It is often granted that it allows better time management, provides better communication between staff and students, and so on, but just as often academics can be heard bemoaning the fact that the introduction of email has just extended their working day, not only reaching outside of office hours but intruding into their homes. Moreover, the reason the original arcade games and email share their 'revolutionary' quality is related. Cool media require more participation by the audience because more is left up to our imagination to invent. Hot media tend to require passivity for full enjoyment. A lecture is hot, while a seminar is cool.
Radio is hot while telephone is cool.
The games are fun because they are designed to have good, engaging gameplay. It's this same quality which makes a game good today. Our expectations may be of higher resolution graphics and lifelike panning stereo sound, but without that simple element a game is destined to fail. This is not to say that cool is better than hot. We all know the value of both.