How old is
your brain?

Hello!!
Digital Games and Digital Libraries
Before we start…
I am not a librarian too…
Presentation by John Kirriemuir (no beard!)
and “Lucky the dog”

In this presentation
1. Overview of games and gamers.
3. Some learning using digital games.
5. 12 areas of interest to the wider library
community.
7. Online games: World of Warcraft and Second
Life.
9. The attributes of a gamer.

Awareness
• Often from own children who play games.
• Gamers do things really quickly
… pick up objects …
aggregate objects …
manipulate objects.
• If you don’t play digital games, you are less
likely to discuss games with your peers.

Digital games and game players
What …
• Often complex, difficult, involving, thought-provoking,
interactive (as opposed to reactive), graphically intense,
instantaneously responsive, multi-threaded, multi-
interface, social multiplayer games.
• Video games have been around for ~30 years. Old
enough to be considered no longer a “fad”, more a
mainstream entertainment culture.
• Things have moved on a bit in those 30 years. Take
tennis, for example:

Digital games and game players
Who … There are many, many surveys. Most focus on the
US games market. Key trends and facts:
• About 35% to 45% of digital game players are female.
• Average number of years adult gamers have been
playing computer or video games: 12
• Frequent game players in 2003: 83 million worldwide
• Game play is displacing other media-centric activities,
especially watching television. Online game play is a
key driver in Internet use and broadband take-up.

Average game player age
34

New players all the time…

More who: social gaming
People play against friends, neighbours, work colleagues
and family. The top four reasons parents play video
games with their children:
– 79% Because they’re asked to
– 75% It’s fun for the entire family
– 71% It’s a good opportunity to socialise with the
child
– 62% It’s a good opportunity to monitor game
content
(ESA 2006 survey)
• In the US, 32% of heads of households report they play
games on wireless devices such as a cell phone or PDA.
• Again in the US, 58% online game players are male,
42% of female.

More who: Neilsen entertainment survey
According to a Nielsen entertainment survey, men spend
more on computer games than they do on music.
It also found that games are starting to attract significant
numbers of players beyond the core target market of
males aged eight to 34. “Almost a quarter of gamers,
24%, are over 40 years, said the report.” It found that
40% of US homes own a PC, game console or handheld
gaming device.
Almost a quarter of these, 23%, own all three types of
gaming gadget and the vast majority of gamers, 89%,
do their playing via a console.
From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4423365.stm

Digital games and game players
Where …
• At home.
• Friends / relatives homes.
• School / college / university.
• Travel to school.
• Travel to work.
• At work.
• When “roaming”.
• (in the library…?).

Digital games and game players
When …
• Whenever a person wants to.
• (Online mobile games) whenever you are in range of a
wifi hotspot so you can play against other people.
• Mobile, persistent and online gaming means a player
can drop in or out of a game to suit their needs.
• Small portable devices with lit screens and increasingly
long battery lives mean there are few situations where
gaming is not possible (scuba diving?).

Wario Ware and Nintendogs
Wario Ware
• 200+ mini games in one game
• Each mini game lasts 5 seconds
• Use the stylus on the screen, or blow into the mic
• In the 5 seconds, you must:
1. Figure out what to do
2. Do it
Nintendogs
• You own a dog
• Teach it through voice commands
• Take it for walks, play with it, feed it

My cousin is off to University…
Here’s his electrical items list:
• Xbox 360 <- games
• Television (to play Xbox on)
• Watch <- games
• Digital Camera
• Ipod
• PSP <- games
• Laptop computer <- games
• Hoover / vacuum cleaner
• Mobile phone <- games
• Blackberry <- games (soon)
(btw whatever happened to “convergence”?)

Digital games and game players
How …
• Handheld games console e.g. DS, PSP
• Games console operated through TV
• PC
• Video game arcades
• Mobile phones
• PDAs
• Front headseat on a plane
• Keyring device e.g. digital pet keeper
• … any other devices with a chip inside e.g.
Internet-connected fridge

Sony PSP

PS2 / Xbox 360 / GameCube

How many sold?
• PS2: 106 million by November 2005
• Xbox: 24 million
• GameCube: 21 million
• Xbox 360: 5.05 million
• GameBoy: 70 million
• GBA: 75 million
• PSP: 20 million
• DS: 22 million
• 718 video games have sold over 1 million copies each
• Super Mario Bros (NES): 41 million copies sold

Digital games and game players
Why …
A lot of research into this, especially learning
psychology. Two (related) oft-said questions:
1. “Why does someone voluntarily do the same
repetitive task in a game over and over?”
2. “How can this enthusiasm / keenness /
determination / focus be transferred to learning
situations?”

