"Games allow us to address systems instead of stories," Dr. Bogost said in an interview. And, in some ways, they can offer more depth. People often search for simple answers to broad topics like the Gulf oil spill or the 2008 financial crisis, but in reality both were the result of a confluence of failures and events. Games can help to convey that complexity. "In particular, they can offer this experience of how something works rather than a description of key events and players," Dr. Bogost says.