National Gaming Day @ Your Library

I was not aware that there was a National Gaming Day @ Your Library until I saw some pictures from this site's Flickr feed at the top of the page that were posted by Cape May County Library. Apparently kids all over the country, from Kotzebue, AK to St. Thomas, VI, go to their public and school libraries and play video games, board games and even card games like Magic: The Gathering. The libraries even get to compete with one another in Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band and Super Smash Bros. Brawl competitions.

Special note: The closest library to me was in Goshen, VA. No Harrisonburg, Charlottesville or Staunton.

The goal of the program is to raise awareness about the uses of games in libraries and expose people to games they haven't played before. It looks like libraries are taken akin to these activities and including them with traditional media.

The website, ILoveLibraries.Org, details everything about it. To get your library involved, go to http://ngd.ala.org/.

Why I Play

I've often, myself, wondered what makes gaming the hobby that overtakes us.

I think the fascination has stayed the same all these years: the ability to control a story, beat a challenge, and survive the onslaught. The character design, the weapon upgrades. The music, the speed.

I've never had to defend myself and this habit. To be honest I keep it a secret as much as possible for fear of public ridicule and societal misconceptions. Though lately, as I've grown older and learned more about the industry as, well, an industry, I've been injecting conversations that have no business in games with actual mature commentary relating to them.

The themes and the ideas in games have real purpose in life and, like books, offer the cultivator substance and depth. As long as you can get by with the obligatory "well this video game I played did this once", and you can stand your ground in a realm populated mostly by the offspring of your dinner party, you might stand a good chance of keeping the chuckles at bay.

Adult hood offers something that most kids lack when it comes to discussing video games: vocabulary. Getting rid of the "this frickin' game is awesome" and replacing it with a nomenclature that may actually include the word "nomenclature" is key.

What drove me to purchase Zelda and Gears of War? Hype? Graphics? Story? I suppose it's a grouping of like terms that is putting my cash on the table. It's a hunger for content, regardless of the kind. Just like when I was a kid standing at the racks of rental games, it's the appetite of the moment that keeps you coming back. You can't have them all, so you take one and come back for something later.

I like to think that my gaming library is concocted from a large palette of flavors and textures. Okami sits in close confines with SOCOM. Mario knows the Master Chief is watching his every move and is counting on the Prince of Katamari to DDR his way over and save his ass.

I'm able to call my library such because it is a wealth of knowledge and expertise. It draws from very different backgrounds and cultures and puts it on my television at a whim. It challenges my reflexes and memory and my emotions. It's another form of art concealed in beeps, flashing colors and animation. It's interactive art.

I love being an art collector.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Video Games

1. No matter how much planning you've done for your journey, you've always forgotten something. Be it a clean pair of underwear, extra ammo, or a key.

2. The easiest path is almost always blocked by red tape, jerks with M-16s or debris.

3. Technology is great but there is always something better around the corner. And someone else will have it before you. Damn you Dr. Wiley!

4. Almost anything sparkly and glowing is good for you. Pick it up. Don't tell anyone about it.

5. You'll never win if you do things the same as everyone else. Your going to have to stray from the norm and change your lines. And it will be bumpy, because those bastards don't have to move for you. But if they hit you you're screwed.

6. If everyone else is doing it chances are it's okay for you too. That applies to speeding on the highway, not correcting the change from the teller, traveling underneath the map and tapping X and A twice to pick up guns without stopping.

7. You'll never have enough money. If you do, that will probably mean what you want is available and you need to come back in the morning or at some special midnight event.

8. You can't count on anyone but yourself because your friends will always, at one time or another, get kidnapped, steal, cheat or lie and get you into trouble. But you'll save them in the end because that's what friends do. Even that stupid princess.

9. When things are going good, that's when you worry. Don't get too comfortable with your surroundings. There will always be an accident or money issue in your life. Whether or not it will involve ninjas or robots is never always up to you.

10. You can accomplish anything if you try hard enough. Whether it's studying to get that degree, solving a logic problem, or jumping from floating moving platforms while dodging flying turtles and slow-moving anti-tank ordnance.

Education versus Exploration

One of the hardest things a gamer has to hear is that games aren't educational and that they are a waste of time. Gamers never hear this from each other, but only from people who don't play games or don't "get" them.

But what is it about games and education that people just don't get? Why are people constantly trying to rope in games and gamers to fill this strange void that they feel exists between education and virtual exploration.

When I say the world virtual, I'm instantly reminded of the movie The Lawnmower man, where Job, a hapless, semi-retarded gardener is befriended by a brain scientist neighbor and awesome virtual reality fun is had by all. Not realizing it himself, Job is transformed into a super intelligent being. He rips through a boatload of digital knowledge on CD-ROM and learns more in 12 hours than most people will ever learn in a lifetime put together. Then he goes on to try to take over the world by ringing all the phones at the same time.

Well, intelligence isn't perfect.

Our brains are constantly tested with todays new games. The old Atari games of ol' were not very difficult to wrap your brain around, but it takes a decent memory and excellent hand/eye coordination to play games today. 16 button controllers and virtual worlds that span hundreds of city blocks. Playing a game to complete a task no longer involves eating four ghosts but instead saving up money to buy virtual houses or run complete microcosm theme parks. Traversing virtual cities using gps maps and objective compasses. Using cooperative strategies to slay monsters with people from all over the world.

Games aren't educational because their results can't be tested in the real world on pen and paper using outdated comparisons. Gamers aren't smart because there is no gamer I.Q. test to measure their aptitude. And video games aren't instructional because there are no uniform specifics on how objectives are detailed and missions are accomplished.

Gamers are smart people. They are crafty and cunning. They work hard to figure out a task and break the boundaries of the "world" to do so. Even in games, players aren't confined by their digital programmed settings. Gamers learn from their mistakes and progress to the next level.

One day the world will understand that games don't have to be violence and sloth encapsulated on monitors and expensive consoles. They can be smart, curious, demanding and patient teachers through virtual training. But the most important thing is that they exist in a form for some reason or another that we are deeply drawn to. Our imagination is only by matched by our emotions and games may be the one thing that excite those traits that are often held back and keenly watched in the real world.