And whilst it’s a seductive argument, especially for those of us with an inbuilt work ethic that constantly nags at our own failures… I think I prefer my friend Chris’ take: that we all need downtime, and that downtime is sacrosanct no matter how banal, be it TV, or anything else.

We weren’t going to get to Mars anyway; we’d have found something else – booze, mime-shows, condensed books – to distract us. And, given a choice between mime or condensed books… I’d duck the question and go back to technical brawlers, any day.

Let’s say you were to make the game with the army. And then you had someone play it, with their inevitable victory. But you recorded them doing so, and showed it to another person. I think there would be no distinction whatsoever in their experiences of the “game”, and so I don’t think that in this respect we ask for power fantasies from gameplay.

Also, let me say that I’m really really interested in the first part too, about learning. From your consultancy page, would I be right in guessing that that sex education game comes from channel 4′s big education based gaming project? I actually saw a speech by Alice Taylor at a conference on game based learning is the thing, which I reviewed here: http://www.culturewars.org.uk/index.php/site/article/Chocolate_covered_broccoli/ and it’s completely fascinating.

Now, you said this:
“it’s pretty much essential that everyone who plays the game is able to finish it”
Which I think is sorta true, but not completely. I think that unless the player is required to understand the game, there is literally no point in playing. Sure they’ll [i]see[/i] things, but you can’t guarantee they’ll take it in as well as they should be doing. It’s a textbook way of thinking about things, and it’s not impossible for them to learn stuff, but it’s harder. You will teach more by playing to people’s instinct to learn, which playing [good] games, they will utilise. (I’d apply the same thinking to artistic statements made with gameplay, actually)