Professors at the joystick.

• Author: Harmon, Amy
• Position: Video Games - Brief Article

Think video games are just mindless entertainment? Tell that to the academics who are making game studies into a scholarly discipline. In March, Princeton University staged a conference called "Form, Culture, and Video Game Criticism," the first of its kind at an Ivy League school. Since 2000, game studies has begun carving out its own territory at universities in both the U.S. and Europe. Graduate programs in game studies and conferences devoted to games are becoming more common, while scholars can publish in three peer-reviewed game journals. The field's snappy new name is ludology, from ludus, Latin for "game." But these new critics are still devising a scholarly language to be used in...