Video Games and Honors Courses?

So this particular post does not have much to do with direct discussion, or me bringing up points, I just want to tell you my story when it pertains to video games, and maybe poke at the educational value of games.
So I've been playing games probably since I could passably pick up a controller and press buttons. I had the NES and Playstation 1 as my first platforms playing many games from duck hunt to Croc,My parents owned a small hangout club in town and that also gave me access to the only playstation 2 in town during it's early release.
It was during these early gaming experiences in Midnight Club, Pokemon(Crystal) on the Gameboy Color, and a multitude of other games that didn't give me a sense of story, and probably not a very strong moral foundation, but they did give me magical problem solving skills. These skills grew as I got older and so did my platform, bam lets talk about my inheritance of the playstation 2 and my first xbox.
These systems in conjunction with my local family video gave me a wide access to many games made by many differing companies. Three of my favorite games going into elementary school were Fable, Final Fantasy X, and Elder Scrolls Morrowind. Now what do these games have to do with elementary school? Well if you know anything about these three games, they are heavily narrative based, Morrowind offered almost exclusively text based game play, and as you could imagine, I couldn't read. I used my problem solving skills to play, succeed, and conquer these heavily text based games, WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO READ OR DO MATH. With a little help from my father, I was able to learn to read(not write) and do addition,subtraction,multiplication and division by the first grade, by playing these games. No joke, I was placed in the honors courses because they thought I was some prodigy, in reality I was not the prodigy they wanted, I mainly wanted to doodle all day, but none the less they didn't know that, and certainly thought I was intelligent enough to put me on the advanced learners track in school.

Bouncing back, games taught me some wonderful problem solving skills, and resource management.. I love me a good puzzle, and sometimes this life can be a puzzle. While games don't directly translate all the time how to solve a problem. They do offer formulas for logic. Tis for Tat, You need this for this, unless you have that, they helped me to find the most efficient way to accomplish tasks, and to be the best equipped. As far as resource management goes. Every gamer knows not to blow his whole magazine on the first enemy, or perhaps stock up on supplies while you can, and be stingy with the less prevalent supplies. All can easily translate into real life, and especially in collage, resource management is a must.
There are numerous other examples of how games helped me develop useful skills. Like World or Warcraft speech teaching me how to type like a champ by the fifth grade, Sims and Creators giving me platforms to develop creativity, the list goes on.

While I can totally agree that some games are just trash, and some games are just pure entertainment, I feel some games have a lot to offer beyond story, and game play. Real life advantages, that yes SHOULD NOT REPLACE REAL LIFE EXPERIENCES, but rather can be used as a tool to amplify qualities. Games have a dear place in my heart, and my education.