YES, THEY CAN!
Creative teachers
In this piece, author Jordan Shapiro gives an analysis of video games value in the field of learning and education. Among other ideas, I quote:
"People play games because (...) they want to solve problems." "Video games encourage mastery of a challenge and learning for learning’s sake." "They also minimize the consequences of failure. (..) Failing one exam can have terrible consequence (...) research has consistently shown that learning is a practice of iteration and failure."