Feeling unproductive after a Thanksgiving break spent gaming? Well eat this (after your turkey). In the “gee wiz” story of the week, the three winners of the “Why Games Matter” contest were announced yesterday, as reported by 1UP.

These three games raise awareness and recommend solutions to issues of gender relations and domestic abuse, teen depression and anger and the AIDS epidemic. Each will be recognized with a $5,000 prize and will be invited to the 2008 Games for Health conference.

Games are made to entertain, but this contest demonstrates one possible secondary function: to educate. This is nothing new. Whoever went to grade school in the early ’90s (and is reading a blog about video games) remembers all those classic computer lab games about doing math, building space ships, stopping bleeding and getting to Oregon.

But will we ever see a game that combines these two functions fully? One that is as fully immersive as BioShock, but also imparts some wisdom about the world outside of Rapture?

Books and movies are already doing this. They flirt around the topic without addressing it full-bore. What better way to learn about the royal politics of Elizabethan England than by reading Macbeth? And Shogun and Gates of Fire are kickass novels, but they also deliver historical and cultural lessons and interpretations. Sure, there are the PBS specials about dealing with racism that we saw in school, but there’s also 2004’s “Crash,” an average film made Oscar-worthy by its relevance.

What lesson does BioShock or Mass Effect teach? What purpose do they serve beyond providing compelling and stimulating entertainment? Interesting questions, which none can answer.