Press Start: An Introductory Guide to the Educational Value of Video Games

For those uninterested in an explanation, just click here.
A little background: I started playing video games while in elementary school. Back in the days of yore, independent video rental stores rented out video game systems (the NES) along with games. Eventually I got a Sega Master System, and then progressed onto the Lynx, Gameboy, Super Nintendo, Gameboy Color, Playstation, Gameboy Advance, Playstation 2, DS Lite, Dreamcast, Wii, and Xbox 360. Concurrently, I was playing quite a bit of PC games from LHX Attack Helicopter to Secret of Monkey Island to Team Fortress 2.
Parallel to this video game evolution, I became increasingly intrigued by education. I liked learning, but I discovered in high school, through tutoring, that I liked teaching as well. When I graduated from Washington High School, I decided to attend the University of San Francisco and participate in its Dual Degree Program in Teacher Preparation (almost a decade ago, in 2000, it was simply known as the Dual Degree Program). There, I found others interested in teaching, and if it weren't for that social support group, I would probably not be a teacher. It's easier to resist peer pressure to pursue other more financially rewarding careers when surrounded by others who are answering the call.
What I did NOT find, however, was a strong, supportive environment for video gaming. Many of my peers were indifferent, and most of my professors (as was the case with most of my teachers in high school) were strong critics of video games. As often as I had to defend education to my aspiring lawyer Politics course classmates, I had to defend video games to my education colleagues. Most of the critiques of video games came from people with very little experience with them, and focused on sensationalized news stories and extreme video games like Manhunt and Rumble Roses.
When the time arrived to write my Master's Thesis, I received the advice to choose an education-related topic I was deeply interested in. Since we'd be working on them for over a year, it was wise to choose something we'd be relatively unlikely to get tired of. As it is, it's been over 3 years since I submitted it for review, and I can just reread it without wincing.
In any case, I present here Press Start: An Introductory Guide to the Educational Value of Video Games. The name is a mouthful, but I hope that it is of interest to you. Some sections are a bit out of date, and it's not at all comprehensive. But if anyone knows of someone willing to pay me to update it, or to provide me a job drawing concrete links between pedagogy and video gaming, I'd be willing to start next week.