There has been stiff backlash against NFTs in video games since they first started popping up. In general, both gamers as well as industry professionals have disapproved blockchain implementations in video games, mostly over concerns over the environmental impact that the technology has.
But NFTs aside, the video game industry is often left out when we talk about industries that have a major impact on the environment. However, some in the industry have been taking steps to ensure that the industry goes greener.
With indie development growing more commonplace these days, the number of video games coming out every month is higher than ever. And as the industry grows, so does its impact on society. While indie studios are typically a risky bet for investments, parts of the cohort have attracted interest, especially NFT games in 2021. Given the impact the underlying technology has had on the environment, we felt it would be apt to more closely examine the entire video game industry’s impact.
Climate Replay is an organization started a little over a year ago by a group in the video game industry who are doing what they can to give back to the planet. From organizing game jams with an environmental twist to firmly advocating against NFTs in video games, they’re using their experience in the industry to bring both gamers and developers together to be more environmentally conscious.
As the NFT boom fades, major gaming companies slow their crypto plans
To get a better idea of where the video game industry stands right now in its environmental efforts, as well as the environmental impact of the increase of indie development, we spoke to Cory Scheviak and Mariana Salimena of Climate Replay.
(Editor’s note: The answers have been edited for length and clarity.)
A 1-Up for the planet?
Climate change is one of the biggest crises we’re facing today. Discounting NFTs and blockchain, how severe has the video game industry’s impact been on the climate? Has the carbon footprint of game development been mostly overlooked?
Salimena: It’s very important for us to remember that the games industry involves a lot of steps. We tend to get very focused on things like the players and the studios, but we have a whole pipeline that goes from the extraction of the materials, production of physical hardware and games. The consumption of energy is probably one of the most significant, most impactful steps in this process. It’s both player devices and server hosting. It also differs a lot based on the kind of game that you’re playing and the device that you’re using.
Scheviak: I think it’s an interesting question [if the carbon footprint has been overlooked]. It’s such an intersectional industry, like Mariana said. So I think the video game industry itself doesn’t receive as much criticism or attention in terms of climate impact as other industries do. But the video game industry does touch all of them, because it does have all these plastics and fossil fuels and electronic waste.
But is it overlooked? It’s hard to say that this one industry is a problem, because it’s just one industry out of many that uses all of these pieces. And there is an aspect of it feeling somewhat invisible to consumers, like people don’t think as much about video games causing climate change. Because games are available digitally these days, you don’t even feel like you’re consuming energy. But that’s similar to watching Netflix or watching TV, and many other tech industries where a lot happens behind the scenes — it’s very invisible. So in that sense, a lot is probably overlooked in general.
Would you say there’s a quick fix for the video game industry to go green? Is the industry open to changing the way they do things or has it been an uphill battle to implement effective change?
Scheviak: We would all love a silver-bullet solution to climate. But as with everything, that’s rarely the case. I would say all industries are actually facing an uphill battle right now against economic and social forces. Most people these days really recognize the severity of the climate crisis and really want something to happen. Companies, especially, are noticing that their consumers are at risk. So even from a business perspective, it makes sense to act. However, short-term profits and long-term profits don’t always work together. The video game industry is no exception to all of this.
There are a lot of actions that can be taken in the short term, everything from carbon offsets, even though those are also problematic in some ways, to going renewable if possible. And then there are many more complex solutions as you go deeper. But that’s a long process and often involve changes to supply chains and government processes. Of course, some platforms consume less than others, like mobile and portable hardware consume a lot less energy and take a lot less processing power.
So if you want to make a game, and you’re concerned about how much energy it draws, making it just for mobile, for instance, is one way of making it consume less overall. Of course, that has its trade-offs, especially as a game designer, because then you’re designing a mobile game, not something for all platforms. So that’s something to keep in mind.
There is a way to provide eco-options to people. For instance, dark modes on websites, or eco-features in games that allow people to choose the way that they want to play. And you’re making them aware that they have the choice. So if they really want a super high-definition gaming experience, that’s an option, but if they’re okay with sacrificing a bit of visual fidelity in exchange for consuming less energy, then that becomes an option. In most games right now, that’s not even an option. That is one way of really giving players the power.
Energy labeling for games is a very interesting one. Right now we don’t really have a way of saying whether a game performs very well and consumes less energy versus one that doesn’t. Could we have energy labels on games that say this game consumes not as much energy as others? That would also factor into consumers’ decisions.
We live in an era where the indie game market is bigger than ever. Is there a way to measure the climate impact that the increase in indie development has had?
Salimena: It’s really difficult to do it right now because of the lack of data. When we talk about indie development, it’s still a bit of a gray zone. What is an indie studio? Because it could be a solo developer working from their home, or it could be a studio with up to 50 people. That already creates a very huge disparity.
