A love of the humanities, video game arcades, and journalism mark an unlikely path to the university classroom. But that was the route taken by Shim Ho-nam, now a professor at Chung-Ang University in South Korea. Now he’s using his knowledge to teach a university course that shows how video games can be a portal to explore people, society, and life.
His welcome for students sets the tone. In a post on Everytime, a popular Korean student community, he jokingly warns that some students are monsters — but it’s not a criticism. He means it as a compliment: their knowledge of video games is so impressive that even he feels a little intimidated. Loving games might help get you in, but the work isn’t all fun and games, as they say.
That workload hasn’t dampened demand, though. Video Games and the Humanities usually fills up within seconds of registration opening.
Shim came up with the idea for a course on video games when he was reflecting on his own career. Alongside teaching the humanities, the former arcade owner spent six years writing a magazine column about the society and culture he found inside games. When he had the chance to propose a new course, he brought his two passions together. “I always thought this was too good to keep to myself,” he says.
Approaching games from a new perspective
The 15-week course ranges from the appeal of retro games to copyright and human nature. Students ask why a virtual world was designed the way it was, whose perspective it reflects, and what values shape a player’s choices. Each student also analyzes a game through their own major. An economist and a philosopher, for instance, might read the same game differently.
The lessons they gain reach beyond gaming. Students learn to think critically about the media they use every day, apply their studies in new contexts, and understand how people cooperate, compete, and make decisions.
Jung Ah-hyun, a gamer and cosplayer, signed up expecting an easy A. But the course was more challenging than she expected. She had to think about why games were designed the way they were and why players behaved as they did.
“I walked away from this course loving games even more,” she says. She later went on to become a teaching assistant for the same course.
How virtual worlds brings us closer to the real one
After a fire devastated Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019, many players returned to Assassin’s Creed Unity, which recreates the city during the French Revolution. It was a chance for gamers to revisit a landmark they could no longer enter in the physical world. Players shared memories of the cathedral and hopes for its restoration. For some, a place they had first discovered in a game had become a piece of history worth protecting.
That raises a broader question for Shin’s students: how can a virtual experience change the way we relate to the real world?
A classroom open to everyone
With Ministry of Education’s support, the full course is open to the public through K-MOOC, South Korea’s online learning platform. That puts it within reach of lifelong players, curious newcomers, and parents wondering what their children get from games.
Games are already part of daily life. What is often missing is a reason to look more closely at them, and a way to make a sense of what we find. Shim offers both.
He recalls a student review that captured the shift. “Before this course, I saw the world in full HD. Walking out of that class, I now see the world in 4K.”
The underlying point of the course is not simply to know more about games — it’s to know more about the real world.
