The Future of Gaming

Gaming is not a passing fad. According to the NPD Group, a 35-year-old market research company that provides consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries including entertainment (which includes computer and video games), total U.S. revenue for games, consoles, and accessories has been on the rise, jumping 43 percent to $18.8 billion in 2007,¹ and to $21.3 billion in 2008.² Game sales are expected to rise 7.9% annually over the coming years.³

As the popularity and saturation of gaming grows, libraries must keep gaming on the radar and, minimally, purchase crossover materials, and allow access to games for patrons of all ages. For many libraries, recognizing games as a legitimate format will mean offering new game services, programs, and collections.

All of the next-generation consoles connect to the Internet. Owners can create user profiles and buy points to purchase games, upgrades, and demos. With a subscription, owners can get arcade-style games, first crack at new games, and exclusive titles. For libraries, this means making sure someone on staff (or a gamer patron who you radically trust) is able to maintain the user profile, download updates, purchase new content, and possibly be responsible for creating a third space in the online network.

The trend of downloadable games means increased coverage, online and in print, of Internet-only games, so selecting these games will become less of a challenge. Currently GameStop’s magazine, Game Informer (www.game informer.com), dedicates one page to downloadable games, and all of the major magazines dedicate online space to downloaded content reviews.

Libraries are beginning to maintain an online presence in social-networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Second Life, and they should consider joining gaming sites like Xbox Live and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). The advent of SOE’s much anticipated Home software will make creating a multimedia third-dimensional (3D) space a reality. As console gaming evolves, creating an avatar, building a space, and incorporating media will only become easier as presences in console services shifts into whole virtual worlds. For libraries, this may mean developing 3D spaces or game levels through console services to develop interactive, highly visual, digital branches in order to connect with gamers.

Cell phone games, like console, arcade, and computer games, have evolved from simple 2D two-color graphics to full-color 3D games, rich in plot and story. Mobile gaming revenue is expected to quadruple from $2.6 billion in 2006 to $11.2 billion by 2010.⁴ Lebanon and Thorntown Public Libraries in Boone County, Indiana, and the North Shore Public Library in Shoreham, New York, offer cell phone clinics, with teen volunteers who assist adults with storing phone numbers and text messaging. A next step for libraries might be to offer a program in which patrons bring in their cell phones to show and share games. Hosting a gaming event that incorporates use of smartphones may also be of interest, such as a round of Cruel 2 B Kind (Jane McGonigal and Ian Bogost, 2006) in which teams check in via text messaging or a scavenger hunt that requires digital photos.

Games acquired from subscription services may be “DRM (digital rights management) free,” which means you may download a title again if you lose it from your computer, install it on multiple machines, and/or play offline. Plus, your purchase may include supplementary materials, like walk-throughs. Digital downloads mean no loss rates, no cataloging, no physical storage, and cheaper costs.

With ever-increasing access to higher bandwidths and high-speed Internet connections, more and more games will be downloaded and played digitally. WildTangent ORB (www.wildtangent.com) seeks to revolutionize PC gaming to make it more like console gaming. WildTangent has its own PC platform game development studio and has distribution agreements with Dell, HP, Gateway, and Toshiba, meaning that their proprietary PC Game Console for direct to desktop games is bundled to 25 million new consumer PCs annually. Their gaming portal, WildGames (www.wildgames.com), hosts 20 million players worldwide who play 250 million game sessions a month, and it supports over 8,300 affiliates from top online game developers like HipSoft, PlayFirst, Sandlot, and PopCap.⁵ Using virtual tokens called “WildCoins,” gamers purchase sessions of ad-free gaming. Instead of having to buy a subscription, players pay only for their actual playtime. The company also has a try and buy model in which games can be purchased for $19.95. Libraries might consider subscription models, or even offering subscriptions or tokens as prizes for gaming related programs.

PC gaming may stabilize or even decrease as mobile gaming and Internet ready console usage increase. It is much easier to design games for a console than a PC, because a console standardizes the graphics, sound, and game play; games for PCs have to adapt to a wide range of operating systems and graphics and sound cards. One interesting trend is the porting of traditional PC game series like The Sims and Civilization to consoles. Consoles have the ability to offer memory for storage of game data, although they generally use keyboards for a variety of complex commands.

More and more cross-platform porting is anticipated. For libraries, this means incorporating PC games into services, programs, and collections and possibly purchasing subscription services or digital downloads for in-house or at-home use.

According to a December 2008 Nielsen report, almost 20 percent of PC gaming is dedicated to World of Warcraft, and the average user spends 823 minutes a week playing—that’s nearly 14 hours a week.⁶ Similar popular titles range from RuneScape and Guild Wars (which has free and fee models) to subscription titles like City of Heroes/City of Villains (NCSoft, 2006) for the PC.

Although it’s a challenge for a library to provide access to subscription games like World of Warcraft, programming can be built around MMOGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) for the PC. Offering LAN (local area network) parties so community members can come and play together socially is an easy solution that requires only power strips, Internet access, and dismantling library filters that block high-bandwidth applications. LAN Party: Hosting the Ultimate Frag Fest by William Steinmetz (Wiley, 2004) is a good resource for more information on LAN games and program structures.

Games finally debuted in the iTunes store in fall 2006 with the launch of iTunes7. Retailing for $4.99, they are compatible with iPod classic, third-generation iPod nano, or fifth-generation iPod. Apple’s new attentiveness to gaming was further demonstrated at the 2008 World Wide Developers Conference where Sega demonstrated Super Monkey Ball, a console game with over 100 levels that has been ported to the iPhone.⁷ The intuitive interface of the phone lends itself well to the complex game controls; for example, tilting the device makes the ball roll.

To date, Pangea Software has ported two games to the iPhone: Enigmo, a physics-based puzzle game, and the 3D racing game Cro-Mag Rally in which the iPhone becomes the steering wheel. Perhaps in a not too distant future, there will be a model for patrons to “check out” iTunes content purchased by the library for their portable devices; until that becomes a reality, a discussion on favorite iPhone Apps for Gamers is a very easy program to conduct.

Increased convergence of mediums is expected. Look for not only games based on films, and films based on games, but more films made from games in the form of machinima. Game characters will cross over into more books. Bands will continue to use video games as a new venue to get their music out, and music from games will become an increasing part of the soundtrack of our lives. The acquisition of Harmonix by MTV is very interesting—the merging of music video and musical video games.

Serious gaming—playing games that employ ethical decisions and center on political, racial, historical, and socioeconomic premises—is on the rise. Academic, school, and special libraries will be more likely to give serious games the time of day. While not all major game publishers are interested in creating serious games, independent publishers may see a renaissance, and game design will explode with users creating content, much like YouTube has taken off for video bloggers and blogging for amateur journalists. Libraries are well-positioned to deliver game design programs or other software and services to support creative game-based endeavors of gamer patrons.

Excerpted with permission of Neal-Schuman Publishers, from Game On! Gaming at the Library by Beth Gallaway. Copyright Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2009.