New York University (NYU) is set to open a 40,000-square-foot institute, the 'Media and Games Network', to study and design video games in Downtown Brooklyn next fall.
The facility, named MAGNET, will bring together all NYU programs such as game design, game engineering, games for learning and integrated digital media.
The programs are currently taught at NYU's Polytechnic Institute and at Greenwich Village, the university's main campus.
Through this venture, the university hopes to become the leading institute for game studies.
"To my great happiness, I will be spending a lot less money on my subway cards," Katherine Isbister, an associate professor at the NYU Game Center and NYU's Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, told NBC news
Isbister said that the institute will facilitate an easier collaboration between artists, computer scientists and students, to create new forms of games or new applications of gaming.
Frank J. Lee, co-founder of the game design program at Drexel University, told the newspaper that gathering various gaming-related departments under one roof will make MAGNET a college primarily dedicated to gaming.
Lee said that people will also start considering gaming as a serious academic endeavor.
New York University, founded in 1831, is one of the largest private nonprofit institutions of higher education. The university comprises of 36 Nobel Prize winners, three Abel Prize winners, 10 National Medal of Science recipients, 16 Pulitzer Prize winners, 30 Academy Award winners and four Putnam Competition winners.
Its faculty and alumni are also recipients of Russ Prize, Gordon Prize, Draper Prize, Turing Award, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards.
NYU comprises of 18 schools, colleges and institutes spread throughout Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn.