Help My Library! Or Don't, Whatever!

This morning I mentioned to our acquisitions librarian that we don't have enough video games. Upon agreeing with me, she gave me the task of compiling a list of appropriate video games. Our library's policy is that we cannot get M-Rated games, or excessively violent ones (don't ask me why, this is a really foolish rule especially when we have ultra-violence just hanging out in our dvd collections). I'm working through my list and have a bit of trouble here and there. So, I throw myself at the mercy of you duders. Will you help me in my quest to flesh out my library's piss-poor video game collection? Any 360/ps3/wii game that falls under the aforementioned guidelines would be sweet. Oh, and if you could include which version we should get if it's multi-platform that'd also be super awesome.

Here's a friendly table to see very easily what has been said/done so far! I will try to update this about once every 1 to 2 days. I will also mark off what games we have ordered, just for personal sanity.

updated as of 12/13

Your library has video games? If you have Playstations All-stars maybe you should get Super Smash Bros.

Why Playstation All-Stars? Also that is a really hard task.

@_Chad: oh, we don't own that, that's just on my list to get. If they say OWNED next to them we already got it. But thanks for reminding me of that one!

What's the purpose of the library collection? Is it just to rent out games to people, or is it as an actual archive? If it's the former, I honestly don't support it that much; library money probably shouldn't go towards giving kids a chance to play Forza for free. If it's the latter, expand the collection to include older games and consoles, eventually explaining that said archive should probably include M-rated titles. Obviously, said argument doesn't have to come until the collection is already "established," but it ultimately won't make sense in the long run.

Portal (Or Orange Box, as it may need to be)? Portal 2? Those are library worthy games...

edit: Turns out The Orange Box is an M rated game. Well that's crazy...

Oooh Metroid Prime Trilogy would be great as well!

@Little_Socrates: eh, it's really just to rent it but I honestly have no issue with this. I mean you give them a week to play around with it. If they like it they'll hopefully buy it and let the next person play it. I mean, in my opinion, it gives a person a chance to see the fully fleshed out product and evaluate it. But, that is just my perspective.

I'm sure I can bring up at a meeting the fact that we should be able to supply M-Rated games, and I'm sure I could effectively argue them into the collection. As for the archiving thing, if we were a bigger library, I would be absolutely all over a video game archival project, but we just don't have the space for it.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Viva Pinata

Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing (the Wii version has an extra character and the 360 version has 2.)

How about a pc so you can play proper master-race games?

I have nothing constructive to add here cause I dont own any consoles, sorry.

@EarlessShrimp: This is the list of the games you guys already have at the Library or you thinking of ordering? If you don't have them, I don't think there is need to have all of Uncharted games. Also, NFS and NHL also don't seem like a good choice.

Anyway, here's a few that I think would be a good fit:

Wii: Rhythm Heaven Fever, Skyward Sword, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Punch-Out!!

PS3: Heavy Rain (M-rated?),

360: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Trouble in Paradise

Multi: Portal 2, Kingdoms Of Amalur, Rayman Origins, Catherine (M-rated?), LA Noire (M-rated?), Enslaved

@EarlessShrimp: Oh, my library does it too, and I'm not yelling that we're wasting our money or anything. I just wouldn't want them to spend money that could be spent on, say, a few actually fast computers, or for filling out authorial collections.

Anyways, I guess you guys should probably have Asura's Wrath. It's a game people should probably rent, and it's not really more violent than Uncharted or Xenoblade.

@Little_Socrates: fortunately, the video game money would come from a separate part of the budget, so it's not like we're buying a game instead of a book. Plus, we just upgraded our computers over the summer, and boy that was a long time coming. But, I believe our computer upgrades come from a town-wide budget, which is also separate.

@Winternet: Eh, we have a lot of other sports games, but we have no hockey games. We even have the 2k8 and 2k12 olympics. Is there another NHL you might recommend? I do want to see more sports represented around here... Actually fifa would be a good one to add as well now that I think of it. But, I'd be interested in your reasoning behind NFS.

@EarlessShrimp: I'm not disputing their quality as games, but their importance. I'm assuming you don't have the chance to have hundreds of games on the library, just a few selected ones. So, the criteria is much tighter and those games just don't pass the cut, in my opinion, when there are other "more important" games to be selected. The reasoning behind NFS it's similar. First, I would concentrate on having a good and diversified collection. Having Forza Horizon on the collection, makes NFS a non priority. The same reasoning goes to having the 3 Uncharted games. Priorities. But again, this is my opinion.

You should have The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in there. Also Twilight Princess. Oh, and WarioWare: Smooth Moves.