…and here’s why (question 1)
• Because games are difficult.
• In addition to completing the game, there is the
challenge of figuring out what to do and how to do it
i.e. mastering the game.
• They present a challenge (like crosswords, sudoko).
• They appeal to the curiosity of people.
• Often a game presents instant feedback to the player
on his or her actions.
• The learning curve of a good digital game is:
– not too easy (will get bored)
– not too hard (will get frustrated)
– something that opens up new parts of the game
(and provide other “rewards”) in return for in-game
skill development.
– encouraging a sense of “just one more go” in the
player.

Learning
…using digital games

Interest
JISC Strategy 2004-2006:
“In the home, set-top boxes together with digital
television and games consoles are increasing
the proportion of the population with access to
online interactive services and may offer new
opportunities for learning to reach more
people.”

Resistance to widespread use
• “Violence” : players become psychopaths
• “Addiction” : how much play is too much
• “Accuracy” : of content
• “Relevance” : to the curriculum
• The difficulty in identifying those games which
are suitable (explicitly fit in with the
curriculum)

(More) resistance to widespread use
• “If learning is fun then it cannot be learning”.
“Learning wasn’t fun in my day.”
• Effects on the younger generation e.g. (from
earlier in Ticer event):
“Young people will lose the ability to hold paper”

Digital games in learning: how?
“Games are widely used as educational tools, not just for
pilots, soldiers and surgeons, but also in schools and
businesses…. Games require players to construct
hypotheses, solve problems, develop strategies, learn
the rules of the in-game world through trial and error.
Gamers must also be able to juggle several different
tasks, evaluate risks and make quick decisions….
Playing games is, thus, an ideal form of preparation for
the workplace of the 21st century, as some forward-
thinking firms are already starting to realise.”
The Economist, August 4, 2005

The body of research
• Huge amount of research into the use of digital games
in learning, teaching and education.
• Older research primarily in the psychology and
sociology fields; more recent (1998+) in education
fields.
Problems
• Unfortunately rather less research is based in actual
learning situations.
• “Violent video games” get all the media headlines,
making implementation much more difficult.
• Very complex issues at the learning and skill
enhancement levels.
• Measuring their effectiveness (i.e. “do they work?”).

Digital games in learning: where
• Major part of the UK sector. Software market for
schools = 130,000,000 pounds per year (core market).
• Large numbers of digital games developed with
curriculum relevance in mind:
– Audited against national curriculum
– Tested by teachers and educators
– Mainly in primary schools (age 4 to 12) but
increasingly in secondary
• Smaller number of schools (less than 500) use COTS
(Commercial Off The Shelf) games such as Zoo Tycoon
for cross-curricular learning.

Digital games in education
Examples of use:
• Historical simulations
• Planning and architecture
• Problem solving (instant response)
• Economics and financial management
• Literacy (major success with Myst)
• Physics (gravity, vectors, acceleration)
• Chemistry
• Cultural studies and religion
Cross-curricula games very popular

Zoo Tycoon
• Build a zoo and populate it with animals
• Stay on budget
• Pay for feed, staff, animals, vets bills
Used in schools for:
• Maths
• Economics and finance
• Biome
• Ethics (should animals be caged?)
• Planning and design

Digital games in health
Examples of use:
• Pain relief and distraction
• Rehabilitation
• Surgery skill increase
• Diabetes awareness
• Easing carpal tunnel syndrome
• Mental health and sharpness (Brain Train!)
• Acting out domestic and social situations
• Social and communication development
www.gamesforhealth.org

Digital games in getting fit!
• Dance Dance Revolution and similar installed in
many schools and colleges in the US e.g. every
school in West Virginia. Results are very clear,
but only work best in school environment with
e.g. healthy food.
• In UK, school resistance to games has meant
lone teachers have done their own thing.
Martyn Thompson, head of P.E. at Groby
Community College (14 to 19 year olds),
Leicestershire, UK (pictures authorised by
same). Lunchtime and after-school optional
classes.

