NEW EGYPT—Video games are not just for kids, and that point was driven home during the Plumsted branch of the Ocean County Library’s first Halo 3 tournament held June 16.
The library’s meeting room was set up with multiple Xbox 360 video game consoles, that allowed up to eight participants to compete against each other at the same time. Approximately twenty people participated in the video game challenge.
The tournament was the idea of library assistant Andrew Montanez. This was the first library video game program designed for adults, a departure from the usual video game programs for children and teenagers.
The event was successful in attracting a demographic that doesn’t usually visit the library—20 year old men.
“I thought this was fantastic, since this age and gender group is hard to get into the library, much less participating in a program,” said Branch manager Lara Fletcher.
“We plan on holding future tournaments with the hope that we will have a larger turnout.”
Halo 3 is part of a science fiction video game series that super soldiers against an army of alien invaders. This latest installment was the best selling video game of 2007, selling over 8.1 million copies in three months. The game earned more than $125 million in sales during its first day of release, a figure that is comparable to a successful movie’s opening weekend.
Andrew is really committed to getting as many in his age group to frequent the library. He is currently in college majoring in networking and web design.
Go Andrew!!!
I’m glad to see this great idea took off, way to go Andrew and PL staff.