Will Wright on Educational Games

Kotaku picked up a video interview of Will Wright made for the Chronicle of Higher Education.  I try not to worship Will Wright, but I think he gets just about everything right in this interview. 

http://kotaku.com/5315098/will-wright-talks-educational-gaming-funny-money

• "We've gotten disconnected from the idea of play.... I don't think it's games so much as play.... we still think of play as a sort of useless, time-wasting activity.  When, in fact, play is a fundamental educational technology."
• On Serious Games: "I think there's an environment they're emerging in, a certain garden, ecosystem ... in which they have to look serious first." "They could be a lot more fun than they are ... lot of them are maybe too specifically targeted." 
  
• He offers Rod Serling's Twilight Zone and Dr. Seuss as examples of serious messages couched within a rich context or a playful presentation.
• Perhaps motivation is a better goal than education, for games.  They'll educate anyway, but it's too serious a goal for most designers, who would do better aiming to motivate instead.
  

The Kotaku comments also have some good links to other material, including some TED talks.  It's a wonderful antidote to the representatives of the GIF Theory that you find on any Kotaku thread about one of the big three consoles.