Two models of teaching
Typical assumption is that every student would
use an individual copy of the game, working in
isolation.
No! Most effective models of teaching require
great social interaction.
Both models require:
• communication-based participation by all
participants.
• the teacher and game being the axis on which
the lesson runs.

1. Teacher as guide
The teacher has control of the game, and
leads the class through appropriate
scenarios. The class have to tackle the
appropriate scenario before moving on.
Game control is passed around, or the
teacher retains it for the duration of the
exercise. Usually uses one computer
and a projector.

2. Teacher as referee
The class is split into different teams. The
teams collaborate internally, and use
the game to “compete” against each
other e.g. which team can develop the
most economically stable city using an
urban planning simulator.
The teacher sets the task, answers
queries, helps the teams to an
appropriate extent, adjudicates, and
leads the class debriefing.

Impact
12 areas where libraries
and digital games collide…

1. Preservation
“Here at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France we deal with
legal deposits of video games. Since 1992, video games
are part of patrimonial collections. Every video game
distributed in France must send in two copies to the
French national library.
Our missions are based on exhaustively collecting these
kinds of documents as we do with others, cataloguing,
and preserving in order to ensure long term access for
researchers. We work closely to the game community to
defend the game as a document and an object for
scientific research.”
Relatively problematic; needs a lot of resources.

2. Keep kids quiet in public libraries
“I don't know if this counts, but at my library we're just
starting to have video games in our After-School Zone.
Kids and teens can go in from 3:15 until 5:00 every day
and get a small snack, study or play games. We get a
lot of latchkey kids, and we figured that if we entertain
them, they're less likely to get into trouble, and they'll
be less likely to clump up on the public computers.
Originally we'd wanted to buy a set of laptops for the
After-School Zone, but we couldn't work out the
computer issues. The video games were a second-best
solution.”
Allison Angell, Head Youth Services Librarian
Benicia (California) Public Library

3. Get people into the (public) library
“Check out our newest public library branch in South
Carolina – called the Carvers Bay Branch Library. We
opened the library two weeks ago with 10 Xbox 360s
and 8 gaming PCs, and we plan to use them to
persuade young people to register for library cards and
to read: the games will serve as the hook for more
library usage.
The library is located right in front of a high school and
middle school campus in the poorest, rural area of our
county where illiteracy is currently 30% and library card
registration is only 2%.”
Dwight McInvaill
Director, Georgetown County Library

4. Circulating games
• A small but growing number of public libraries loan out
games. Issues include:
– budget
– age ratings
– formats
– identifying the best games to stock
• John Scalzo, librarian, ran a game loan scheme for a
year: “…at the end of the first year, having games in a
library has been a complete success. They are popular
with adults, children and teens and I've only heard the
faintest of grumblings (mostly from older patrons)
questioning why a library would carry, scoff, games.
They are an accepted part of the collection now and it's
hard to ask for anything more than that.”

5. Circulating support materials
When people play digital games, they use a wide variety of
materials. This is a little-researched area i.e. the effects
on literacy through games support.
Materials include:
• magazines and newspapers (print, online)
• walk-throughs (print, online)
• cheats e.g. codes you type in (print, online)
• maps (print, online)
• interactive guides (online)
• game forums (online)
• blogs and websites (online)
• tips from friends (online, social)
• team-based playing/support (online, social)

6. (Ab)using the library network
• Problem in UK universities. Halls of residence networks
where students have a network point in each room
becoming choked with Xbox Live traffic.
• Wireless hotspots around campus could be taken up by
Internet-based mobile or online gaming (Laptop, PSP,
DS).
• Playing a digital game has a different timeframe to
searching a library catalogue:
– library catalogue search: 20 seconds to 2 minutes
– flash, shockwave, Java game: typically a few
minutes
– PSP/DS game: 10 minutes to an hour
– PC game e.g. simulation: 20 minutes to a few hours
– Online RPG game e.g. World of Warcraft: 6 hours+
common

Wireless hotspot in your library
“Visitors to the British Library will be
able to get wireless internet access
alongside the extensive information
available in its famous reading rooms.
A study revealed that 86% of visitors to
the Library carried laptops.
The technology has been on trial since
May (2004) and usage levels make
the Library London's most active
public hotspot.”
BBC News website, November 18th 2004

7a. Input/output devices
Old style of data entry: keyboard and mouse
…then: joystick
…then: eyetoy
…then:
• floor pads (dancing games)
• feedback devices embedded in controllers
• fishing rods (containing motion sensors)
• touch-sensitive screens (DS portable console)
• voice / speech recognition
• (Coming soon) the Wii “Nunchuck”
Moving rapidly towards a “no wire” gaming
environment.

