Any media, and any genre, has its touch points, from a laugh track in a sitcom to a person behind the desk for the evening news. If you know baseball, you can appreciate home run with bases loaded. If you do not know baseball, a player could run the wrong way and it wouldn't phase you.

And clearly, the more expensive games get to make, as with move franchises, the less game developers are going to want to take risks.

But I think what is more interesting is that game are inventing a new kinesthetic language (i.e. some would call cliches) that will be worked into both classrooms and work processes in the near future, including:

• throttle
• unit/ structure / map.
• radar
• first person vs. isometric view:
• the explore/ build/ attack patterns in real time strategy (RTS) games
• fog of war and
• heads up display (HUD)

Even tycoon games have forever changed business schools. Concepts like situational awareness are now part of any gamer's vocabulary.

The trick for everyone from Electronic Arts to the U.S. Military is to realize both the opportunities and also the limitations of meeting users' expectations.