What is happening is that since people on this site are developers, etc. and not educators, they see things from a limited perspective.

We could swap the nouns in that sentence and it would hold just as true.

In the rest of your post you talk as if nobody has ever considered games from an artistic perspective before. Of course your perspective is valuable, and not a single person on this thread has suggested that you need to know coding or computer science, so I don't know where that defensiveness has come from. All I suggest is that you don't treat our vocation - and the potential vocation of your students - as essentially worthless and something that you don't really need to understand to teach about. When a teacher doesn't care about a subject or doesn't truly believe in what they're saying, it shows.

Besides, if nothing else, we'll be more inclined to help you if you don't insult our work and hobby.

I would never play hundreds of hours of games as that would be a complete waste of time, and could never compare to reading

Again, play 'swap the noun' and you'll understand a lot of people today. If you honestly can't put yourself in that position then it's hard to see why you'd even bother doing this course. If you can appreciate one art form, then there's no reason you can't work to appreciate another.

Also, I always hear about PC games. Do those require a lot of memory and will downloading them slow down my computer, or are they mostly online and easy to access?

These days PC games are generally download-only. Steam is the biggest provider, the other major publishers (EA, Ubisoft, ...) have their game portals too. The biggest drawback in your situation is that they are purchase-only. No returns, no exchanges.

And should I conclude that purchasing a console and discs (cds, dvds whatever) is a good investment?

No, they are a terrible investment. It is possible that in 20-30 years copies that were pristine and untouched will have some collector value, and a few limited release titles will become collectibles. But overall the value drops quickly, with the biggest value when the title is fresh and new, dropping rapidly as popularity diminishes, and falling on web sites to "free plus shipping" a few months after they are no longer popular.

But I am still not sure which console I should buy.

I like to remind people it doesn't have to be a mutually exclusive choice. It can be if budgets are limited, but based on industry surveys over half of American homes use multiple game consoles.

I'll assume money is tight and you're looking for just one.

First, I'd look to see if there are any platform exclusive games you want. For a few examples, the latest Final Fantasy and God Of War will put you on PS4, the latest Halo games or Titanfall will put you on XBox One, Mario and Zelda live in Nintendo's universe. I think of the current hardware generation PS4 has the longer list of exclusive titles.

The vast majority of games are cross platform between both PS4 and XBox One. The hardware is similar enough between them there is minimal difference for player experience.

Wii U has its own set of games due to the controller design, and while they are interesting for study purposes they may not give you the choices you are looking for. However, as they are different, it may give you different ideas.

As I believe cost is the key factor, would just go to the used game store, briefly explain that you're a teacher who was assigned to teach some games courses, and ask them if they can give a discount on either PS4 or XBox One.

If nothing is at a big discount, and if you don't have a preferred platform, I'd probably take the PS4 500GB for $250 along with 2-3 games under $20 that you can get good return and exchange later. If you get a bundled game you won't be able to use the full value return policy, but they'd give you a few dollars in exchange.

What is happening is that since people on this site are developers, etc. and not educators, they see things from a limited perspective.

We could swap the nouns in that sentence and it would hold just as true.

In the rest of your post you talk as if nobody has ever considered games from an artistic perspective before. Of course your perspective is valuable, and not a single person on this thread has suggested that you need to know coding or computer science, so I don't know where that defensiveness has come from. All I suggest is that you don't treat our vocation - and the potential vocation of your students - as essentially worthless and something that you don't really need to understand to teach about. When a teacher doesn't care about a subject or doesn't truly believe in what they're saying, it shows.

Besides, if nothing else, we'll be more inclined to help you if you don't insult our work and hobby.

I would never play hundreds of hours of games as that would be a complete waste of time, and could never compare to reading

Again, play 'swap the noun' and you'll understand a lot of people today. If you honestly can't put yourself in that position then it's hard to see why you'd even bother doing this course. If you can appreciate one art form, then there's no reason you can't work to appreciate another.

I never said I don't appreciate the art of game design! My whole angle on teaching the subject is that it IS an art. If it were a computer science class I wouldn't get near it. And my defensiveness comes from past posts people have made when I have asked perfectly reasonable questions.

Of course (as I just wrote) I appreciate games as an art form (to the degree that some have good art. Most have bad art, just like in the art world proper). But playing games cannot be compared to the value of reading books (in general). That's absurd.

Well, I might recomend the Wii U since you said yourself you're just teaching a basic high school class. The Wii U has the best amount of "simpler" more traditional games like platformers and whatnot.

WII has been obsolete for a few years hasn't it? You can't even buy those games at Best Buy anymore. WII U, like WII, seems babyish.

