studylib.net Video Games Are Part Of Climate Change, Too Since early last year, the pandemic has made headlines more than the climate crisis as the biggest existential threat in the world. However, while we’ve been busy adapting to the isolation, the problem of our warming planet has remained out of the news headlines and for a good reason. Nonetheless, scientists have noticed the lockdown instigated a reduction in carbon emissions, although there’s a potential dark side coming from China and other countries that are seeking to compensate for lost ground. Far from stopping the climate crisis, the lockdown might just be what we need to pause our carbon emissions but at different rates and times across the globe. Unfortunately, once the world resumes its state of normalcy, we might have only had a decade to stop the planet from catastrophically overheating and destroying our whole species. Even worse, while video games might not seem related to the climate crisis, they cause the planet more harm than most people imagine. Fortunately, playing casino online doesn’t carry the same catastrophic effects that most video games come with. While the lockdown stopped game makers from making long-haul flights all over the world, it’s also impacting the carbon footprint of the industry’s developers. That’s because last year’s travel restrictions forced gaming event organizers to creatively think of how some aspects of their events might happen digitally. However, while the face-to-face networking of physical events remains unmatched, the environmental benefits of remote events have been worth it. The major problem with physical video gaming conferences lies in the constant need for transportation using airplanes and storage of hard data for both game development and aviation. Unfortunately, the carbon footprint on the impact of video game players to the carbon footprint in game development and distribution remains under-researched. However, game developers like Microsoft and Sony have pledged to adopt carbon-neutral game development techniques, but things aren’t looking that promising. London-based gaming studio Space Ape Games has started assessing ways to reduce its carbon footprint that includes 177+ tons on flights, 47.8 tons for commutes, 376.8 tons for cloud data storage, and 51.7 tons in purchasing office devices. However, despite the company’s impressive work which includes working with other studios to cut down the carbon footprint, their achievements come with caveats. Cloud computing is a major contributor to the carbon footprint, although many gaming organizations are still using it to date. That means running video games carries a significant ecological cost, says computer researcher Jonathan Koomey after researching the carbon footprint of video game contribution and consoles’ energy use. According to Koomey, a game’s power consumption from PCs and consoles is dictated by the level of graphical fidelity, structure, and action. That means whichever path you choose can affect climate change. That shows that game makers desperately need measures to ensure the development of carbon-neutral titles for infrastructural sustainability to be taken seriously. However, that might be wishful thinking unless studios and game makers start taking consistent steps towards environmental sustainability. Google’s efforts towards ushering in an environmental gaming era have been commendable thanks to their great commitment to renewable energy, although companies like Microsoft have remained inconsistent. Microsoft’s efforts have also remained contradictory as it continues funding climate change deniers and a group in the gas and oil industry. However, the most obvious way that game makers might be able to tackle climate change is using the games themselves.
