How many people in the world do you think play video games? You might be surprised to learn that it’s around three billion. Almost half of the world’s population plays games on their smartphones, computers or video consoles. According to the Sustainable Games Alliance, the industry that develops these games generates more revenue than the film and music industries combined. It’s time to admit that video games are way more than just a gimmick.
What does the term ‘gaming industry’ encompass?
A common question that came up during our research on sustainable gaming: what exactly does this term mean?
When we talk about ‘gaming’, ‘games’ and the ‘gaming industry’ in this interview, we are referring to all forms of digital gaming.
We are therefore excluding board games, parlour games or other analogue forms of gaming, but including smartphones, consoles, PC games and the like.
Gaming is an industry to be taken seriously—and an art form that combines graphic, interactive and acoustic elements. For Maria Wagner and Jiri Kupiainen, video games are also an opportunity for sustainable digitalisation. The pair are part of the Sustainable Games Alliance (SGA), which wants to support major game studios in a sustainable transformation. But let’s start at Level 1: our tutorial on sustainable gaming.
Maria and Jiri, why is gaming ‘unsustainable’ in the first place?
“With an annual carbon footprint of between 50 and 500 million tonnes of CO2, the gaming industry is estimated to cause about as many emissions as Norway and Sweden.” According to Wagner, this wide range already shows one of the industry’s main problems: “We lack reliable data”.
The respective power consumption of gaming computers, consoles and smartphones also varies greatly, adds Kupiainen: “While a smartphone is quite economical during occasional gaming sessions, full-blown gaming computers with screens consume up to one kilowatt of energy per hour.” Without green electricity, gaming for several hours every evening has a very negative impact on an individual’s digital carbon footprint.
However, CO2 emissions are also generated when producing gaming devices such as computers and smartphones. Of course, this is also an issue for other industries. According to Kupiainen, however, it’s crucial to consider gaming’s contribution to the CO2 impact of hardware production: “It doesn’t make a big difference [individually] but half of humanity is playing games. And that’s why it’s also important to measure energy consumption and see whether and how gamers can become more efficient.”
According to the two experts, one fundamental problem is that, despite its digital nature, the gaming industry does not collect reliable data. The Sustainable Games Alliance would therefore first like to support companies with reporting on their environmental impact so the industry has a starting point for improvement.
“Existing standards are not specific enough”
“The game developers collect their own data so you’re not discussing things on the same level,” says Wagner, outlining the basic problem. “Without comparable data, it’s difficult to carry out benchmarking in order to make the code or products more efficient, for example.”
Because of this, the Sustainable Games Alliance is currently adapting existing industry standards to the needs of the gaming industry. Dr Ben Abraham works as a leading researcher at the SGA and uses the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the CSDR, among others, as templates for new standards. “The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is not specific enough when it comes to gaming,” explains Wagner. “When we look at hardware emissions, for example, we have to ask: who is responsible here? We need a global approach to transform the gaming industry.”
In short, the approach is: “We help companies to collect data and report it––and from this we develop efficient ways for them to increase efficiency and reduce their energy consumption [and that of their products].”
More sustainable games have many advantages for gamers
This creates a double advantage for companies. If games become more efficient and the battery life of the devices increases, users can play games on them for longer. In addition, more efficient games are compatible with more devices, allowing game developers to reach a larger audience.
In our experience, however, there is also a danger: if more people play more efficient games, rebound effects can arise that potentially increase the digital carbon footprint of a video game. This is particularly the case when mobile games are financed by adverts and trackers. Jens Gröger from the Ökoinstitut explained to RESET just how much this can increase the digital carbon footprint.
Together with SGA, some companies are already demonstrating what successful sustainable games can look like. “On 27 April, we had a meet-up where we spoke to major gaming companies. We showed how companies can reduce the energy consumption of their games without compromising the gaming experience,” summarises Wagner. She adds, “Microsoft and Ubisoft, for example, are presenting case studies that show positive impacts. More efficient code or a more sustainable game engine improves the battery life of portable devices, for example. Reporting helps companies to develop better games and increases customer satisfaction.”
