No time to parse it yet, but the latest issue of Communications of the ACM is about "creating a science of game". As Michael Zyda points out in the introduction:

"Today's game industry will not build a game-based learning infrastructure on its own. It got killed in the early days of edutainment (2000–2004), and shareholder lawsuits continue to prevent game industry executives from attending conferences where the topic of games for education might be headlined. So, computer scientists must be responsible for making this happen and not wait for the risk-averse to come around.

To be able to deploy the new medium for societal good, we need a well-defined R&D agenda. (...) We hope these articles influence your personal research in the direction of games, helping you understand why computer science must be willing to support games' R&D and societal missions. It's been great fun for me to waylay these fellow games researchers and educators into sharing their ideas and insight. Their work represents initial steps on the continuum of research and education necessary to create the new science. With them, we position ourselves to begin to understand and repurpose this vibrant interactive medium."

Why do I blog this? this exemplifies the interesting trend lately towards "game for social change" that include serious gaming or interesting initiative such as worldwithoutoil (although this topic is not addresses in the CACM issue).