Standardized metadata in the Directory of Available Books (VLB) is intended to increase the visibility of games in the book trade and open up additional sales channels. In order to classify analog games according to a uniform system for the first time, game publishers, scientists, booksellers, and IT service providers have worked together. SAZ was also involved and had helped get the process rolling in 2019.

Christian Beiersdorf, Consultant for Intellectual Property Issues and Political Communication at the Game Designer Association (SAZ), is pleased that "after our first contact with the MVB team in the fall of 2019, this project has now become a reality. For game authors as well as illustrators, the inclusion of games in the VLB has an additional significance because it will improve the data basis for the distribution of library royalties by VG WORT for the lending of games in public libraries. However, this will only happen comprehensively when analog games are also included in the collection catalog of the German National Library, as now also planned in the coalition agreement of the new federal government. We have been campaigning for this for many years together with the games publishers and the German Cultural Council."

More about in the German press release and here