I've never been much of a gamer. I'm old enough to remember when "Space Invaders" invaded the local bars. I recall rinky dink games on large cassettes marketed with Color Computers by Radio Shack. And I remember trying to play a bootleg copy of "Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail" in the pre-mouse age of key-stroke codes. My gaming experiences ended just about there.
When my kids were still pre-high school, we took them one summer to see the USA, winding up at a friend's home in San Diego. My wife and I marveled that in the city of endless sunshine, the three boys only wanted to stay home and play video games. What ever will become of them, we fretted. The answer is that all three of them are doing very well, thank you, in the IT industry.
Many years later, I was back in California, attending a seminar at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey. Another attendee went into a bit of rant about the time the younger generation was wasting on video games. An Air Force fighter pilot with perhaps just a fleck of gray at the temples interrupted to observe that the younger pilots were better at flying the newest generation of jets than he was, for all his experience. Why? Because the old days of the stick have given way to control panels not unlike those used in those much-maligned games.
This is only anecdotal evidence, I know. However, it does tend to support what Dr. Adam Gazzaley of UC-SF claims: In our brave new world of AI and bots, gaming may have a legitimate place in the college curriculum.
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