“Green” Games: An Opportunity for Climate Organizations
Games are powerful tools for awareness and education.
Introduction
I have been designing and developing video games for a few years. What started as a hobby has become a real passion and I am fascinated with the creative energy that designers and developers pour into making their games.
Here, I want to talk to you about the intersection of climate change and video games. I believe that with video games, you can help players learn and encourage pro-environmental attitudes. You can also present visions of the future where humanity has learned to live more sustainably.
Here’s an outline of what I’m going to cover:
The current state of climate understanding and action.
A bit about the video game industry and climate including:
The carbon impact of the industry.
The growing use of games for promoting pro-environmental activations.
The use of video games in advertising and education.
An opportunity that I see for climate technology companies in video games
Let’s dive in!
Knowledge Is Not Enough
In the United States, according to the Yale Climate Opinion Maps, 72% of Americans agree that global warming is happening. That’s not bad. It is actually more than I expected before digging into this topic. However, there’s a gap between this high level awareness and specific knowledge and behaviors. Consider these additional results from the Yale surveys:
Only 58% agree that global warming is caused by human activities.
Only 58% agree that global warming is already harming people in the US.
Only 56% agree that there is scientific consensus on global warming.
Only 46% agree that global warming will harm them personally.
Only 36% discuss global warming at least occasionally.
Only 32% hear about global warming in the media at least once a week.
It has been 36 years since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet, despite over 99% agreement among scientists on the facts of anthropogenic global warming, large fractions of the public remain unaware or unconvinced of the facts of climate change.
Various personal, social, cultural, ideological, economic, and political factors shape our perspectives. These factors act as a filter through which we process news, data, and facts. Consequently, the same information or message may not resonate equally with everyone. For many of us, simply having knowledge is not enough to motivate behavioral change.
Rather, what is needed are narratives and stories that meet people where they are to create optimism and hope. These stories must highlight ongoing challenges and consequences of global warming close to home while also bringing awareness to ongoing solutions, including how individuals can act to drive change.
On this point, in her recent op-ed in the New York Times, Alexis Soleski quotes Dana R. Fisher, author of “Saving Ourselves: From Climate Shocks to Climate Action” regarding the meaning of her coined phrase “Apocalyptic Optimism”:
The whole point of apocalyptic optimism is being optimistic in a way that actually helps get us somewhere…It’s not shiny and rosy and like cotton candy. It’s a bitter pill. But here we are and we can still do something.
While I question the efficacy of the word “apocalyptic,” Fisher is aptly speaking to the power individuals have to act collectively to spur action from both the public and private sectors. Such action is very much needed today.
A 2017 report from the Carbon Disclosure Project using Data from the Carbon Majors Database suggests that 71% of emissions between 1988 and 2015 can be tied to only 100 state and corporate entities, with leaders of at least some of these entities regularly shifting the blame for emissions to individual citizens and consumers.
Such a pattern suggests a need for individuals to use their voting and political power to drive regulatory changes in the large-scale entities producing the majority of carbon emissions.
Unfortunately, among surveyed Americans, climate change ranks quite low on the list of policy priorities. Data from Pew Research suggests that only 37% of Americans agree that climate change should be a top policy priority, ranking 17th out of 21 surveyed policy items.
Although not everyone may need convincing about the reality of Earth’s climate crisis, it’s critical that a significant number of individuals are persuaded. This is crucial to exerting substantial political and economic pressure, and driving a swift transition towards pro-environmental policies and solutions.
The challenge ahead for climate communicators is how to more rapidly shift the tide of public opinion towards the importance of addressing climate challenges.
As John Doerr said in Speed & Scale, “The Greek root of crisis is ‘krisis’—to choose.” In climate science communications, how can we influence people to make more pro-environmental choices every day?
The Double Edged Impact Of Gaming
Why am I talking about video games? Globally, there are over three billion active video game players. This figure has been growing by over 100 million players per year in recent years. This increasingly popular medium has a massive captive audience that can be influenced by compelling pro-environmental narratives.
However, the growth of this industry is a double edged sword.
On one edge is the carbon emissions of the industry itself. On the other edge is the tremendous power of games to tell stories that ultimately inspire pro-environmental action.
