Teens Celebrate National Gaming Day

.  A place for hard-working teens to research, study and write.  On Saturday, it was a place to play a game of Yu-Gi-Oh and Super Smash Brothers.

If you're into gaming, or have kids that are, you are not confused.  And the teens that participate in National Gaming Day at the library are far from it.  The event is held at libraries around the country, giving teens a more enjoyable reason to head there than writing a term paper.

"It's fun to meet new people that actually like the same thing as you," says 10th grader Johnny Fallarino.

National Gaming Day is held at more than 600 libraries nationwide, and is meant to encourage teens to interact with each other and develop new strategies for gaming or learning.  After all, you never know who might have that special Yu-Gi-Oh card you've been looking for, or that special "cheat code" on Nintendo to help you along.

"They get to hang out, make friends...it's basically community hangout, another thing the library can do for the kids," according to Librarian Chrissy Hirsch, one of the event organizers.

Teens spend the day at the library playing Yu-Gi-Oh, a wildly popular fantasy card game, which propels the player into a world of monsters and magic spells.  There are also games on Nintendo's Wii system, and yes, even traditional board games like Clue.

Those that prevail win gaming-related prizes, but it's the social aspect of the event that seems to draw folks in.

"That's the main reason I came here, I didn't even know about the prizes till I got here," says 11th grader Alex Gross.

The day is an extension of what occurs in the library on a regular basis. Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments are a fixture here, with teens spending a good part of their Friday nights inside the library (and when was the last time you heard that?)

"I'm noticing the kids that are playing their games with their friends, they're meeting other friends, and it's becoming this whole horde of kids that are friends playing games...they normally wouldn't have met," Hirsch says.

Even though it's primarily teens taking part, National Gaming Day is open to anyone from sixth grade through college. People who may have never been friends found a common interest that led to a day of fun.