Digital Games After Climate Change

"This is a book every game designer, publisher, and player needs to read. From calculating the footprint of shipping disks to itemizing every toxic metal inside a game console, Abraham paints a detailed portrait of the many ways in which creating and playing games is harmful to our global environment. You will never play a videogame the same way again."- Eric Zimmerman, Game designer & Arts Professor, NYU Game Center. "Abraham provides a sweeping and revealing examination of the material realities underpinning both the production and consumption of digital games. Digital Games After Climate Change is important, engaging, and unlike anything else being written about digital games. This is urgently required reading for anyone with an interest in digital games and saving the planet."- Brendan Keogh, Chief Investigator, Digital Media Research Centre (QUT) & President, Digital Games Research Association of Australia. This book presents the first sustained analysis of the digital game industry's carbon footprint and its role in exacerbating global climate change. Identifying the ways videogames can actually help combat the climate crisis, it argues for the urgency of transitioning to a fully carbon neutral games industry, exploring the challenges and opportunities inherent in this undertaking. Beginning with an analysis of debates around the persuasive power of games, the book argues that real impact can only be achieved by focusing on the material conditions of game production - by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from making, selling, and playing games, as well as the hardware used to play them. Abraham makes a compelling argument that a sustainable games industry is possible, and outlines the actions that everyone can take to reduce the harms that digital games cause to people and planet. Benjamin J. Abraham has spent the past decade researching digital media and videogames sustainability. He was previously a lecturer in digital and social media at the University of Technology Sydney, an affiliate of the Climate Justice Research Centre, and has recently moved on from academia.

Auteur
Benjamin J. Abraham has spent the past decade researching digital media and videogames sustainability. He was previously a lecturer in digital and social media at the University of Technology Sydney, an affiliate of the Climate Justice Research Centre, and has recently moved on from academia.

Résumé

This book presents the first sustained analysis of the digital game industry's carbon footprint and its role in exacerbating global climate change. Identifying the ways videogames can actually help combat the climate crisis, it argues for the urgency of transitioning to a fully carbon neutral games industry, exploring the challenges and opportunities inherent in this undertaking. Beginning with an analysis of debates around the persuasive power of games, the book argues that real impact can only be achieved by focusing on the material conditions of game production by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from making, selling, and playing games, as well as the hardware used to play them. Abraham makes a compelling argument that a sustainable games industry is possible, and outlines the actions that everyone can take to reduce the harms that digital games cause to people and planet.

Contenu

Chapter 1. Why Games and Climate Change?.- Chapter 2. How can games save the world?.- Chapter 3. What is an ecological game?.- Chapter 4. How much energy does it take to make a videogame.- Chapter 5. The carbon footprint of games distribution.- Chapter 6. The carbon footprint of playing games.- Chapter 7. The Periodic Table of Torture.- Chapter 8. Where to from here?.