Mondowonder said:
The more I try to dissect games, it becomes obvious that they are just an assamblage of typical logic mechanics
That's an important realization.
Don't stop there, though. Games are a form of enterprise software, so the things that apply to enterprise-grade software apply to games. Games are a subset of high performance computing, so those are good topics. Repeat for specialty after specialty. Good developers realize games contain elements found in virtually every industry, and that there is no useless knowledge when it comes to games.
For designers pick any topic, including topics many people feel are useless: religions of the world, fashion design, architecture of ages past, philosophies of the ages, astrology, paranormal subjects, you name it and it is a topic that shows up in games somewhere.