As for the PS3, you should get El Shaddai.

Two multi-platform games I can think of are Mirror's Edge (apparently it was rated T) and Batman: Arkham City. If you have the The Walking Dead TV series in your DVD collection maybe you can find an easy reasoning to include the game in your library as well, when the boxed version comes out (not sure if it already has), even though it's an M rated games.

And you're not interested in having PC games there right?

@Snail: I would be interested in having them, but we don't really do it anymore unfortunately. The kid's dept used to have some PC games like math blaster and all the good shit, but they got rid of them in favor of leapster and DS games mostly. We have game pcs for the kid's but those can't be taken home.

@Winternet: That's very true, I was so excited to get this opportunity I forgot to have a more discerning eye. I guess Once all is said and done, I can do a little list editing before sending it onwards. For example, which would I rather the library own: amped 3 or SSX? or maybe amped 3 on the 360 and SSX on ps3? Man, this just got complicated.

@EarlessShrimp: Oh I see. Glad to see you added my suggestions! What made you old off from El Shaddai?

@Snail: Well I think it was mostly due to the fact that I completely overlooked it. fixed!

@EarlessShrimp: By the way, isn't there a limit to this list?

@Snail: there will definitely be a relative limit, but for now I kinda want to get as much as possible before whittling it down. Once I get it down to maybe 10-15 for each console I'll publish that list or something, if folks are interested. But in reality, I would like to own as many as we possibly can down the road.

@EarlessShrimp said:

@Snail: there will definitely be a relative limit, but for now I kinda want to get as much as possible before whittling it down. Once I get it down to maybe 10-15 for each console I'll publish that list or something, if folks are interested. But in reality, I would like to own as many as we possibly can down the road.

Yeah, I'd be interested in seeing that! You should also post a picture of the stack of games in your library once they arrive.

Well any racing, puzzle and sports game will most likely be appropriate for a library but apart from that the Ratchet and Clank games for the PS3.

@EarlessShrimp: from a "this game is weird and crazy and awesome and more people should know about it" point of view, I'd say Amped 3. From a "this game plays better" point of view I'd say SSX. Personally, I'd choose Amped 3.

SSX

Out of curiosity, is this for someone to check out games and take home or to play while at the library? I notice you had Walking Dead on the list, but isn't that a digital only game tied to some sort of account?

We'll probably never get video games at my library because people keep stealing our dvds and cds as it is. This is why we can't have nice things! Anyway, you should give the people Journey, it's the game they deserve. Also, I'd say Forza Horizon, SSX, and Portal.

And consider yourself followed, fellow library person.

@TyCobb: I think they released a box set recently for the walking dead, but I'm gonna have to double check on that one.

@SuperTess: we have a few various solutions to that, we have locked cases as one precaution, and some of the discs we keep behind the desk as an added measure of security. It is a pain in the ass if someone steals the case though, but it's not impossible to fix. We just order a copy from somewhere in the network and copy the box art and stuff. Personally, if I had my way I would put all the media by our front desk/reference area where it's constantly monitored by at least two staff members to deter theft.

You've got the wrong Uncharted listed.

@LordAndrew: thanks for that one, didn't even notice that.

@EarlessShrimp: How about the LittleBigPlanets for PS3?

Just going through the wiki for 360 games: Alan Wake, Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Ultimate Marvel v. Capcom 3, Bully: Scholarship Edition, Civilization Revolution (educational, sort of), Dirt 3, the Lego games, Portal 2, Sonic Generations.

@EarlessShrimp: We had all of our dvds right in front of the circ desk, with the exception of kid's videos which are in the children's room, and they still got stolen. It's too easy for them to just take it to another area and take the disc (they were leaving the cases on the shelf). So now all the discs are in a locked cabinet behind the desk. Which can be a pain, because man those things circulate, but it keeps them in our collection. Found that popular cds were also getting lifted, so they are going behind the desk now too. Anyway, always nice to see libraries getting on board with game collections. Mostly I see Wii games going through our network holds. Oh were the LEGO games on your list? Those might be good for kid-friendly, non-violent titles.

@SuperTess: oh shit, that's a really good idea! The Lego games would be perfect, I don't know why we don't own those yet. There's one library in particular in my network that has an absolutely incredible amount of games for all the systems. Fortunately they loan to other libraries in the area, so I'll occasionally see like Yakuza 3 or 4, or something of the sort, come up for someone.

ps3: burnout paradise

I printed out the list that I have here on the site, will be submitting it to acquisition librarian soon! Here's hoping we'll get at least a few of these titles.