Carbon Impact of Gaming
Through hardware production, physical game production, software development, a growing use of cloud computing and data warehouses, and other factors, the gaming industry contributes substantially to annual carbon emissions. An estimate from 2019 calculated that in the US alone, gaming represents the equivalent emissions of over 5 million cars.
A growing contingent within the industry is working to create frameworks and goals for drawing down emissions from gaming.
For example, last year, Project Drawdown worked with industry experts to produce “A Drawdown-Aligned Framework for the Gaming Industry,” which provides gaming software companies with a set of strategies for shifting their business operations towards reduced carbon emissions and environmental impact.
Also, in 2019, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched Playing for the Planet, an alliance of gaming industry organizations focused on driving pro-environmental and pro-sustainability changes from within the industry. Alliance members make commitments to carbon reduction and coordinate in developing best practices to support sustainable game development and design.
A very successful initiative from Playing for the Planet includes a four years running “Green Game Jam,” which encourages and supports industry developers in creating games with pro-environmental themes and mechanics.
Results from the Green Game Jam show that pro-environmental messaging in games can in fact result in changes in attitudes and behaviors, with more than 81% of players saying they wanted to engage with more green messages in games after playing games from the 2022 jam.
Pro-Environmental Game Design
Video games can lead to changes in pro-environmental behaviors, but how? In recent years, a few frameworks have been devised to guide game developers in their journey to inspire climate action.
One such guide, “The Environmental Game Design Playbook,” which I will focus on here, was produced by the International Game Development Association’s Climate Special Interest Group. It presents a framework for environmental game design grounded in Environmental Psychology theory, but outlined through detailed real-world examples and tactics.
Rather than trying to directly target behavioral changes, the authors urge designers to focus on four predictors of pro-environmental behaviors:
Knowledge
Pro-Environmental Attitudes
Efficacy
Hope
This framework parallels much recent guidance in climate communications. For example, a framework for effective climate communications presented by Rare, a nonprofit focused on inspiring climate action, includes eight principles that parallels much of the guidance in the IGDA handbook.
As a concrete example, Rare’s principle number four “Make it doable” focuses on creating a sense of efficacy (both self-efficacy-“I have the capacity to do something” and response efficacy-”My actions will make a difference”), which parallels the IGDA handbook’s focus on creating a sense of perceived efficacy.
When an individual has the knowledge to act; an attitude that inspires action; perceives themselves to be capable of making a difference; and believes that their action can result in a worthwhile outcome - people are highly likely to act in a pro-environmental manner. - From The Environmental Game Design Playbook
Good climate storytelling, according to the Rare framework, needs to be personal, accessible, and empowering, meeting people where they are with narratives that constructively harness emotions.
The same is true for effective climate games. What sets video games apart from other media is the ability to create safe spaces for individuals to try on other identities and make choices in a way that feels safe. Games can facilitate hands-on trial-and-error learning: By taking in-game actions and seeing the consequences of their choices in the game world, players can feel emotionally connected to outcomes of their in-game decisions.
Writing for Atmos about the power of games to inspire climate action, Lewis Gordon makes a similar comparison:
The movie, How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2022), and novel, Ministry for the Future (2020), are rare works in each of their respective mediums that give you, the viewer and reader, a glimpse of what might bring about change in our climate circumstances. Video games are perhaps better suited to these types of process-oriented narratives, narrowing choice and expanding it, showing cause and effect in a manner that is arguably more mutable and visceral than these other art forms. In Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, the effect of transforming scorched, ashen earth back into lush forest through the power of political violence is cathartic, verging on revelatory.
In other words, well-designed climate games are uniquely suited to make people think, help them learn, and inspire hope and action.
As a game developer myself, immersively learning about climate challenges and solutions being developed in climate technology in a collaborative space, and learning about climate communications and game design frameworks sparked an idea.
What if games could both help critical climate technologies grow, as well as spread awareness of developing climate technology solutions to the public?
Enter “Advergames”
Advertising games (“Advergames”) have been around nearly as long as video games have existed. One of the first advertising games, Tapper, developed for Anheuser-Busch in 1983 and originally distributed to bars, was so successful that it was re-developed as Root Beer Tapper and released broadly for arcades.
