The UNT Media Library Game Collection fulfills the research, education, and recreation needs of UNT faculty, staff, and students. Collection priorities are set each year and scaled to align with the current year’s budget and program goals.

The video game collection began in 2009 with a small grant and has since expanded to include materials that support student recreation and research. The collection is used for student and staff programming, coursework, scholarship, and university initiatives such as esports and a game studies and design degree.

• Books and articles
• Video games
• Tabletop games
• Roleplaying handbooks
• Game consoles
• Virtual reality devices
• Self-help devices for people with disabilities

Recreational Gaming

The Media Library provides a campus space for students from diverse programs to meet and work together. Gaming collections and programming are particularly well suited for community building and library outreach seeks to not only introduce students to library services but also help with retention, especially among first-year students, by building a sense of community. Most gaming includes social elements either through multiplayer games or discussion about single-player games. The majority of college students already participate in one or more forms of gaming.

Scholarship & Research

This collection supports scholarship and research focused on the technical aspects of game development, the study of mass media and popular culture, as well as creative and educational game development and student engagement.

Faculty utilize our facilities to enhance their teaching through lectures and as a laboratory for experiential learning. The Media Library offers spaces and equipment for all of the content (games and films) it maintains. Librarians meet with faculty each semester to assess their needs, recommend relevant content, and develop strategies for supporting play-based learning.

Some classes supported in the library are:

Video Game Histories (Media Arts/Game Design) 
Perspectives on Video Games (Media Arts/Game Design)
Media Authors: Shigeru Miyamoto (Media Arts/Game Design)
History Through Video Games (History)
Russian in the 20th and 21st History (History)
Fashion Draping (College of Visual Arts)

The Nest
The Media Library features a customizable, smaller reservable game area designated for game labs. This space includes a projector and screen, tables, VR capable PC gaming stations, console stations, and a racing sim.

Legacy Collection
This expanding research collection is used for historical research purposes. Media Library staff are available to assist with operating this older equipment during lectures and laboratory sessions. The collection includes consoles from the 1st through 7th generations. As consoles age and their content becomes rare or valuable, they are added to this limited-use collection.