This course investigates the video game medium from its earliest incarnation in hackers' prankish exploits to the latest in AAA and indie publishing, drawing on a variety of texts and perspectives as well as on play, analysis, and creation of video games themselves to build a portrait not just of games, gamers, and gaming, but of a unique moment in the evolution of contemporary digital media. After establishing a basic conceptual vocabulary for thinking, speaking, and writing about video games, we will shift our attention to the broader contexts and cultural functions of video gaming - as commercial and transmedia entities; as spaces for the forging of identity and sociality; and as objects of fandom and instruments of ideology. As this is a hybrid course that emphasizes making as learning, our final project will involve creating games that make critical arguments. Required weekly out-of-class gaming and viewing assignments.