On the eighth floor of a building in Downtown Brooklyn, college students gather regularly — in a library, no less — to play video games. They aren’t procrastinating. They’re doing their homework.

They study the history of games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, as one class did on a recent spring morning. Another group of students was directed by a professor to try to glean contemporary design insights from a 1970s video game console, the Atari 2600.

Recess, the word for the school period set aside for games, means a break in the action. But here at the New York University Game Center, where the library collection includes about 5,000 video games, play has elbowed its way into the classroom itself. Last month, the first graduates of a new M.F.A. program in game design at N.Y.U. received their degrees.

The Game Center is part of the Tisch School of the Arts, meaning that game design is taught alongside theater, film, television and all the rest. Next fall, the school expects to add a bachelor of fine arts degree in the field.