This is so huge - it's not just that it's exciting for students and a more rewarding way to show friends & family what you're studying. It's also a great overview of the field: AI, graphics, data structures, performance, network programming, discrete mathematics, concurrency, on and on. You never know what's going to resonate with someone and get them excited about pursuing CS further.
But it's also hard to get through to the CS academia establishment on this. I worked with a professor who struggled for years to get a game programming course accepted by his department. They kept rebuffing him because "games aren't serious." (He eventually left and started a very successful game programming track at a different school).
This was an Ivy League school, and they also seemed overly fixated on theory over practice. I think they had the mentality that in depth hands-on experience equals vocational school. I hope more of the teaching programs coming online now understand how engaging it is to just make fun things with code - and how it can still be a great learning experience as well.