What I just don't understand, is why (game)companies in general don't use object pascal. I mean, we all know about how C++ came off of C when it was popular, and they had a huge userbase there, but why not use Object Pascal.

Object Pascal is...
-Clean
-OOP
-Faster to develop in
-Easier to develop in
-Powerful

Those five elements are the same you see in C, with the exception of it being clean(I'd really just say Object Pascal is bit cleaner than C).

Anyway...Object Pascal is a perfect candidate for learning. I kind of wish I'd have skipped BASIC(Not that basic is all that bad), and jumped into Pascal a few years ago.