Integrating games into education

The idea of games behind educational is something that has been around for awhile. I am not saying anything new when I say that games should be integrated to education to make learning come 'alive'. However, the Internet has created a new gaming environment in the past decade. With more users playing a specific game, millions of game results have been created. These results let game creators develop a balanced game environment. Isn't that similar to what educators do? Educators learn the needs of society and create a simulated environment for students to learn knowledge and rules to be productive members of society?

I recently read an article about Farmville being an educational tool. I am not sure about its social values but players find out the basics around farming and how to raise crops and animals to bring in revenue to continue the cycle over again. Players will not become real farmers from this experience, but they will gain a simulated experience on what knowledge is necessary to take care of a real one.

Dangers: Simulation games like Farmville, SimCity, and the Tycoon series will give players a false sense of accomplishment. I think sim-players psychological believe they can be expert from playing those games. Well... can they? What is the difference between players taking real actions in a computer-simulated environment and roleplaying in a real-world environment? If the gap between reality and the virtual world gets smaller, are real teachers going to get replaced by virtual sages-on-the-side?