Brain Train (Nintendo DS)

7b. Keyboard/mouse vs motion
• Unlikely that the keyboard will be overthrown
as the main method for data entry.
• Speech recognition input, to date, has been a
disappointing development.
• Information systems still organised around
database structure, though offering a much
richer way of finding “connections” between
items.
Simple voice recognition and touch screen
technology could enable more effective
searching through these richer environments,
especially through mobile devices.

8. Mobile library catalogue access?
The positive side of using the library LAN..
• Relieves use of library computers.
• Cuts down time in trying to locate book /
journal / periodical.
• GPS features; guide you to the shelf and item
(would this save much time?).
• Both PSP and DS are development platforms.
• PSP is easy to (unofficially) develop on:
– RSS feeds: done!
– Telnet: done!
– IRC (Internet Relay Chat): done!
– PSIX (alternative OS): done!
– PSP-HTTPD (web server on a PSP): done!!

9. Library researcher: the game
Several variations on the following been done as
small, in-house projects:
• navigational, adventure/discovery game
• knowledge quest: find and assemble knowledge
from library resources
• acquire practice and skill of library researcher
• resident librarians as game masters/mentors
• “open source” game engine, content
development, and community participation
No large-scale version of this … yet.
(as described by Walt Scacchi, UCgamelab)

10. Digital Library support for
learning game
CERLIM providing the digital library
infrastructure for the game data.

Online Gaming
Where things get very interesting…

Who’s playing what?

World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer
online role-playing game (MMORPG). You
explore, and team up with people to complete
quests, elavating your status.
June 2006:
• 6.6 million subscribers worldwide (Netherlands
= 16.3 million residents, the Randstad = 7
million residents)
• 2 million in the USA, 1 million in Europe
• Most of the rest in China
At any given time over 500,000 subscribers are
online. (Rotterdam = 588,000 residents)

Levels 1 to 60: getting social
“While some early parts of World of Warcraft can be
experienced alone without the help of other players, it
is fundamentally a group-centric game.
Some of the game's low-level, less rewarding dungeons
can be completed with small groups of up to five
members, called \"parties.\"
The most challenging (and rewarding) encounters,
however, require the cooperation of many players, with
the maximum totalling 40 players, which are referred to
as \"raids\".”

Beyond Level 60: getting very social
“The game fundamentally changes upon reaching level 60,
its raid-dependent (and time-consuming) nature a vast
departure from the relatively casual experience of
advancing one's character from levels 1 to 60.
The majority of World of Warcraft's endgame content (for
level 60 players) requires raiding, with 40-player raids
making up the bulk of the game's development since
release.
The game's most complex dungeons and encounters are
designed to take raiding guilds months of playtime and
many attempts before they succeed.”

11. Compare
three interfaces

What the heck is going on?
1. A 2D or 3D visual representation of the game
environment, buildings, your avatar, the other players'
avatars, items such as weapons and computer-
controlled characters.
2. A text-based or other chat system through which you
can communicate with players whose avatars are near
yours.
3. An inventory of items you are carrying.
4. A map showing key geographic features, other avatars
and other characters near your own.
5. Avatar/character status information, such as strengths,
injuries, spells and weapons.
Much of this is changing in real-time. Need to constantly
monitor it all while figuring out the game and while
playing the game.

