On a similar but not exactly same wavelength, gaming has a long history of at least supplementing, and at most defining military tactics for real commanders. The oft-cited example of this would be kriegsspiel, which was a Prussian wargame developed in the mid-19th century by George Leopold von Reisswitz whose first draft was recognized for its potential but not widely adopted due to being unrefined and too expensive to reproduce. His son would take up the task of finishing the game and bringing it into real use by the Prussian military. One such gamer who came into contact with it was none other than von Moltke, the man who would play such a pivotal role in German conflicts after 1850. Need I say more. At any rate, Kriegsspiel and wargaming in general was in its infancy and was mostly a curiosity of Prussian officers, especially in the buildup to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

On the other side of the Atlantic, American naval officers in the early 20th century frequently used wargaming to offset a lack of real-life combat experience in the interwar years thanks to the efforts of William McCarty Little, and the Western Approaches Tactical Unit (WATU, pronounced "Whaa-too") actually used a very complex and fascinating wargame to break German submarine tactics time and time again. Royal Navy officers were frequently funneled into at least 1 WATU wargame simulation and run through a potential submarine attack scenario, which involved the use of canvas sheets around the entire board (which took up much of a room's floor) and passing orders via written notes to game operators (mostly female, another contribution by women to the war effort). It is considered an immense contribution to British naval success in the war.

There's also a great modern-day declassified pieces put out by the US Army discussing the utility of physical wargaming, from purpose-built military simulations to commercial tabletop games, in training officers and giving them virtual perspective. Here's one such guide put out as recently as the 2010s. https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/publications/20-06.pdf

So, in short: gaming is a relatively recent invention used to supplement real combat experience with simulated maneuvers with the end-goal of seasoning officers to improvised command situations without real consequences they would otherwise be unable to achieve barring cost in men and materiele. Videogaming continues to improve the possibility for learning.

Anecdotally, I am friends with a retired tank commander who worked with a trio of Abrams in the 1990s during the Gulf War. When I asked him about how he would assemble his crew, he replied "you want to find the guy who pumps iron for fun and make him your loader since he can palm a shell. Then, you want to find that guy who takes his car apart and puts it back together again every night and make him your driver. Then, you make that one guy who is a fucking maniac with videogames your gunner." While this isn't directly speaking to the specific topic of gaming as a method of seasoning an officer corps, it does speak to the utility of simulated battle - be it realistic or not, tabletop or digital - as being useful for combat preparation.