Can games help you solve complex real-world problems?

Let me quote Jane McGonigal from her TED talk:

Right now we spend three billion hours a week playing online games. Some of you might be thinking, "That's a lot of time to spend playing games. Maybe too much time, considering how many urgent problems we have to solve in the real world." But actually, according to my research at The Institute For The Future, it's actually the opposite is true.Three billion hours a week is not nearly enough game play to solve the world's most urgent problems.In fact, I believe that if we want to survive the next century on this planet, we need to increase that total dramatically. I've calculated the total we need at 21 billion hours of game play every week. So, that's probably a bit of a counterintuitive idea, so I'll say it again, let it sink in: If we want to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, obesity, I believe that we need to aspire to play games online for at least 21 billion hours a week, by the end of the next decade. (Laughter) No. I'm serious. I am.

Now, the real question is what kind of games McGonigal is talking about? World of Warcraft or Call of Duty? It's easy to see why we are hooked to those kinds of games. They are so interesting, that's why. But when you develop games that are meant to solve real world problems, would they still be so interesting?

Another real question then is - can we develop such games which are really interesting and which can help you solve real world problems?