12. Chat / communication systems
• Language issue e.g. English, Dutch, French.
• Txt spk, other shortened forms.
• Symbols (proprietary versions of emoticons)
often used.
• People entering, leaving a conversation (“raids”
of up to 40 people).
• Player monitors dialogue area while:
– monitoring other players
– entering own chat
– moving around the area
– manipulating other objects

WoW encourages curiosity…
• World of Warcraft game player: \"I
wonder what's over that horizon / in
that building over there?\"
• WorldCat user: \"I wonder in which other
libraries this particular book is held?\"
• Amazon customer: \"I wonder what
other books are read by people who
own my favourite book?\"

What’s happening cognitively?
• Socially & materially distributed cognition.
• Collaborative problem solving, multiple problem
spaces.
• Coordination of people, (virtual) tools, artifacts,
& text.
• Constellation of literacy practices across
multimedia, multimodal ‘attentional spaces’
(Lemke).
• Empirical model building (exploits, mods).
• Negotiation of meaning & values within
community.
• Authoring of identities within & beyond the
community.
“The Gaming Generation & Libraries: Intersections” by Constance
A. Steinkuehler.

Information searching within the game
• Textual “clues” rare inside the game
• Clues are often abstract or symbolic
• Often a time-critical element for finding information
(“must work out how to do X before Y happens”)
• Clues are often recursive: Do A to find B to give to C
who will give you D etc…
• Gamer can thus mentally keep track of:
– several things that need to be done
– status of current objectives
– people
– places
– information
– items

Second Life:
the librarians online game of choice
• Own currency system (Lindendollar) pegged to
real world currencies
• Libraries being built by
groups of people
• IBM and others buying islands
and running training courses
for their staff
• 400,000 users, and 3,100 businesses set up
within “real” estate
• The BBC hold concerts within Second Life…

Under construction…
Several libraries built / under construction
…There is also Info Island, home to the Second
Life Library 2.0, a collaboration between the
Alliance Library System and Online
Programming for All Libraries (OPAL).
\"More and more educators see Second Life as a
way to engage students,\" says ALS director of
innovation Lori Bell. \"We wanted to see what
role a library could play.\"

More…
A group of about 35 librarians have
volunteered their time to build
structures and stock the collection,
which includes searchable indexes,
audio and video clips, and books, many
of which are public domain and
available to own.
The library also offers live help at certain
hours of the day, for the typical real-life
reference questions that inevitably
come up, and it will hold live events like
authors' chats and tours.

More…
The library is also exploring ways to offer
learning experiences that simply would
not be possible in real life. It is working
with the Library of Congress to build a
Declaration of Independence room,
where a larger-than-life-size copy of the
document will be on display along with
additional readings, audio files, and
period furniture.
There's also a library in the works on
Caledon, the exclusively 19th-century
island where avatars wear period dress.

Librarians congregate in OPAL and in SL to listen to
Michael Stephen's presentation on blogging for the
Alliance Library System, thursday June 15 2006.

10 attributes of a gameplayer
• Expects instant, relevant results.
• Able to multi-task (e-juggling).
• Interrogates a wide array of information
source and media (see “circulating support
material”)…
• …consequently, is “beyond Google” in terms of
information retrieval tools.
• Is usually a net-user; many game players often
blog.

10 attributes of a gameplayer (more)
• Can find information/knowledge that is not in
obvious places.
• Comfortable with complex online systems;
does not differentiate between “online” and
“offline”.
• Comfortable with peripherals and
unconventional data entry hardware.
• Comfortable with online talk/chat systems.
• No problem with spending colossal amounts of
time online … so long as it is rewarding.

Interface points to ponder
• Not everyone is a game player. A senior citizen
may just want to “Google and go.”
• Google: “Does what it says on the tin”. 1
search box – that’s all that is required.
• Large amounts of research, development and
funding have been put into making digital game
interfaces as rewarding as possible.
• Interfaces differ tremendously between digital
games: compare World of Warcraft to
Minesweeper.

One piece of advice for all librarians
Play more games

Summary and pointers
• Digital games used 1. Preservation
occasionally, but not much, 2. Keep kids quiet in the library
in learning
3. Get people into the library
• Many people play them
4. Circulating games
• Across many demographics
5. Circulating support materials
• Mainstream form of
6. (Ab)using the library
entertainment network
• Instant response to trial
7. Input/output devices
and error (implications for
8. Mobile library catalogue
teaching and learning)
access
• Cognitive and neural
9. Library researcher: the
changes and development
game
• Encourages online
10. Interface design
exploration
11. Accelerated online multi-
tasking
• Did I say “Play more
12. Huge real-time social
games”…?
networking