But how do they make them fun? That's what they've been struggling with since the creation of the phrase "serious games" (which still sounds sort of corny to us). Huge budgets are being spent on these games, trying to get them to look like Gears of War, yet teach you about the proper way to brush your teeth at the same time. Actually, a first-person shooter where you are creeping stealthily through a dank and infested mouth, trying to frag cavity creatures might be pretty fun. Anyone developing that?

One panelist mentioned that any game should, by definition, be fun ... and we tend to agree with her. Although during the Q&A session one audience member stood up and wondered why so much emphasis was being put on the graphics and the gameplay in some of these titles, because given a choice between a textbook and a game, wouldn't a kid chose the game, no matter how craptastic, every time? He had a good point, because we'd rather play Let's Count Sand than thumb through 'Chemistry 101: The World and You.'

So the developers are riding the line between equal parts fun and equal parts learning, often on budgets of $10,000 or less. There are a few big-budget projects out there in the works, but based on what we saw in the presentation, the graphics are still pretty much circa PlayStation One, at best. If they could only stumble into something like Oregon Trail, a game that didn't blow you away with graphics, but had fun gamplay elements that sort of tricked you into learning, then maybe they'd have something.

Until then, these games remain ... serious.