Video Game Studies
Bachelor of Arts, Minor
About this program
Video Game Studies explores how games shape culture, storytelling and identity. You’ll study games as art, media and technology while analyzing their impact on players and society. This program draws from humanities, design and critical theory to help you think deeply about games and play. It pairs well with majors in media, art, communication or computer science and supports careers in gaming, writing or cultural analysis.
Program Curriculum and Requirements
Program Scope
This program examines the many ways that video games intersect with our lives: as games, stories, challenges, escapes, vehicles of self-creation, platforms for interaction with others, cultural representations, and so much more. We approach video games from multiple disciplinary points of view, preparing you for the shifting demands of a field with continually expanding potential.
You will learn diverse methods for addressing such questions as: How can our relationships to games become constructive means of finding employment and participating socially in the world? How will video games transform life in the decades ahead, especially with the advent of generative AI? What kinds of research methods and critical thinking will most effectively address the personal, social, cultural, and political effects of gaming?
Why Major in Video Game Studies
Video games shape contemporary culture for millions of players around the world. The field brings together designers, writers, artists, musicians, economists, historians, and many others whose work contributes to a rapidly growing industry. Choosing Video Game Studies as your major demonstrates sustained engagement with the media and an academic commitment to understanding video games through a wide range of analytic and technical perspectives.
As a major, you will examine the design, content, and cultural contexts of video games and study how they influence both individual experience and social life. You will take up questions such as: How have video games transformed the world and how might they continue to do so? What do players and communities encounter in the design, distribution, and experience of video games? What is distinctive about the ways games invite participation, and how does this shape the lives of players? How might games operate as forms of social or political expression? Because so many aspects of daily life involve games, applications, or services shaped by gamification, the major offers critical perspectives on how this pervasive media affects us and how its impact might be understood or reshaped.
The major supports students as they study this complex media from multiple academic points of view. Students develop their own perspectives on the significance of video games and explore how their interests and expertise at SFSU intersect with this expanding field of study.
The major helps students
- Deepen knowledge and proficiency within areas of study connected to their academic focuses
- Develop a specialization in video games that reflects interdisciplinary critical thinking
- Compare and assess different disciplinary approaches to video games
- Explore applications of their interests in fields of industry and study
- Connect with others across disciplines to collaborate on the study of video games