Playing Games at the Library

Does the weather have you retreating inside to play some video games? What if you could turn that favorite hobby into a research topic? Read on!

Video games have a 50-year history, reaching back to the crazy computer scientists in MIT's Building 20 knocking out walls according to Supercade: a visual history of the video game age. And while we're no longer building bookcase-sized machines to play them, video games are even more popular today than ever before: some online games have 12 million subscribers (That's more people than the entire population of Greece)!

The average gamer will have spent 10,000 hours playing by the time they're 21 years old. According to Michael Gladwell in his book, Outliers, that's roughly the amount we need to become an expert in any field.

So what can all this game playing do? Dr. Jane McGonigal, a theorist and multiplayer game designer, thinks that games might save the world:

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world | Video on TED.com

I really hope that we can come together to play games that matter, to survive on this planet for another century. And that's my hope that you will join me in making and playing games like this. When I look forward to the next decade,I know two things for sure, that we can make any future we can imagine, and we can play any games we want. So, I say let the world-changing games begin.

At right: What video games can teach us about learning and literacy.

Sound good?

Want to get started on creating games right away?

These books and more are waiting for you at the library- game on!