Video Games Help Solve Real World Problems?

Call me a cynic, but it is hard for me to believe that video games can help solve real world problems. The mere fact that people spend what amounts to millions of years playing video games is astonishing. In class we discussed how being given all the information we need to solve a problem in a video game would persuade people to help solve real world problems. I do not agree with this. I believe the people in the world that want to solve real world problems are already working to do so. People that play video games as a hobby are not going to take what they come up with and change the world. This may be me just speaking for myself. Perhaps there are some people who generally would not get involved in world changing situations that would drop everything and try to figure it out themselves. However, speaking for myself as well as other people I know, I do not see that happening.
Video games are meant for people to have fun. They are a way to escape to a different world for a while.They are for people that are trying to get away from reality and play games that are unrealistic in every day life. I believe that even if we did have video games that would help solve real world problems, they still would not be the customers first choice to purchase. People are generally way lazier than they need be, they want to play games that are fun for them, not play games they have to think too hard about. Although the "fun" games such as World of Warcraft does take critical thinking skills, I do not believe the people that play that game think of it as work. They are learning these skills unconsciously. When people are playing a game where they cannot blow people up, they probably will not have as much fun.
As I said before, I am not a video game fanatic. For this reason, I may not have any idea what I'm talking about and maybe people do want to play video games and solve problems. Personally, I do not believe that people would have enough confidence to solve these problems on their own through a video game. The people that want to and have enough confidence to solve these problems are doing so already. They are doing so without video games. I am just one person who believes that video games will not help solve the worlds problems. I suppose one day we will figure out if what I believe is correct. For what it is worth, I do hope I'm wrong. If a video game can help solve the worlds problems then I hope it can work. However, logically speaking, I do not believe it will have as much as an impact as others.