London (28 June 2023): Today seven studios were crowned winners of the 2023 Green Game Jam, with Trailmix’s Love & Pies, Supercell’s Boom Beach, and Wooga’s June’s Journey among those that took home Awards from the ceremony held in London.
The Green Game Jam is an annual event organized by the Playing for the Planet Alliance, where gaming studios are challenged to implement 'green activations' into their games. With some studios yet to go live with their activations, the Jam has already reached more than 85 million gamers, 280,000 players have voted in the Player’s Choice Award and $600,000 has so far been raised to support this year’s wildlife theme.
Sam Barratt, Chief of Youth, Education and Advocacy at UN Environment Programme, said: “We’ve been really impressed by the quality of this year’s nominations and the spirit that all of the studios have brought. It’s also great to see more studios starting to add green activations permanently in their games, which has always been the long-term vision of the Jam."
All of the nominations can be seen here. The winners are as follows:
Trailmix won the “Google’s Choice Award” for their game Love & Pies, which educated players on the Harlequin Toad. Anissa Nehls, Senior Marketing Manager of Trailmix said: “We're so thrilled to have won an award in this year's Green Game Jam! Participating in this incredible event for the first time with Trailmix was an absolute honor, and we couldn't have done it without our amazing community of players!”
Supercell won two awards for their activation in “Boom Beach” in partnership with the Sea Turtle Conservancy and Youtube creators Cosmic Duo. Community Manager, Nuno Susa of Supercell said, “We’re so excited to win these two awards for a campaign we have loved building together with our Creators, community and fantastic conservation partner. We should keep on using games as a platform to raise awareness and to show the world that fun and making a difference can go hand in hand.”
Urška Leskovar, Product Manager at Outfit7 said: “We all carry responsibilities for our shared planet and if we can make a difference, that’s something to be proud of, we’re delighted to win this award.”
Director of Communications for Wooga, Maike Steinweller said: “Each year the team puts a lot of love and hard work into our Green Game Jam activations. Getting this love back via two awards this year is truly amazing and makes us super proud. We’re especially thankful for our players who again wholeheartedly embraced our activation, this year with a focus on the fascinating snow leopards, and helped us win the Player’s Choice Award already for the third year in a row. What an achievement!”
Yumiko Nishi, Senior Director, Corporate Development of Bandai Namco Entertainment America said: “We are deeply honored to accept this special award, a symbol of the collective effort and growing passion across the Green Game Jam community and the gaming industry. Our shared commitment inspires environmental awareness and change among all our fans with particular attention on the youth and the next generation of gamers. This award is not ours alone but belongs to every devoted fan who has supported our mission along this path.”
The theme was decided with the support of Gautam Shah, founder of Internet of Elephants who worked to curate a series of workshops with leading experts in February this year, where game designers came to learn about the species and how games can be harnessed for impact. Since 1970, 69% of global wildlife has been lost.
To address this, some 41 games entered to generate awareness and action from their gamers for three key species and their homes, which included the Manta Ray (the Western Indian Ocean), Snow Leopard (the Himalayas) and the Harlequin Toad (in the Amazon).
Shah said: “For too long, wildlife storytelling has been limited to just wildlife documentaries, which often do not reach enough people. It is absolutely critical that we find new channels to engage larger, younger, and more digitally focused audiences. We’ve been really impressed by the nominations in the wildlife category and June’s Journey was a deserved winner.”
The Jam was supported by Milkywire, who built a bridge to conservation charities that were in need of funds to support these species and Google who sponsored the Jam for the first time in 2023 with the Awards being made from 100% recycled plastic materials.
About the Playing for the Planet Alliance
The Playing for the Planet Alliance was launched in 2019 during the Climate Summit at UN Headquarters in New York. In joining the Alliance, members have made commitments ranging from integrating green activations in games, reducing their emissions and supporting the global environmental agenda through initiatives ranging from planting millions of trees to reducing plastic in their products.
About the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
UNEP is the leading global voice on the environment. It provides leadership and encourages partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.
For more information, please contact:
Sam Barratt, UNEP on sam.barratt@un.org
