Video Games can do 2 important things (beyond entertainment):
They push the limits of current technology. Video game developers are constantly trying to get betting graphics out of hardware and software. You just don't need the lastest GeForce video card to run a word processor. With modern hardware I can perform thousands of calculations instantaneously with no optimatizations what-so-ever. But if you try to play the latest AAA titles on a 5-year old computer, you're going to have a bad time.
They spread ideas. The average person doesn't care about voxels, but they do like that they can tear down and rebuild almost everything in Minecraft. This has inspired more games like Terraria and Guncraft putting their own spin desconstructable worlds. Not to mention the inspiration Notch has become for indie game developers everywhere.
Personally, this is why I like working on video games: when I work on a game idea I have to ask what it can bring to the table. Why should people play it? What will it contribute to their lives? to the world? It doesn't have to be revolutionary per se, it doesn't have to save lives, but it has to do something.
I took this class -- Prof. Bruce Molay, great instructor, he was full of stories like this. He told us all sorts of weird crusty facts about why this was named that and all of the unix type jokes that you would find reading a man page for a system utility or c source in the stdlibs etc.
I have to admit, it's amazing how often video games seem to be in the mix these days. Slack was developing a game before they happened upon their product. Gamifcation is being used to help decipher complex genomes etc. Pretty impressive
Also, games back in the days, not being seen as part of the same serious IT industry, a lot of very creative techniques were written ad-hoc without leaking out to the world because they were 'one shot' solutions for the problem at hand.
I think it was Phil Trefford that had articles about embedded DSLs being used quite often in the 80s, to avoid bare metal complexities.
They push the limits of current technology. Video game developers are constantly trying to get betting graphics out of hardware and software. You just don't need the lastest GeForce video card to run a word processor. With modern hardware I can perform thousands of calculations instantaneously with no optimatizations what-so-ever. But if you try to play the latest AAA titles on a 5-year old computer, you're going to have a bad time.
They spread ideas. The average person doesn't care about voxels, but they do like that they can tear down and rebuild almost everything in Minecraft. This has inspired more games like Terraria and Guncraft putting their own spin desconstructable worlds. Not to mention the inspiration Notch has become for indie game developers everywhere.
Personally, this is why I like working on video games: when I work on a game idea I have to ask what it can bring to the table. Why should people play it? What will it contribute to their lives? to the world? It doesn't have to be revolutionary per se, it doesn't have to save lives, but it has to do something.