After a half-century of rapid development, the video game industry has become mainstream entertainment and video games have become integrated into the cultural and social fabric. The creation of multi-player online games allows gamers to interact socially across cultural and geographic boundaries. However, the game world often reflects the creators’ and gamers’ troubling world views and games with extreme graphic violence and misogyny have millions of fans worldwide. In this class, students are introduced to the development of “game studies” and learn to examine critically the various aspects of video games: their history and technology; popular genres; their cultural and social impact; and alternative gaming programming, playing, and art.