More Video Games on Library Shelves

Joystiq has the link to an update on a previous story we ran covering the efforts of a gentleman to add video games to library circulation stock. Since then, the program has really taken off, and Gaming Target has an update on how the project is going. From the article: "Circulation numbers have been brisk. With two week loan periods and late charges of only 25 cents a day, people are jumping at the chance to check out games, any game. I don't know why it's surprising, but people (adults and children, but mostly children) will pull stuff off the shelf and check it out without even looking at what game it is they're getting out."

Comments

CD/DVD Scratches

[wuie]

I currently check out DVDs all the time from my public library, and some of them are of decent quality. However, there are some DVDs that have been scratched into oblivion, and are barely able to play in any of the DVD players that I have.

If libraries start providing video games as well, I sure hope they have a way to protect the discs as much as possible and keep them running like new.

Re:Impact

[porcupine8]

I would imagine about the same impact they have on book, CD, and video/DVD sales? And probably similar to the impact of renting on sales - the fact that it's free will be balanced out by the fact that each library only has one, maybe two copies of each game, whereas each Blockbuster probably has dozens of the most popular ones.

In other words, I doubt the game companies are fretting. If anything, it's free try-before-you-buy advertising.

When I was a kid

[Pulse_Instance]

The library in my town had a list of games/software with the number of disks you needed for that software. You would drop of the disks and come back a couple days later and the game was on the disk. I am pretty sure it was all shareware/freeware but as a kid it was awesome.