In this article, findings from a recent one-year research project that investigated the use of games in a variety of school settings are described and discussed. The project involved four schools and 12 teachers designing classroom activities around specific games to support learners both within the formal national curriculum and in the context of competence-based curricula. Some of the conclusions of the Teaching with Games project make for surprising reading. Countering many assumptions currently held by teachers, it suggests that computer games may not always offer children motivation to learn when they are introduced into classroom contexts. It also finds that the formal curriculum may not act as a significant barrier to teaching and learning with computer games, perhaps contrary to assumptions held by some teachers and researchers of ICT in education. The Teaching with Games project has found that children's engagement with games in both formal and nonformal settings is far from straightforward, and while it certainly does not condemn the use of games for educational purposes, it is cautious in the face of what has in recent years occasionally become a hysterical discourse.