Over at Walking Paper, Aaron details his library’s initiative to build up a gaming program.
Exciting stuff! I’d love to work at a library that embraced programs like this.
A few thoughts that one of the comments brought to mind for me:
While I love the idea of library-sponsored video game tournaments, I would be reluctant to let patrons use library consoles online – keep the tournaments local instead.
I don’t think Aaron was suggesting allowing internet play, but just my 2 cents. My experience with Xbox Live has been that anonymity does bad things to people. A good chunk of players are unfortunately out there mainly to swear excessively and cause trouble for others.
If you allow the public online gaming privleges via consoles, this will become an issue sooner or later. One patron being unsociable (or cheating on a game) could easily get the account banned and ruin things for countless other patrons.