Computer video games are an emerging instructional medium offering strong degrees of cognitive efficiencies for experiential learning, team building, and greater understanding of abstract concepts. As with other new media adopted for use by instructional technologists for pedagogical purposes, barriers to classroom implementation have manifested in tandem with rising interest in the medium. This paper draws upon a broad analysis of current research dealing with the educative impact of computer video games in the classroom, with a focus on these barriers to implementation. This study was a qualitative review of several scholarly papers exploring the use of computer video games in the classroom. Papers were chosen for inclusion in the review based on their focus on educational video game research. Review of the papers led to six major barriers, which are identified and summarized in this article. Barriers included negative perceptions toward video games as educational components; the difficulty of providing state of the art graphics in educational video games; a lack of adequate computing hardware in the classrooms to run advanced video games; a school day divided by short class periods which hindered long term engagement in complex games; a lack of real world affordances; and a lack of alignment to state standards. Implications for each barrier and suggestions for future research round out the findings.