TechSource Gaming, Libraries, and Learning Symposium, Day 3

Keynote "Gaming with Children" Andrew S. Bub, GamerDad "GamerDad was born of my frustration at what passes for common sense in the media," explained Bub, particularly in the wake of the Columbine shootings, where the media treated the fact that the shooters played Doom as a cause of their actions, rather than observing that most kids did. Bub said that the ESRB—the Entertainment Software Rating Board, which rates video games for content—isn't broken, but it is limited, because it can only give broad themes that a parent might find objectionable. Instead of declaring that a game contains "Comic Mischief," as ESRB ratings might cite, GamerDad will describe the comic mischief a game contains. One question he frequently receives is from children describing the type of movies they are allowed to watch, and then asking if they can play similar games. "I don't judge parents. I don't believe it's my job, and I don't believe it's a librarian's job," Bub said. But he did note that he believes games to be good for children, in moderation. "In general, gamers are smart people," he said. "Gamers are curious people. No kid is sitting there with a glazed look on his face playing, because games are hard." What Every Librarian Needs to Know about Videogames and the Law Mark Methentis, attorney, Vernon Law Group. Methentis covered two gaming-related areas where librarians could run afoul of copyright: videogame tournaments and machinima contests or showings. Tournaments can be problematic because copyright restricts the right to perform or display works, and because games are packaged with End User License Agreements (EULAs) that generally restrict usage to personal use only. Methentis recommended getting approval from the copyright-holder in writing before holding tournaments. The approval doesn't need to be too formal—e-mail would suffice—but librarians should plan ahead because publishers do not always respond quickly. Machinima is the creation of movies from actual game play; it's popular for games with rich virtual worlds like Halo or World of Warcraft. Many game developers actively encourage machinima and the active fan community it helps build, and have posted machinima guidelines. But even with these games, librarians also have to be concerned about unlicensed music, audio, and photos. Methentis said his best practices would be to stick to titles that have Machinima rules and use non-copyrighted music and other materials. For showing machinima, treat the movies like any other movie: Get approval from the author, and if it's a part of a library contest, make the screening a condition of entry. "Even though it's entirely possible no one will ever pursue any sort of action, it's better to be safe than sorry," Methentis said. Pokemon Primer Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbor District Library Neiburger told of one timid student who had truly been brought out of his shell by AADL's Pokemon tournaments. "He didn't win, but he won some battles with interesting techniques," Neiburger said. Because of that, other kids started watching and cheering; it developed into a social circle for the child, who had never had one before. Pokemon is an obsession for many youths. It's also an incredibly complex game—players do battle with their pokemon, which come in more than 500 varieties and fall into 17 different types, each of which are particularly strong or particularly weak against certain other types. "There are far more Pokemon than elements in the periodic table, and players track more information about each Pokemon than scientists track about their elements," Neiburger observed." He offered recommendations for libraries to host their own Pokemon tournaments, including using the Level 50 All setting to equalize matches, disallowing "Legendary" pokemon until the final rounds to ensure variety in matchups, warning against using hacked pokemon that have unfair and artificial statistic levels, and running battles with three pokemon on a side and two per side on the field at any time, to allow for complex strategies. Closing Keynote "The Power of Play Today" Jon-Paul Dyson, Strong National Museum of Play "Play is so vital to who we are and how we identify ourselves," Dyson declared. He also noted that play has clear benefits: providing refreshment, increasing flexibility to life, promoting learning, and making the player happier. Controversy over the effect of gaming has its analogs throughout history, Dyson observed, from early 19th-century novels, to juvenile serial fiction, to comic books. "Libraries have made choices in each phase of these different developments about what they do and how they stock each type of media," and will do so again for video games, he said. Dyson observed that when libraries have been faced with deciding whether to simply provide popular books or try to promote the best books, most try to do both, and suggested they could do the same for gaming, and concluded by suggesting that a Newbery Medal analog for games for children may help to achieve the latter.