You may know that in Northern Europe games are massively popular – despite the abundance of huge games conventions in the States (who me, jealous?), the world’s single largest annual games convention is actually Spiel, in Essen, Germany. The existence of a regional Nordic Game Day is just further proof that games are going strong over there. To tell us more, here’s the organiser of Nordic Game Day, Thomas Vigild! Thanks Thomas!
Aarhus Library in Denmark
Hi IGD!
Huge high fives from the Nordics, where the preparations for Nordic Game Day 2013 are going really well. Right now over 60 libraries all over the region have enlisted their official support for Nordic Game Day – and Norway is leading the charge – but many more will follow, as we gear up with more events, talks, competitions and tournaments on November 16th.
Games have become a natural and essential part of the Nordic libraries, and especially in Denmark this has been the case for many years. Many libraries in Denmark have dedicated game-librarians, who are skilled in how to communicate about games and cook up events for the patrons.
But libraries in Norway and Sweden are really quickly catching up these years, because many librarians have discovered the social power of games – both physical board games and digital games on both consoles, browsers and tablets.
One example is Drammen library in Norway, where they are hosting an annual “Spilnatt” (“Games Night”), which have hundred of kids standing in line to get into the library. During the night the library hosts all sorts of competitions, showcases of new both international and Nordic games and sometimes also board games, card games like Magic or roleplaying games.
At Nordic Game Day 2013 the big Nordic competition will go down in the beautiful and wonderful crazy mini-golf game ‘Wonderputt’ made for browsers. We wanted to find a non-violent game with awesome graphics and strong gameplay which was easy to get into, so here ‘Wonderputt’ seemed like a good match. The main prize is the new upcoming Sony PlayStation 4, so we´re expecting heavy resistance on the virtual golf-courses all across the region 🙂
Furthermore the Nordic libraries hosts a lot of regional tournaments in games like FIFA, Mario Kart, Magic: the Gathering, Singstar, Trackmania, Kinect games and also the physical quiz-board game Bezzerwizzer – and yes: quizzing is really big in the Nordics. The main library in Malmø (Sweden) will also feature an exhibition of old classic board games from the 70s, so there will be something for everybody during this Nordic Game Day.
We hope IGD is also doing well, and see ya later 🙂
– Thomas Vigild, coordinator for Nordic Game Day (supported by Nordic Game Institute)
More pictures from Nordic Game Day 2012 here!