Yahoo! Avatars

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Thing 15- Gaming in Libraries

Well, I am a female who isn't a gamer yet, but I really tried to keep an open mind as I read about this topic and looked at Pirates and Second Life. I thought it was interesting that the game The Sims was meant to attract more females to game playing. Both of my daughters enjoy playing Sim games. If I was going to play games, it would be Sims, not Second Life. The pirate game didn't interest me at all. Second Life seems kind of eerie to me, with the realistic-looking characters flying around in the dreamlike world. I'm more comfortable with Sims because it just seems more obviously silly, like a game, with goofy characters.
I suppose gaming in the libraries has its place. If libraries have often provided board games, then the idea of providing the type of game that's currently popular makes some sense to me. There's one big difference, though. It's in the B word, budget. Having games like this available all the time must cost a lot more than keeping some old board games around.
I did think that the idea of using Second Life for educational purposes really had some possibilities. I thought that was the most appropriate use of the game in a library.

1 comment:

Linda said...

Your comment about budgets and board games versus computer games is well taken. Have you visited the Gaming Learning and Libraries Ning?
http://gaminglearningandlibraries.ning.com/