So let me get this straight:

1. Is buying a console a waste of money because you can get the same, or equally strong or popular titles on your pc?

2. How much room do these games take up on your pc? How much RAM do you have to have? For that matter, what is the difference (in layman's terms) between the "gaming" computers and regular laptops?

3. What exactly are game engines, like Epic Unreal? I assumed they are software for running video game making.

4. When you mention "portals" for games, what is that? For example, what are oculus and vive? And was their something similar called rift?

How much do pc games usually go for?

Where do you get Journey? Seems like it may be one of the best games out there.

What's the deal with the whole VR thing? What year did that start and where is it going? It's scary seeing kids sitting around with their senses cut off with headphones and goggles. Doesn't this make anyone else nervous?

I heard someone saying something about a bunch of different PS's. Was I hearing that right? Is there like a whole line of them to complicate things further?

Thanks!

WII U, like WII, seems babyish.

Nintendo has a great design philosophy as far as that goes. You call it "babyish", but that isn't exactly right. The games that do amazingly well on the platform are approachable and feel more like toys. Not necessarily baby toys, but toys nonetheless.

The best games on Nintendo systems tend to include 'moments of delight', whether that is Yoshi doing some crazy animations, Link getting a closeup as he opens the treasure chest, or the delight of Smash Bros as you whack your enemy into oblivion.

The games tend to attract both more children (who don't have money) and more parents/grandparents (who do have money) thinking of children.

As the game mechanics generally are more friendly and approachable it means that people who don't have hundreds of hours to invest in playing can approach them easily and immediately get into the fun parts.

So let me get this straight:

1. Is buying a console a waste of money because you can get the same, or equally strong or popular titles on your pc?

2. How much room do these games take up on your pc? How much RAM do you have to have? For that matter, what is the difference (in layman's terms) between the "gaming" computers and regular laptops?

3. What exactly are game engines, like Epic Unreal? I assumed they are software for running video game making.

4. When you mention "portals" for games, what is that? For example, what are oculus and vive? And was their something similar called rift?

How much do pc games usually go for?

Where do you get Journey? Seems like it may be one of the best games out there.

What's the deal with the whole VR thing? What year did that start and where is it going? It's scary seeing kids sitting around with their senses cut off with headphones and goggles. Doesn't this make anyone else nervous?

I heard someone saying something about a bunch of different PS's. Was I hearing that right? Is there like a whole line of them to complicate things further?

Thanks!

Except for exclusive titles (games that Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo develop themselves or give bonuses to third-party studios to appear only on their own console for a period of time), many games are available across platforms, including PC. New PC and console games from major studios (what's called AAA) might range from $40 to $70. (I'm not completely sure, it's been a long time since I've bought a new AAA game. Games drop in price as time goes on, so that a "recent classic" might regularly go on sale for $10-30.

A gaming PC will generally have a fast processor, a lot of RAM, and a good graphics card (containing special chips to rapidly do the kind of math that 3d games require). An ordinary PC also has a graphics card, which can also do that math but not as fast. Ordinary PCs can often run slightly older games, though. (Which is fine for you; you probably want to concentrate on "recent classics" rather than the absolute newest games.) Games can take up vastly different amounts of hard drive space depending on what sort of game they are, it might be 50MB or 50GB.

As I said above, you should really look into a streaming service like PS Now, which does the calculations on Sony's servers and then streams the results to an ordinary PC. You don't have to buy a console or any games; you just pay a $15 a month subscription fee for access to their catalog of games (mostly PS3 games, including Journey, Uncharted, and Heavy Rain), and when you feel like you've experienced all the games you want to experience, you just quit the service and you're done.

Of course (as I just wrote) I appreciate games as an art form (to the degree that some have good art. Most have bad art, just like in the art world proper). But playing games cannot be compared to the value of reading books (in general). That's absurd.

I will just say that I have found on rare occasions completing an RPG has left me with a sense of cultural enrichment. That is to say that it has left me feeling like my mind has been expanded beyond just having consumed an escapist experience. Your millage (and everyone else's) may vary.

Of course (as I just wrote) I appreciate games as an art form (to the degree that some have good art. Most have bad art, just like in the art world proper). But playing games cannot be compared to the value of reading books (in general). That's absurd.

I will just say that I have found on rare occasions completing an RPG has left me with a sense of cultural enrichment. That is to say that it has left me feeling like my mind has been expanded beyond just having consumed an escapist experience. Your millage (and everyone else's) may vary.

I think games as an art form are impossible to dismiss, especially if we consider the potential of the medium and not just what the majority of games look like today. After all, a game can literally contain a novel, an image, or a movie (so on a pedantic level has at least as much potential 'value').

Also games have the unique capacity to engage the player and their emotions by having them directly participate in what is happening, and to react to the player's choices - this has hardly been fully explored, but the potential is clearly there and some games are certainly making inroads.