Can video games stimulate academic learning?

This article reports on a study done in Chile.

The simple act of playing a video game can require learning a great deal of information. We have discussed studies showing impressive perceptual gains after just a short time playing a game. Children are highly motivated to play video games (in fact, at times, it’s difficult to get them to do anything else). Yet, perhaps because of the perceived negative impact, there has been surprisingly little research on how to use games for teaching. One exception to this was [this] study.