Rejecting the stigma that games are only for kids, researchers around the world are making computer games the subject of serious academic pursuit alongside literature, music and art. They are staking out space in universities - with Ph.D. programs, research centers and online journals.

Game studies (or "ludology," as it's known, from the Latin for "game"), has spawned a new class of academics who devote themselves to analyzing how the wildly popular form of entertainment tells stories - and what it reveals about how we express ourselves.