You play to learn the game

The other day, I was watching Heavy Cardboard’s Bailiff of Boscoop stream, gauging how hype I was going to allow myself to get for the new Splotter game (it does look really good, FWIW), and Jeroen spoke on what would be included in the recommended learning game. It got me thinking, what sort of game wants a learning game, what does that look like, and how often do I go straight to the “expert mode?”