[game_edu] Readings, Libraries & Copyright

[Ian Schreiber]

I just realized another option is to require the students to buy a game from a list themselves. It may seem odd, but right now I am taking a history of cinema course and in addition to a textbook we also have to procure copies of five specific classic movies; it is left to us to decide whether to purchase from Amazon, rent from Netflix or Blockbuster, try our luck with the local public library system, or what have you (and of course there's an implicit requirement that we have access to a DVD player). So, I don't think it is really that unreasonable. It may seem nonstandard, but then a course where playing video games for homework is already nonstandard :-). If it is too expensive for each student to buy all of the games you want, you could encourage students get together in groups, with each person buying one game from the list and then swapping among group members (or even meeting out of class for a group play session).
 
This does raise a related question, of what to do with classic games that may be difficult to procure through legal means (I'm thinking of older arcade games that you might find on MAME but not elsewhere). You can get a lot of coverage through Gametap, and a lot of the classic console games are now being made available on current-gen systems, so one solution is just to look at what is available and select from that. But suppose you have one game in particular that you feel is really important for your students to play, and it's not available except on emulator. Fair use probably does not cover that; what do you do then?
 
- Ian


      
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