There's no need for mental gymnastics, it's a lot easier to simply argue that educational games are educational. But this doesn't contradict what I said: that most games are not structured in terms of didactic value.

I do, however, want to specifically call out the learning value of an R-rated game: if you are learning to read from it, that says absolutely nothing about age-appropriate didactic value of the game. At that level, the game ought to be making you solve quadratic equations or something along those lines for us to even begin entertaining the idea that they may provide any actual didactic value.