When one considers it was only 10 or so years ago that some experts were questioning the appropriateness of multimedia and other "frills" as learning tools, it's not surprising that the idea of using games as a core instructional resource remains controversial. But in an age in which major corporations and the U.S. military are relying on simulations to train new employees and even prepare soldiers for war zone action, the disconnect between real life and what goes on in the classroom appears disturbingly greater than ever. The past couple of years have seen a widespread wave of early research on the power and potential of games to reach today's generation of "digital natives" raised on video games, e-mail, chat, cell phones, and other interactive technologies. Harvard, MIT, Georgia Tech, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Carnegie Mellon, international institutions such as Oxford and the University of Copenhagen, and numerous private companies and research labs are lending undeniable legitimacy to the serious game genre through the increasing funding of research and classroom pilot studies. In part one of this two-part series, the author looks at the challenges of using games to teach.