my manager several times last year, but always as a joke. Even though many patrons, children and adults, had requested that we carry video games. Libraries would never carry console games I thought. But in a sense, games are already a recognized part of a good library as most carry CD-ROMs, a few of which might even be games. However, they are the exception, not the rule. Around June of last year, we discontinued our CD-ROM collection. Everything was being locked down with CD Keys and other security measures and it made the borrowing and re-borrowing of materials between patrons impossible. CD Keys would lock up and refuse access to the install process after a piece of software had only circulated several times. Even though we were well within our rights that were spelled out in the License Agreements.

This was my opening. I explained to my manager that video games didn’t require CD Keys, and that unless they were scratched beyond repair they would always work. I was also given a break because many public libraries are looking to increase their use by teens. Graphic novels had been added earlier in the year and helped the circulation numbers a little, surely I argued, games could bring in more people. So at the end of the year, I was given the OK to use a little leftover money in the budget to look into video games. Continue reading →