Will Wright - Games as Toys

Will Wright created Sim City, The Sims, and Spore. And these are all 'toys'. There is no set 'goal', the player sets their own goal, plays with it, experiments, tries different things. The power of video games that Wright presents and has been working on is the possibility space. Giving the player the ability to easily try things out and see what happens. In Spore you are able to modify the atmosphere, and in a short space of time, the player is able to see the long-term effects of what would occur. The power is that the player can experiment, play around, and learn a whole lot that is totally impossible in the world.

Will Wright - Video Games Lecture in 2007

Here is another great lecture (that I couldn't tame to embed here, linky in title above), I would say that this one is more relevant to my research. Summary: Firstly he introduces the current social state of video games compared with the introduction of other media - Novels/fiction: "Poisoned" the readers minds
The Waltz: "A dance for prostitutes and adulterers"
Film: "godless dissolute lives"
Rock & Roll: "Devil worshippers"
And now video games are just starting to get past this, as those that grew up with games become older.
Then he compares linear media with games: Linear stories are about Empathy, games about Agency.
The lastly he talks about how games create and manipulate mental models. A story becomes an abstraction in the listeners mind, which then forms models to predict and act in the future. Play also does this.