Advergames quickly became, and have continued to be, staples of big food and restaurant brands, typically serving to increase purchasing, engagement, and loyalty. Games like Yo! Noid (Domino’s Pizza), Pepsiman (Pepsi), and Sneak King (Burger King) have now reached cult status.
Research indeed shows that advergames have positive effects for businesses. With well-developed advergames a business can:
Improve consumer perception of advertising compared to other types of ads.
Improve consumer brand attitudes, purchase intentions, and choice behavior.
Reduce the feeling in consumers that they are being advertised to.
Increase exposure time to content.
Increase engagement and lead capture.
Improve brand awareness.
Education-Based Gaming
As mentioned above, there is also growing evidence that games are effective delivery devices for educational content and can have positive impacts on learning and attitudes. For example, a recent study on game based learning found that a game designed to teach environmentally friendly behaviors did result in changes in pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors.
Games are increasingly being deployed for environmental education. For example, the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center is deploying gaming technology to build climate resilience through education.
Most recently, for example, as part of a Minecraft series on extreme heat, Arsht-Rock launched “Minecraft: Heat Wave Survival.” In this version of Minecraft, players must explore the map to uncover secrets to defeat a “heat dragon,” which represents an embodiment of extreme heat, an increasingly present consequence of climate change.
An Opportunity for Climate Technology?
The combination of advertising efficacy and educational efficacy in games introduces what I see as an opportunity for climate technology. For many climate technologies, there is a need to increase awareness at two levels.
First, even those in the general public that are aware of the reality of climate change may be in need of more awareness around existing and in-development solutions. Increased awareness is good for shifting public sentiment on climate in general as well as specific technologies.
Increases in positive public sentiment can then have downstream impacts on public and private financing and lead to increasing adoption of a technology. A particularly salient example is the recent boom of funding for the development of AI and use of AI across sectors.
Second, when used as advertising and educational devices, advergames can help to capture leads and start conversations with potential clients or customers. Clients and consumers may not even know that incumbent technologies are harmful to the environment.
For example, prior to digging in more deeply on the breadth of current climate challenges, I did not know that cement production generates more than eight percent of global carbon emissions, and I suspect that many builders don’t know this either. If you’re a green cement producer, a well-designed advergame can help you share that message and advertise your solution at the same time.
What do I mean by well-designed advergames? In general, I would argue that good advergames should check these four boxes:
They are accessible and designed for a specific audience.
They include a clear and focused message.
They are easily shareable.
They are connected to data collection.
A web-based game designed to run well in both desktop and mobile browsers is an ideal format for advergames. When designed to be brief experiences, they can provide you with an opportunity to capture the attention of your client or customer and share a focused educational or advertising message with them.
Using shareable formats allows you to share your advergame with social followers and spread your message organically. Tying games to lead capture and ensuring that you track the impact that a game has on metrics of most concern to you, such as retention on or engagement with a specific page, is also important.
In summary, I think simple web-based games are an accessible but underutilized medium for climate organizations to reach more people. You can use them to boost engagement and interaction with your message in numerous ways, for example:
As embedded advertisements on your website, replacing or supplementing traditional video ads.
As a shareable when engaging with leads and clients to grab attention.
As a booth interactive at conferences and events.
As a social media shareable to increase brand awareness.
Conclusions
In closing, there is a gap between knowing that climate change is a real challenge for humanity and having the specific knowledge, attitudes, sense of self-efficacy, and hope that is necessary to act on it. As I mentioned above, Americans in particular prioritize climate change quite low on the list of what our policy priorities should be.
Games provide an opportunity to engage individuals on topics of environment, sustainability, and climate to activate some of these predictors of pro-environmental behaviors.
I believe that climate technology companies as well as other organizations (advertising firms, VCs, non-profits, public organizations) focused on the development of climate solutions could benefit from the educational and advertising benefits of video games.
A great way to combat the gloom and doom of climate change is to spread a little optimism through a fun experience.
If you’re reading this as a decision maker at any such organization and would like to discuss this topic further, we would be very interested in working with you to explore how a game could help your or your client’s brand. Reach out to us here if you’re interested!
Let’s play responsibly!