Developers can ground our games in real Earth science and data, rather than making them purely fictional.
The game Plague Inc. isn’t only fun, it’s also based on real science, so by playing you learn a lot about the behaviours of viruses.
During the COVID pandemic, over a hundred and twenty million people played it to get a better understanding of the situation, which lead the devs to team up with the World Health Organisation to develop a free spin off named The Cure designed to help players understand how to beat COVID.