[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

Laird added:
One way of looking at these games:
Each game can be seen as a microcosm of systems theory... They promote 
learning the inroads in any system, and practice makes perfect. 
Parallels to office politics, academia, social circles, etc etc can be 
easily and accurately made. Understanding and manipulating the complex 
overlap of rules is good critical thinking exercise. Coordinating a 
group of different 'people' with different specialities to reach a 
common and often complex goal is a challenge, and many find it 
envigorating. Perhaps their day jobs or schooling are unfulfilling in 
this regard so they play a game to fill the need instead. Or they do it 
for the social aspects, or the sheer "escape value", or all of the above.

Such games offer a 'sandbox' for testing all sorts of scenarios. Say 
you're unsure if you'd make a good team leader. Try leading a team 
in-game and see how you do. Mix it up, try different strategies. 
Especially for kids it's a good way to try their hand at various social 
and thought experiments without any real risk of screwing something up. 
Good learning tool.

[Case]
Yes and play is the way most people begin to learn. One reason Microsoft
includes Solitaire along with it's operating system, is that by playing the
game you learn how to handle, move and manipulate objects with a mouse on
the screen. (Some have said the Solitaire is Microsoft one and only "Killer
App.")

Playing RPGs teaches you how to have a dialogue with the computer. You learn
the vocabulary of the machine and how it responds to sense and nonsense. You
learn how the computer "thinks." In order to play increasingly complex games
you need to know something about the computer's hardware and design to
figure out how improvements in various components like RAM and video
processing will effect the speed and responsiveness of the game. 

You learn about how to access resources, news and updates for the game
online and how factors about network data transmission effect "ping time"
and "lag". Hardcore gamers learn to construct websites to post clan
victories and guild goals and establish relationships that transcend in game
contact.

None of this really happens much in console gaming where things just plug-in
mindlessly and you push buttons at random. To extend what I said earlier to
dmb, nerds play console games, geeks play computer games.