I'm a supporter of video games, though I don't personally play them much. Virtual worlds in education is a field I do a lot in and I'm currently researching how avatar design options in virtual worlds affect users' in-world identity experiences.
For those that are interested, you should really take a look at some of the research done by
Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab . Their work is mostly focused on experiences in immersive virtual environments, but there's no doubt those will be on the way for common use in the fairly near future. They have some very interesting results about the power of avatar design to influence how people act both in world and in real life.
Edit: Next week I'll actually be presenting at a conference in Finland on video games in education where there will be lots of interesting projects about game developments for schools. Their potential is great as learning tools.