The college students glued to video game consoles today are as likely to be scholars as slackers. More than 100 colleges and universities in North America -- up from less than a dozen five years ago -- now offer some form of "video game studies," ranging from hard-core computer science to prepare students for game-making careers to critiques of games as cultural artifacts.

Recognition by the academy marks a coming of age for gaming. "When the School of Cinema-Television was founded 75 years ago, many people still considered film nothing but simplistic entertainment -- a medium that could never be considered important artistically," says the University of Southern California's Scott Fisher, referring to USC's famed film school. "Games are considered by many people today in the same way. But the next generation of game designers has the potential to change that."