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I think you bring up a goodpoint about social factors in gaming. We can have all of the "educational" games want, but as you said, kids might not want to truly play those games themselves. Social interactions and pressures at school influence the games kids are drawn to, our "want" to play. For example, as you say, "Grand Theft Auto" has a certain elusive "cool factor" which I imagine is potentially alarming for parents of, for example, preteen boys. 

I guess the question I have is: does learning only involve educational subjects? Or can you learn anything from anything? While it's true that certain video games won't teach us multiplication tables, we can learn about a lot of intangible things. For example, what about video games that have online forums and enable users to tastand make friends with people all across the world? They would learn how to interact with new cultures and more about how to interact with people online.  For example right now we're not doing a traditional academic subject right now, but we're probably all learning things (I e how to interact withstrangers online.)

Do you see what I'm saying?