Nebraskans promoting college courses on video games???

Okay so here is another NYT article that I found rather fascinating. It is a brief discussion of the rise, within the past 5 years, of college courses offered on video game design and theory. What does one discuss in said classes...

At the Georgia Institute of Technology, which started new undergraduate and Ph.D. programs in interactive media last year, the director of graduate studies at the university's liberal arts school likens the multiple outcomes possible in video games to the magical realism of writers like Borges.

To me this is fantastic! I mean most of what is said in this article really hits on some great points. Video games are not unlike cinema and television--or even literature--they all offer a world to explore and experiences not available to the everyday reader/viewer/gamer. Of course it is far more complex than that, but that is definitely one of the things that draws me to a game: its ability to suck me in and force me to play it for days straight without eating, sleeping, or even breathing sometimes. Even Bing Gordon of Electronic Arts promotes this concept in the colleges that train his future designers. In this article he is quoted saying:

To create a video game project you need the art department and the computer science department and the design department and the literature or film department all contributing team members...

Now the real reason I wanted to post this article, was based on some of the great statements made by one of the people quoted, Bob Kerrey (former Nebraska senator):

"But if you just look at the surface of people playing games, you are missing the point, which is that games are all about managing and manipulating information," Mr. Kerrey said. "A lot of students that come out of this program may not go to work for Electronic Arts. They may go to Wall Street. Because to me, there is no significant difference - except for clothing preference - between people who are making games and people who are manipulating huge database systems to try to figure out where the markets are headed. It's largely the same skill set, the critical thinking. Games are becoming a major part of our lives, and there is actually good news in that."

"WHAT?!?" you say, "A Nebraskan promoting learning something beyond agricultural studies." Yep. Kerrey is currently the president of the New School in New York which includes Parson's, a design school. Of course Parson's programs are more technical in their approach than say, USC or Carnegie Mellon, but they do have classes like "Narrative and Dynamic Systems" as well as "Playspaces" both of which seem to emphasize the coneptual side of game design as much as the technical. (Of course I also find Kerrey's statement rather frightening coming from someone in a political background. I mean at this time in our history, what better statement than to say that video games help train people in "managing and manipulating information" which they will use, not necessarily in game design, but in the financial markets...and maybe even in politics...hmmm.)

But then again, we Nebraskans love video games...I mean what the hell else are we going to do there, read?