Mark Bernstein (chief scientist of Eastgate Systems, makers of hypertext authoring system Storyspace) has a piece called Conflicts and Interest in TEKKA (paid membership required) on "the remarkable failures of business games." Sez Mark:

Looking at what games are trying to do is the focus of this site, and of my research, so I'm happy to see this sentiment out there. Mark continues:

This question has been an ongoing one in the academic/industry relationship. As someone who both writes about and makes games (even if not AAA console titles), I may have a distorted perspective (which I'm writing about in more detail elsewhere), but I'll share it briefly. I think that before research can be useful for developers, we need to see more inspiration in the business. We need people who have something they want to say, and who want to say it in the medium of the videogame.

(thanks to Andrew, again)