International Games Day became International Games Week in 2017. 1620 libraries from around the world participated during the week of October 29th through November 4th.
We appreciate everyone who took the time to reply to our after-event survey. We received 322 replies.
Attendance
266 of our survey respondents gave attendance figures. The average per library was 51 attendees. The flat average for 1,620 registered libraries equals approximately 82,620 attendees.
2017 Donors and Donations
The International Games Week Committee would like to thank our donors for making this day great with their generous donations. This year our donors were Asmodee Italy, Boxhead Craft, Cheapass Games, Chess in Schools and Communities, Club Minecraft, Creativamente, Good Games, OnePlay, Paizo, Peachstate Hobby Distribution (PHD), Red Glove, Stuff by Bez, Games by Roman, and Vested Interest Games.
Here are some of the many thanks for the donated games:
- Thank you so much for donating this game! Game donations are a huge help for libraries with small budgets.
- Thank you so much! We will continue to use this set to engage our young adult users and foster a sense of community at the library.
- Thanks so much for donating these games! The kids have been really enjoying them.
- Thank you, we really appreciate the opportunity to introduce our kids to new experiences.
- Thank you so much! Both of these games are perfect for our gaming programs!!
- Thank you so much for your interest in libraries and by your support of this initiative. The children enjoyed your game!
- Grazie per aver fatto divertire i bambini di Savigliano con Aia Gaia.
IGW in Your Library
What are some anecdotes from your IGW program?
- Patrons came running from school to play Mechs Vs Minions every day during International Games Week.
- Persone che non si conoscevano hanno giocato insieme; un’insegnante vorrebbe utilizzare i giochi per aiutare i ragazzi nell’apprendimento delle materie.
- We had a 7-year-old boy play the Star Realms game for the first time with 3 adults and another young boy and he totally beat us all. Sometimes nitty-gritty playing can win the game.
- Our Chemistry teacher loves to try new ways to grab her students’ interest. So I sent her a link to an online chemistry game and she booked the computer lab to bring her students up to try it out. They loved it!
- The families attending loved the Minecraft Boxhead sessions – lots of children running around the library with their Boxheads on! They also loved the card games and a round of ‘Forbidden Island’.
- Even though ours attracted mostly kids (as we are located right in front of the school and get a large after-school crowd) we had one elderly patron who absolutely loved playing the giant games. She stayed for quite awhile playing them all with the kids.
- Teens loved the game tournament and it encouraged team play.
- A brother and sister came in with their dad. The younger brother built the TALLEST Jenga tower, which included the Jenga box, another board game, and a handful of books. This is a very quiet boy and he cheered at his accomplishment then proceeded to come up to the desk and tell us all about it.
- One of our circulation staff wrote the adventure for our D&D game and it was SUPERB!
- “You sank my battleship,” we were playing Uno.
- When I introduced a kid (~10yo) to King of Tokyo and we played around with his siblings, he said: “This is the best game I’ve ever played.” Then we played Munchkin, and he said: “THIS is the best game I’ve ever played”
- It was a great opportunity for librarians to share their favorite games with students and with each other. But it was even better to learn new games from the students who brought in their own.
- We had groups join us who had never thought of using the library as such a venue. They have since asked to create a regular RPG club and are helping to develop the programme. Others are looking towards attending/creating gaming evenings, tournaments, etc.
- My favorite part was seeing a family come in and all play Minecraft together. A father was helping his young daughter figure out how to play, then he hopped on the server and started playing with her. It was really nice to see families all playing classic video games out in the arcade together as well.
- A professor of German attended our event with a vocab sheet of words relevant to the game and useful negotiating phrases and helped students play Catan in German. Also, the winner of our no-elimination Catan tournament erased a six-victory-point deficit in the final game and won in the second tiebreaker.
- The kids love playing the old video game systems, most of which their parents played with. The parents like talking “shop” about vintage video games with someone who had the consoles as well.
Activities
Which of the following activities were part of your International Games Week program?
Some of the other activities included:
Cosplay contest, virtual and augmented reality play, arcade machines, trivia, theater games, escape room games, coding, and Ozobots.
Outcomes
What were the outcomes of your IGW Program?
IGW Libraries
Which of the following describes your library?
Does your library have a game collection?
Which video games consoles does your library own?
IGW Committee Goals
International Games Week is run by a small group of volunteers and our goal is to improve this event each year. We have read your comments. Our goals for next year will be to provide a poster with more room for your logos and a social media template/plan.
We’ll put out a call in February 2018 for blog posts and help with worldwide events.
International Games Week 2018-2020
We are setting the dates for the next three years to help you prepare for your events.
2018 – November 4th through November 10th
2019 – November 3rd through November 9th
2020 – November 8th through November 14th
These dates are flexible. Feel free to host your event outside of these dates if that is best for your library and its patrons.
Thanks again to all of our donors and participants!