What makes it fun?

Yesterday, Joanne was talking about flow on her blog. More specifically, she was talking about what makes the game fun and the fact that the learning it might provide isn't really the point at all. I wholeheartedly agree! If you decided to play Age of Empires as a way to learn about colonialization, I think you'd be wasting your time. It doesn't have a huge amount of information in that regard and it's certainly not the most time-effective way to learn that limited amount of information. However, it does have one thing going for it that other means of learning about the topic area don't: it's fun. Pure and simple, players will enjoy the experience. After spending countless hours playing the game, I can't say that I've learned a whole lot or that I've somehow learned it better than I would have any other way, but I have absolutely enjoyed myself while playing. Plus, can you think of another learning experience about American history that would lead to a video as cool as this one that Andy found?