I have quite a few ideas...

"So I think I'll share a few."

1. (Borrowed with every intention of somehow returning, from Ben Bleiweiss, MTG player, and former Building On A Budget column writer.)

http://www.wizards.com/magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/bb171

"First you make the peanuts.

Then you make the peanut butter!"

What does this mean? Even for people who don't care one iota about the game, it means, that you need a raw product to have a refined product. In this case, it's a synergistic 2 card combo which leads to much fun, and interest. How does this relate to anything? Besides the obvious "If you have A, then you can make B", it shows that nothing is useless, after you get past the first glance, and that it's like putting a puzzle together. At the time the article was written, not many people would have been playing around with an idea like that. Sometimes, it takes some insight later, to combine two things together into a coherent object.

2. My posts are probably going to be more MTG centered, just because it provides a point of interest for me, and really...well, it's fun. To me, that is. I don't know if it's fun for you, but I'll try. (To make it fun for you. Somehow.) While that doesn't mean that I'm going to be shoehorning "PLAY THIS GAME OR ELSE", it might be something for consideration on a rainy day.

3. Taking the ideas from Kael's blog, and we have, a discussion on gaming. I suppose there's a fine line between "reasonable" gaming, and "addicted". Games such as Runescape + any other MMO you can think of probably falls in the category of the latter. While, I can see that there may be some stretched, small benefit from such time wasters, mostly, it's just a massive time sink for little benefit. You don't make new friends, you learn about security the hard way, and you have to waste money just to get the "good stuffs". However, a game such as DoTA, SC, MTG, for example, have their benefits and downsides. Of course, educational games are faster at making concepts come to life, but the mathematics behind the first 3 are astounding. More on that in a second. I just realised that I missed out a whole day on Kingdom of Loathing, for ascending, but then, I'm trying to prioritise, so, I don't have "credit" at the moment, because I spent all of today socializing and playing games. A system which is self-imposed, for every 2 hours of work, is 1 hour's credit for games and what have you. Now, this is going on several tangents, but I'm enjoying writing about this, so who cares. What I've learned from this is, that optimal is not always optimal. To rephrase, what's optimal to keep a game humming is not optimal in the overall scheme of things. I don't have enough time today or tomorrow morning to be able to do what I need to do, so I'll let it slide.

Back to the mathematics of those 3 games, let us start with DoTA, because a lot of us have tried it at least once. The basic premise of the game is, pick a hero, any hero, go around casting nice spells, using cool items and what have you, getting more and more gold, getting more nice items, essentially, just like working in real life, but without the hard work. Then you go around killing people, because that's just fun, and then eventually you destroy a big structure, and win the game. Or lose. Now, the applications of this, is learning (albeit very slowly) to keep an attention on several things at once, to co-operate a certain degree, and to be aware. It also trains your touchtyping, if ever that was a problem.

I don't have too much to say about that game, because it too is a time waster, in my eyes. The theory is too varied, and as Kael has mentioned several billions of times to me every time I try to discuss the merest inkling of theory. "Or, you could just play the game."

With Starcraft, though, and by extension it's sequel, you cannot possibly ignore the theory and mathematics within the game. While it's "good" to have a large amount of clicking speeds and such, 300 actions per minute isn't going to do you one iota of good if you have no idea how to react to what your opponent(s) are doing. For those uninitiated, the premise is building a base, building units, getting upgrades, getting cooler units, and killing every building that the opponent has.

Of course, those "lame" mathematical games which include flash cards are "better" for you, but they are boring, and well, boring. With the framework of a game, if one wishes to get "better" they have to consider the theory, and when to make more units at the cost of not building harvesters, and vice versa. Really, it's a tossing up of economy vs your army, every second of the game. And then it trains your ability to make snap decisions, automatically and without thinking. And to make the RIGHT decisions.

Of course, old timers will scoff at me and say, games are time sinks, pure and simple. There is NOTHING to be gained from them, but dumbing down, wasting your time that you could be studying, and becoming fat/shortsighted.

But, anything in extreme amounts is going to be bad. The question is, how much is extreme? If one wishes to devote most of their life to a game, (see: Starcraft progamers who retire at 40) then there is probably no "extreme". In that regard, it is similar to any other sport. Unfortunately, the framework for many games does not allow such competetiveness (When was the last time you attended a basket weaving contest, for example?) However, with said framework, and the determination, you CAN get there. There is a stigma of sorta surrounding this, and it calls this a gamble, because it is not certain that you'll be up there on the Halls of Fame and such, with money to boot.

Of course, if you don't make it, you need a job and such, and hence, where the stigma arises. So...no-win situation, for you really.

Lastly, you've got MTG. Which, is essentially, a math game. You have millions of pieces of cardboard you can sling at each other, so that you can bring a number of 20 down to 0, or some other ways to win. Now, it teaches you how to bluff (just like poker), it teaches you to reason with logic (just like any other logic game) and it forces you to use math every single turn, just to count how much you need to play a certain card, or to deduct your points from some spell/attack. Also, remembering things, unless you write it down on paper. The life total that is.

In short, lots of synergy and bustling with education and games. If you look in the right places, and are looking in the first place. So don't dispute it. Unfortunately, I can't convince any of the old timers to see it my/our way. And well, you can't say that I haven't tried.

Hoping I haven't missed anything.