Greening the Games Industry

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GTG Links 48 – AI impacts, Google and Amazon ESG target misses, Eco Modes + Electric Planes (!)

Been a while, so we have accumulated a ton of exciting, disappointing, and all-around interesting news to share. Our SGA webinar on the impact of EU sustainability legislation yesterday was great, and I'll share the video and slides here when its up for those who couldn't

A Sustainable Games Alliance update + invitation to our event next week on what EU sustainability regulation means for the games industry

Hello! It’s been way too long. It’s been a busy, sick, and near-freezing winter here which is quite rare for these parts. The body (and mind) wants to hibernate – nevertheless, we persist. I have not been idle though, far from it. Despite the gaps in our regular schedule

GTG Links 48 – ESGalore! Unity, Tencent, 37 interactive, +PS5 boxes lose 8K logo ++Climate impacts on food prices

This week's links are short and sweet but packed with goodness. Lets dive in. Unity’s ESG report is out – in a new web-based format, allowing for some neat interactive charts (see that "Cloud" footprint doubling from 22-23! phwoarr) and overall a 6.5% increase in

How much water does a typical game studio use?

According to UN Water, Monday 17th June is “World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought.” I started working on this piece without knowing about that bit of serendipity, but it came up because I’ve been thinking about resource use including water use, as it comes up in some work

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GTG Links 46 – Sony's eco-charging controllers, AI power demand 🆙, climate and policy news, and 🧱LEGO making sustainability a KPI for all

It's been too long between posts, we've accrued a link debt a mile long. Lot's of posts to share – starting with a few new details on Sony's PlayStation user numbers & controller charger scheduling, tons of scary climate news hitting before Northern

What’s the climate like in the near-future of Watchdogs Legion?

I’ve been playing the 2020 game Watchdogs Legion this past fortnight, which has been on my list since it came out. It’s set in London in the late 2020s or early 2030s – right around the time frame when the sustainability transition needs to be fully underway if we

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GTG Links 45 – Nordic Game Conference, Microsoft's Sustainability Miss, Game Hardware News + Euro public showing no sign of a green backlash

Phew! It's been a crazy week here at GTG HQ so let's dive in. Tons of games + tech + sustainability news delivered straight to your inbox. Are you going to Nordic Game Conference next week? The SGA will be there! Check out the SGA talk by my

Who still needs to know climate change is happening?

One of the main paradigms I still see many people framing climate action through is the lens of “awareness”. On one level, this is perfectly fine. Keeping attention focused on the issue so it remains at the front of people’s minds is clearly valuable. But I often see ‘awareness’

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GTG Links 44 – Slow gaming, digital distro numbers, insurance indicators + improved corn yields from shutting down coal

It's Friday, which means it's time for more cool games + climate news and stories, great new research on living well within planetary boundaries, and the heaps more. Sea Shepherd founder briefly becomes the final boss in Dave the Diver English version | The Final BossThe Final Boss

Gaming and extinction: notes on emissions, degrowth & the hardware upgrade cycle

On Friday I gave a keynote as part of the day-long online symposium “Imagining Extinction in Video Games: An International Symposium” organised by researchers at the Universidade Do Porto. It was lovely to be invited, and I found our discussion afterwards lively and engaging, with fantastic responses to my talk

GTG Links 43 – Sega & Rovio ESG analysis, climate chaos & costs + internet cable repair guys

ESG season rolls on, with the trickle of new reporting coming down the pipe. But first, check out this cool new (academic) piece by Friend of the Newsletter Larry May and co-author Ben Hall: Thinking ecologically with Battlefield 2042 We analyse a dataset of player-generated paratexts that were systematically gathered

Big-picture trends from 2023 in games, and unsustainable emissions trajectories

Every year Newzoo puts out a report on the major trends happening in the global games market. If there was one central finding of this year’s report, which covers what happened to games in 2023 (which I first saw summarised in Simon Carless’ newsletter), it’s that the games

