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Some students dream of trading in hours of playing video games for credits, and it was a reality for students at the University of Regina during the fall semester.
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The credits through a class offered in the department of Creative Technologies and Design (CTCH) called Playing Video Games, and is taught by Assistant Professor of Creative Technologies, Aislinn McDougall.
Students were assigned video games to play as homework and during class they’d discuss the games with a critical lens, analyzing things like the storyline, characters, graphics and soundtracks for example.
“My secret strategy was that it was kind of structured like a literature class, because that was my training,” she explained.
“So, whereas in a lit class you would be told to go read Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice, and then come to class, listen to lecture, have discussion, the difference is, (the students are playing) Detroit Become Human by Quantic Dream.”
While pitching the class to the department head was no problem for McDougall, saying the department is “always open to creative innovation,” the part she worried about was the students.
She knew students would be excited to play video games as homework, however she wondered if it was something they’d actually be interested in doing as course work.
“A lot of them play video games for entertainment, so would they avoid something like this class, because it turns something that’s for decompressing into a critical assignment,” she said.
But the class with room for 50 students quickly filled up, and stayed that way throughout the semester.
The class was a mixed bag of students, with CTCH students, non-CTCH students, seniors and first-years.
“We had people that had never played a video game before in their life. And then we had avid gamers, like big-time RPG who have played for hours and hours,” she said.
It started with Super Mario Bros.
McDougall is big into gaming herself, being introduced to a Nintendo Entertainment System by a babysitter, where she and her three siblings would play Super Mario Bros.
That love for gaming continued into her teen years when she discovered BioShock and the Life is Strange video game series.
This helped her curate, at least in her eyes, the perfect video game syllabus.
Students played OG games like Pong and Asteroids but McDougall didn’t want the class to become a history of games course, so they didn’t spend a lot of time there. She wanted to make sure students got a feel for all kinds of games.
“I think the strategy was to give them breadth and a taste of many different games that have different perspectives, old and new,” she said.
Newer games featured on the syllabus include an Indigenous game called Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina), which came out in 2024, and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, which came out in 2025.
She even included a game created by two brothers from Regina, Cuphead.
“It’s famously, a very, very, very hard game,” she said. “The conversations after that were hilarious, because we’d have people that passed every single boss, and then we had people that didn’t pass one boss.”
Luckily for those students, they weren’t graded on skill level.
Video games are an important part of culture and media
To save the students some cash, the games didn’t require a special console to play. McDougall ensured all the games for the class were accessible through a computer on Steam, which is a popular storefront for PC video games.
Students were assigned some light reading to provide a foundation for the critical discussions, but other than that, their homework was getting behind a screen and immersing themselves in a game.
There was no final exam, just a major project where everyone chose a long-form video game, meaning the game had to take at least 10 hours to complete.
McDougall said even if the students hated every game she assigned, this allowed them to pick a game they would enjoy.
As for any criticisms toward a class where playing video games is the key component, McDougall argues that video games are an important part of culture and media.
“When you look at these games, some of which have amazing stories, good writing, character development, setting design, the aesthetic of them, the music, everything about them, they’re cinematic. They’re like films. They’re like novels,” she said.
“I try to instill in the students that it’s kind of arbitrary to say that reading a Jane Austen novel is more valuable than playing BioShock — they’re just as valuable.”
And with a lot of CTCH students wanting to become game developers, McDougall says a class like this one is crucial for inspiring creativity.
She is already planning her second go at the class when it returns for the winter 2027 semester.
“I can already think of games I want to add or take out., I think it’ll always change, because there’s always new games, and there’s always new conversations,” she said.
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