With a secondhand solar panel, a battery and a Raspberry Pi minicomputer, game developer Kara Stone got the server powering her games running for just a few hundred dollars. When people point out that cloudy days could leave the server unpowered and her games inaccessible, Stone says that’s part of the point.
“We can’t expect everything to be constantly available to us 24-7, and it’s OK that things are temporarily up and then down,” Stone said.Â
To further reduce its carbon impact, her next game, Known Mysteries, uses highly compressed video footage to shrink its data footprint. In stark contrast to the ultra-high-definition images found in today’s top-tier games, the visuals are as fuzzy as videos from old Encarta CD encyclopedias. Unlike modern big-budget titles, which often top 100GB, an early version of her game was just 200MB in size — intentionally constrained game design, resulting in lower impact on the climate.
Stone is one of a growing number of game developers taking climate responsibility into their own hands. The gaming industry has been slow to recognize that creating and playing video games consumes a lot of energy and produces emissions — which contributes to climate change. Advocates for more sustainable game development argue video games must reduce their impact on the planet.
And while the video game industry is paying more attention to sustainability, only a portion of gaming companies release climate impact data. Even fewer account for how much energy is used by gamers around the world.
Read more: After Climate Change, What Does a ‘Livable Future’ Look Like?
A cruise liner sinking itself
By conservative estimates, the $184 billion video game industry consumes a similar amount of energy and produces a comparable amount of emissions as the global film industry — or that of the European country of Slovenia, says Australian academic-turned-consultant Ben Abraham. Abraham’s 2020 book, Digital Games After Climate…
Read the full article here