Ecogames

One of the main goals of STRATEGIES is to help game designers and companies develop ‘green activations’ or actual ‘ecogames’. In our project we have a dual definition of such games:

  1. Games that are made, distributed and played in such a way that they have the least possible ecological footprint. This definition is in line with Benjamin Abraham’s argument in his book Digital Games After Climate Change (Palgrave 2022):

    “What is essential for the truly ecological game, I argue, is acknowledging and actively reducing the harms involved in its own creation. This means becoming aware of the carbon emissions embedded in it through the game development process, the energy demands involved in getting it into players hands, the energy and emissions it entails from the players who play it, and what it facilitates or encourages in the form of the high-tech manufacturing sector’s insatiable upgrade culture” (p. 17-18).

  2. Games that contribute to the inculcation of sustainability-oriented attitudes and behavior in players. Ecogames can strengthen or even alter the basic dimensions of our experience and ecological identity, that is our knowledge, feeling, imagination and acting with regard to the climate crisis. This definition, which focuses more on game content than resource-efficient production or distribution, is in line with the argument in our edited volume Ecogames: Playful Perspectives on the Climate Crisis (AUP 2024):

    “Digital media [such as ecogames] reveal different aspects, or shades, of the climate crisis, making possible the process of creating and exploring progressive ecological identities through play, which can foster transformation” (p. 26).

While ecogame design and development is rapidly progressing, online resources that make sense of this field, provide orientation as well as an academic foundation for choosing and utilizing ecogames for a variety of purposes are still scarce.

A steadily expanding comparative analysis of ecogames, digital and analogue, digital mods, and table-top role-playing games is part of our Green Mediography, an annotated online repository of ‘green media’ case studies already or to be used in environmental communication, grassroots eco-practices and climate action/activism.

With the climate crisis and its repercussions becoming more and more tangible, games are increasingly participating in the production, circulation, and interrogation of environmental literacy, using both explicit and implicit ways of framing the crisis. Whether they are providing new spaces to imagine and practice alternative forms of living, or reproducing ecomodernist fantasies, games as well as player cultures are increasingly tuned in to the most pressing environmental concerns.

This definitive open-access anthology brings together chapters by a diverse group of established and emerging authors to reflect and build upon a growing body of scholarship that explores the design, impact, and cultural context of ecogames. The book comprises four thematic sections, a) Today’s Challenges: Games for Change, b) Future Worlds: New Imaginaries, c) The Nonhuman Turn, and d) Critical Metagaming Practices. Each section explores different aspects of ecocritical engagement in and through games. As a result, the book’s comprehensive scope covers a variety of angles, methodologies, and case studies, significantly expanding the field of green media studies.