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At least the gaming industry is already digital
Unlike agriculture, the building sector or the mobility industry, the gaming industry also has a major advantage according to Wagner and Kupiainen: “We are one of the few industries that can completely decarbonise because we are already completely digital.” For this very reason, however, they also believe their industry as having a special responsibility when it comes to sustainability.
It’s also important to mention that the Sustainable Games Alliance is currently working more closely with game developers. Console manufacturers such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, as well as the component manufacturers of gaming computers, would also have to reduce their carbon footprints to ensure a sustainable gaming industry. As we have analysed using the example of supposedly sustainable computers, this means modularity and interoperability of components. Console manufacturers must also continue to enable second-hand purchases for their consoles, which is not always the case due to the increase in digital purchases. Nevertheless, Kupiainen summarises:
“If you produce steel, you have a certain excuse [in terms of energy consumption]: after all, you have to operate a blast furnace. We don’t have that excuse–we can decarbonise if we want to.”
How will Cloud Gaming and AI change the games industry?
While the gaming industry has naturally developed towards sustainability in some sectors over the last few decades (physical data carriers are being used less and less, for example), there has also been a counter-trend. There are hardly any consoles and PCs left without online functions. And more and more manufacturers and developer studios expect gamers to stay online all the time and therefore constantly transfer data to data centres.
Kupiainen criticises this: “The first question is, why does a single-player game on a mobile phone need an internet connection at all? In most cases, the answer is advertising; in others, it is laziness [of the developers]. According to our estimates, hardware production and power consumption of devices still carry more weight. After that, however, it’s data transmission and server infrastructure, which are becoming increasingly important as we integrate more and more AI functions.”
The AI boom of recent years could slow down the decarbonisation of the gaming industry. Wagner says: ‘If we look at the sustainability reports of the largest cloud providers, we can see that their emissions are rising sharply. AI models that increase energy consumption are responsible for this. For Microsoft as a whole, it’s around three times as much.”
In addition, Wagner once again points to the increasing water consumption of data centres. Water is used in data centres to cool the servers and is a particular problem in regions where water is scarce. Although this water can theoretically be used to heat neighbouring residential areas, the heat is usually lost.
What can gamers themselves do to help?
The Sustainable Games Alliance wants to achieve the decarbonisation of the gaming industry primarily through standards and in cooperation with game developers. At the moment, it is particularly important that companies themselves become active and use reporting to find out what emissions the various processes cause and how much energy and water they consume.
However, the SGA also shows what a sustainable transformation in the gaming industry could look like. Specifically, we can achieve this with packaging made from paper instead of plastic, reduced performance requirements for video games and a cautious approach to AI systems.
However, Wagner and Kupiainen also emphasise that gamers themselves can make their gaming habits more sustainable:
- Buy used and refurbished hardware instead of new
- Use ad blockers or avoid free-to-play games with excessive advertising and ad tracking
- Switch to a green electricity provider
- Use game downloads and rental offers for video games in libraries or online
- Avoid standby times in video games or when using gaming hardware
Further tips for sustainable gaming can also be found on at Playing for the Planet, the Federal Environment Agency or the Gamescom trade fair in Cologne.
“Gaming lets us feel the impact of either sustainability or the climate crisis”
In addition to sustainable practices and the challenges and potential of the gaming industry, our conversation with the SGA also focused on the potential of video games as a medium. Kupiainen sees an opportunity here that no other industry offers us:
“Playing games is one of the most fundamental things we humans do. As children, we play to fight or catch each other. It gives us the opportunity to experiment and find things out without exposing ourselves to real danger. That’s how we grow up—and in principle, that’s what video games are all about.”
As an art form, video games therefore give us the opportunity to try out scenarios and their consequences: “We can not only try out what a green transformation looks like—we can also make the consequences of climate change tangible and then ask ourselves: ‘What if?'”, specifies Kupiainen. He adds: “A game in which we litter and destroy a planet can be a lot of fun—but it can also motivate players to be more sustainable. It shows people that we can cause or avert such a world and that our actions have consequences.”
We would like to thank Maria and Jiri for the interview!
