Blog: Sustainability in the Games Industry, Why Gaming’s Carbon Footprint Matters?

3 Billion Gamers, Countless Servers, Time to Rethink Gaming’s Climate Role

Imagine if even 10% of gamers took small steps towards sustainability, how much could we save?

Everyone is needed for fighting against climate change, and the European Union requires that all large and all listed companies have to report corporate sustainability reports. Gaming industry also has a part in that, and in fact, it holds unique potential to lead in sustainability reporting. Why? Because game developers and platforms can track emissions and energy consumption with exceptional precision. Combine that with the fact that there are 3 billion gamers worldwide, so the industry’s reach is both massive and influential.

What the Data Shows in the Industry

At first glance, one might think that playing a game on a PC for 10 hours per week does not contribute so much to global carbon emissions, but actually Microsoft has calculated the contribution of that. According to Microsoft, if one plays for 10 hours per week, and the game has, for example, 80 000 weekly active users, then the emissions could be almost 5000 metric tonnes CO2 annually. In general, a typical passenger vehicle emits 4,6 metric tons of CO2 per year. To compare the numbers, there are 200 million people playing Candy Crush every month. The environmental impact is more significant than it seems.

According to mobile gaming company Rovio’s sustainability report 2023, over 90% of their emissions come from their value chain - areas that the company does not have direct control over. This highlights a broader issue in the industry.

Secondly, one of the challenges is that not all the suppliers in the gaming business provide the necessary emissions data yet.

Moreover, according to Sustainable Games Alliance, the majority of gamers believe that the gaming industry has a responsibility to address its own emissions.

What Could the Gaming Companies Do?

One approach in the future could be to develop games to consume less electricity, because people are going to play games anyway. For example, a mobile game designed to use 10% less battery would mean fewer phone charges, leading to lower overall energy consumption. However, this seems to be quite a new idea still in the business, because the industry has prioritized entertainment, gameplay, and making great games.

Second approach could be to raise environmental awareness. Games can be powerful tools for education. The game platforms could be used for raising awareness, or gaming companies could create more games about the topic.

TIGA (The Independent Game Developer’s Association) has also highlighted the issue of digital waste, which refers to the energy consumed by unused data. Such as, discarded games continue to use the server space. Taking care of the life cycle of the game is the key. Moreover, this is a topic, which everyone can think about, and how much energy one uses for storing old photos, emails, videos, files…

Gaming consoles leave an environmental impact as well, and they can be developed. Sony has made improvements for their PlayStation consoles and, for instance, PlayStation 5 console consumes approximately 80% less power for suspend than PlayStation 4 console. These are essential improvements for reducing energy consumption of gaming at home.

Direct methods for reducing the carbon footprint of the companies could be to recycle all the equipment that the gaming company workers use, and optimizing the energy usage at the office.

To my mind, to fight against climate change, everyone and every possible action is needed across all industries.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, have you ever thought about sustainability while playing games? Let's discuss in the comments!