Video game development actually involves a lot of science and engineering and can require advanced 3D math, logic, psychology, etc.
Finally, im sure you could drop them a "scientific" task, and watch the number o interested persons drop to zero. Science can be horrifically tedious, i remember those experiment/measurement serieses my grandfather let me do when i was enthusiastic about chemistry in my childhood.
One afternoon, of unexplained science drudgery, (a repetition of radiactivity measurments) killed my interest for chemistry back then. So horray, for taking people by something they naturally care about at that age (Games) and by that hook interest something that makes them grow.
Is mathematics a science?
How about mathematics within a pre-defined discipline (e.g., doing novel work on group theory without inventing new axioms/structures)? Is that science?
If you include mathematics in the sciences, which I think we should, then it's hard to see how video game development is non-scientific.
(Besides which, the old trope about AI applies also to science. AI is AI until it becomes useful, then it's no longer AI and becomes some other branch of CS. All of engineering is science until it becomes useful, then it's no longer science but some branch of engineering.)
> video games is largely more of an engineering problem that typical science/exploration.
For one, video games are a great way to understand the strengths and limitations of simulation in science. And basically all fields of science these days have a corresponding field of computational science focused on using simulations to better understand the underlying science. So, it's important.
No, it's purely analytical, not empirical. Mathematics provides essential tools used in science, but is not science.
(besides which, there are some obvious problems here -- not least of which is that many sciences rely on mathematical objects in probability and statistics to determine what is and is not true about observations. IMO modern science is inseparable from mathematics, and concrete mathematical objects form most of the philosophical substrate of modern scientific practice... so, if "science" is separated from "mathematics", that's only the case in some primitive high school understanding of how modern science is actually performed in reality. Maybe that's a problem with how science is performed in reality, but AFAICT it seems to be working pretty well in most areas with some notable huge exceptions.)