Tencent's renewables, Steam controller repairs, and future electro-tech – GTG Links 74
Welcome back – it's been a whole month since we've checked in on games industry ESG reporting, and well it's been quiet, so it's a short one. We can expect a lot more news next month-or-so as the big Tech companies release their reporting around now, and we can expect a few other games companies to tell us how they did in 2025 soon as well.
Tencent's ESG report
They doubled the amount of renewable electricity used from 22% to 48% which is a solid achievement at their scale of electricity consumption. Unfortunately Tencent doesn't seem to provide both the location-based and market-based Scope 2, so it's unclear exactly how much this is from Tencent's policy vs a result of the huge investment in renewables by the Chinese government. Either way, its reduced Tencents absolute emissions enough to be a 1.5% decrease over 2024, though its still up from 2023.
The new Steam controller seems pleasantly repairable
Chris Person
Niche us SEC reporting rules change could be quite dramatic
...now that the rule is out, I’ll point out it allows registrants to shift to between quarterly reporting and semi-annual reporting – back and forth – every year, by checking a box on the 10K. Since the 10K is usually filed around 3 months into the following fiscal year, registrants will already know what the first quarter of the new fiscal year looks like when they make the election to report semi-annually or quarterly. Which … I mean, Rule 10b5-1 was just changed to add a cooling-off period after amending the plan, you’d think reporting frequency could be at least as rigorous. I’m sure market norms will develop around sudden changes, but, well, it seems to me to be a recipe for abuse.
https://www.businesslawprofessors.com/2026/05/crooked-dice-game/
Sustainability struggling in fast fashion too
It's not just games... it's an everywhere problem.
Guardian staff reporter
Some insane details about a West Virginia data centre
Which plans to include "984 gas and diesel generators" on site. That's... a lot.
We've come a long way from the internet being cat pictures and a series of tubes. The piece in the WV gazette is here.
More Research Needed
Leading internet researchers Jonathan Koomey and Eric Masanet have a new paper out describing the kinds of research needed to more fully understand the societal impact of AI systems as they are actually deployed.
https://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/8130
Cutting Edge Tech
We'll end with some cool, encouraging developments in cutting-edge tech!
I don’t quite understand the physics of this first one, but if optical processing becomes a real commercial product it seems like it could solve a lot of the current problems we're having with compute energy demands. But then again... could it also lead us into the Jevons paradox where efficiency increases demand? I am not qualified to answer such a question.
It also looks like at least one company has developed a superconducting electric motor now – harnessing the incredible properties of supercooled materials. There 's a suggestion that these might be particularly suitable for future electrified aviation, with way more power efficiency than existing electric motors (which are already impressive enough!) and a use-case that does seem to fit the way they operate. Imagine getting on a long haul flight that is nearly silent because it runs off batteries and electric motors – that would sure make the trip a lot comfier!
And lastly, this is not new news, but I came across these tidal power generating kites which have been deployed in the Faeroe Islands, and seem to have a lot of potential. Watch the video for some sweeping, dramatic scenes of the gorgeous Faeroe's!
That's all for now – thanks for reading.