Games are Very Effective Language Learning Materials In my experience, video games, especially PC games such as Civilization, Sims etc. can be used as language learning materials and they are very effective in this purpose if you can balance the fun and learning parts when playing. However, in order to achieve such a balance, it is required for the player to have a sufficient vocabulary size, which in my opinion is the most difficult because it involves excessive repetition. But once you do understand approximately 5000 words, playing a game in your targeted language can be very enjoyable because you are also using and learning the language at the same time.