One thing is for sure: Indie game studios have far less funding than big studios, so they can’t afford to do things like, for example, renewable energy farms. But to measure their impact, a lot of data would need to be collated, like how many indie studios there are, and how many indie games were released. But then it would still fall in the gray zone a bit. You don’t know how many developers there were, how long it has been in development. I think it’s really, really hard to measure their impact.
I think it’s possible that these platforms [Steam, Itch.io and similar] could do something like when you release a game, you fill out a simple form that covers how many people worked on it, what kind of hardware was used for development or even the game engine. I think there are ways to measure the impact, but it would be difficult to mobilize such a scattered audience.
Scheviak: I think Space Ape is a really interesting company to use as an example here, because they started to measure their own footprint. But while they were doing that, they said, “We’ve now measured our footprint, what can we do? Well, we know how many players play our games, we know how much energy it consumes. So we’re going to offset more than we consume.”
And they just decided to do that. All that was really needed was to measure the impact that you’ve had to be able to do that. Also, that’s very easy for an indie studio to just decide to do and then do it. When we talk about the impact of indie development, indies actually have a bit more freedom than big studios do in terms of making sudden changes like that in terms of offsetting and going renewable.
It’s important to be transparent that downloading games is quite energy intensive, both for your computer and the data servers that they’re on. Storing things is not free and email consumes energy. These massive 100-gigabyte games consume a lot of energy. It’s very easy to just click a download button and suddenly have it on your computer, but I think transparency, making people aware and being honest about the impact, that’s a huge first step.
To NFT or not to NFT
Ubisoft Quartz (Ubisoft’s NFT offering) went with proof-of-stake blockchain Tezos, stating it’s better for the environment than other options, and that they’re trying to offset their emissions in other ways as well. Do you think that kind of model would work, or is it still better to just eschew NFTs in video games entirely?
Salimena: I think any sort of elevated activity like cryptocurrencies and blockchains are always directly proportional — they’re always going to generate a spike in emissions. I think we are already very far in the climate crisis. At this moment, I think the initiatives should be more about not further [causing a negative impact] instead of using a technology that is by nature impactful. Even when you use different forms of consensus, like proof of stake, it’s better [than proof of work], but it’s more apt to say it’s less worse.
You can offset your emissions, but you’re still willingly choosing to do something that is going to generate a lot of negative impact, and then undo a little bit of it. So from our perspective, it’s better to just find alternatives. Find out what about blockchain technology is appealing and try to find an alternative to it.
I think it’s not only a problem environmentally speaking; that’s just the problem that we see. But there are a lot of problems and risks with the philosophy of it. At the core of the idea, there are a lot of problematic issues and risks not only for game studios but also for society — all the risks that come with decentralized systems such as lack of governance or lack of security. But that’s an aside, and it’s hard to say it’s deliberately bad or good.
Speaking of the environment, we can say for sure that this is very negatively impactful.
Scheviak: Yes, proof of stake is, technologically, a lot less wasteful than proof of work. But both systems are part of this sort of mindset, like Mariana said, and I think the value of one is not just the monetary value, it is the value representing this entire system, which includes a lot of proof of work. So I don’t think you can fully look at it and say the impact of proof of stake is just this number, because it’s not. It includes the entire system.
Salimena: These networks are interdependent, so they can’t exist alone. It’s very common that people will bring up new tokens and blockchains and say this one is completely good and everything, but their underlying mechanisms depend a bit on the big consolidated ones, like block, Bitcoin and Ethereum. So it’s very difficult to isolate it.
Leveling up Climate Replay
You turned one in April this year. Have you progressed as you’d expected to? What were the year-one milestones, and how many have you met?
Scheviak: It’s really interesting to think about milestones, because the expectations changed throughout the year. Of course, the original goal was just building this community to make a difference together. So size was not really the goal — we didn’t have any expectations of how big we wanted to grow or how much we wanted to accomplish. It was really a way of finding out the best ways to inspire people and involve them. Climate Replay’s mission and the direction we’ve gone has been shaped by the people that have joined, because it’s really been about figuring out what people need to create action.
So it became this funnel of taking all of this input and then figuring out where it takes us. We had a lot of ideas at the start — we had charity livestreams, building a community, game jams, creating content, climate quests and Climate Cafes blog, and teaching people. We also tried our hand at research, which is how we ended up with the NFT Guide. I think the success of the guide really showed us that there is a huge appetite for knowledge about the impact of the game industry, and how it intersects with the climate crisis. As far as milestones, I would say the milestone of figuring out what we want Climate Replay to become has been met.
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