How can teachers utilize video games in the classroom, harnessing a technology that is gaining "market share" in the lives of our students? This article will provide classroom teachers with a research-based rationale for using video games along with a viable, classroom-tested lesson to teach social studies content using a widely available commercial video game. Specifically, how to use the game Civilization IV in the classroom to allow world history high school students to explore the impact technology has on societal development and the human experience and their place in time. This correlates to NCSS Curriculum Standard II: time, continuity, and change and NCSS Curriculum Standard VIII: science, technology, and society.