GTG Links 42 – Gaming Green Taxonomy Alignment, SBTi revolt, chip-making impacts + the evolution of click farming

It's been a bonkers busy couple of weeks, but I have a big new piece almost ready to go for Monday. Didn't quite finish it in time for today, and it's been too long between posts, so here's some weekend reading to

GTG Links 41 – Land, climate, and GDC

Yesterday, March 30th was Palestinian Land Day, an opportunity to reflect on the settler project of land theft from indigenous peoples (including here in Australia), and an important day to reaffirm connections to country. Palestinians, both inside Israel and across the occupied territory, mark this day by holding protests and

GDC24 – What are all those flights costing the planet, and what should be done about it?

I did way too much flying last year. While looking at places to live as part of a move interstate, I went between Sydney and Melbourne more times than I care to admit. Because of the woeful state of Australia’s intercity train network (which I wrote about here and

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Supporter bonus: What’s going on with corporate ESG?

Nat Bullard does a huge slide deck presentation every year outlining the massive forces shaping the economic terrain on which climate and corporate action are enacted. It’s a 200-page deck and for a lot of people that’s too much to wade through, so as promised in last Friday’

GTG Links 40 – We're so back: with big tech & AI impacts, Ethiopian petrol car bans, and huuuuuge new climate democracy research

We're back after our extended break, with a post positively overflowing with new news from the last month (!) of climate action. Before we get stuck in a brief update – we are holding the first of our meetings with already committed and potential founding members of the Sustainable Games

March update: Game layoffs and sustainability, benchmarking, and the Sustainable Games Alliance

It’s been a while since I last wrote for the newsletter. My last links post also only went out to GTG Supporter tier subscribers (despite having a large free preview, as always!) because I picked the wrong setting on the post, so it might seem even longer than it

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GTG Links 39 – Estimating footprints for Roblox + reaching the limits of console energy efficiency ++ a primer on atmospheric rivers

Roblox full-year financial results for 2023 are out, and they got a ton of attention. With "Revenue was $749.9 million” what sort of emissions footprint might we expect from that? Based on last year’s industry average, I’d expect around 128k tonnes CO2e off the back of

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European Gaming Emissions, and how we address them

I was asked earlier this week by Joost Raessens (Utrecht University Professor, and coordinator of STRATEGIES: Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries a major Horizon-funded research project just kicking off) about whether there were any solid figures for the scale of the footprint of the European games industry. I

GTG Links 38 – 2023 hardware numbers + nuclear data centres ++ the end of discs?

David Lumb’s CNET article is out I think he worked on this one for most of last year. We first chatted about the topic pre-GDC last year, a lot has happened since. Nice to see it out finally. Video Games Are Finally Waking Up to Climate ChangeWhat will games

GDC’s State of the Industry survey on sustainability in 2024

For the past three years, GDC’s annual survey of attendees – the somewhat ambitiously named “State of the Industry” survey – has asked at least one question about sustainability. Let’s look at the evolution of both the questions themselves and the responses, and see what it can tell us about

GTG Links 37 – Another year closer to climate deadlines

Welcome back – I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year. 2024 is shaping up to be a big year, with some pretty significant changes. The planet is hotter than it has ever been in human history. The pace of change continues to lag behind what the science says

Nvidia's DLSS carbon impacts: the cost-benefit of upscaling, frame generation, and neutral network training

Late last year I got a new graphics card for my PC – a rather modest new Nvidia RTX 4060 which is pretty much perfect for the games I play. It’s a mid-tier card, but still a huge upgrade (now approaching 7 years old) GTX 1070 that I had been

🔗GTG Links 36 – End of year wrap up + Fortnite traffic spikes, AI energy, King of the Carbon Hill

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas (i.e. hot) in Australia. It's also really close to the end of the year – and what a year! In the last 12 months of the newsletter, we've written about: * How exposed the game industry is