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In September 2019, the Playing for the Planet Alliance was founded with the aim of encouraging video games businesses to take action on the environment.
Five years on from its foundation, and five years ahead of the 2030 deadline to reduce emissions to restrict global temperature increases to 1.5°C, we’ve commissioned games industry analyst George Osborn to explore how the Alliance has performed against the aims it has set itself.
In the first of a three part series, George explores how Playing for the Planet has worked to reach players through their favourite games via the evolution of The Green Game Jam.
One of the main goals of the Playing for the Planet Alliance was to reach the billions of people who play video games within the games they play to influence them to take positive action on the climate.
Since 2019, the Alliance has demonstrated the potential of video games as a channel for climate action with its members successfully reaching over a billion players with climate messages, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for species under threat and supporting the planting of hundreds of millions of trees.
It has even inspired leading video games to embed climate action themes into their games, with DICE Award nominee Monument Valley III delivering a thoughtful message on the impact of climate change to its players.
But how has the Alliance delivered these results? The answer is that it created an annual vehicle for climate action through content in the form of its Green Game Jam to provide businesses with a consistent opportunity to participate in campaigns.
This has allowed the event to grow and evolve, enabling it to reach more players through increased participation by video games businesses - inspiring action in the process.
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The games industry is an extraordinarily creative sector. Hundreds of thousands of people work for thousands of games businesses across the world, reaching an extraordinary 3.4bn people worldwide according to market research firm Newzoo.
But making games is tough. Turning compelling ideas for games into capably crafted interactive entertainment is a challenging feat of creativity and engineering. Businesses must therefore take tough decisions about which games they make, what resources they put into supporting releases and how - in many cases - to keep players engaged long after a game launches.
The Green Game Jam has proven to be one of the Alliance’s major success stories because it has created a regular vehicle for climate action which aligns with the games industry’s production processes.
The Jam, which encourages video games businesses to create game content around a climate theme, has evolved from a mobile only test event in 2020 to an annual competition which receives dozens of submissions each year from games businesses across the world.
By turning the Green Game Jam into a consistent part of the industry calendar, Alliance members and other industry businesses have been able to plan climate action into their content calendars - unlocking the creativity of their teams and reaching their audience in the process.
The result has been increasing uptake and impact from companies participating in the Jam. In 2024’s Jam alone, 49 leading video games such as Subway Surfers, Pokemon Go, PUBG Mobile, Empires & Puzzles and Pac-Man Mobile reached 200m people with a campaign themed around encouraging a single positive action to support the environment.
It has also led to the creation of outstanding cultural content capable of cutting through in the wider cultural conversation.
For example, Ubisoft’s Rider’s Republic’s wildfire activation in 2022’s Green Game Jam was praised widely within the media for its innovative exploration of the potential impact of forest fires within its world - demonstrating the immense power of games as a channel for communicating ideas compellingly.
And by ensuring that the spirit behind the Green Game Jam remains collaborative rather than competitive, we have demonstrated that it is possible to encourage companies to share a goal while maintaining their unique view on the world.
While The Green Game Jam has proven to be an effective vehicle for climate action, it has also evolved in a number of meaningful ways to increase its effectiveness.
First, each Jam now features a creative thematic hook which both inspires thoughtful content creation from Alliance members and aligns to a clear goal.
The inaugural Green Game Jam in 2020 took place without a specific theme or goal for members to aim for. While the experimental activity was inspirational, it was also unfocused and diffuse.
By modifying the Green Game Jam to become objective driven through establishing a thematic topic to explore (e.g. raising awareness of issues affecting wildlife in the Amazon, Himalayas and Western Indian Ocean) and a tangible goal to achieve (e.g. raising money to support wildlife within those ecosystems), it has become easier for companies to create content ideas for the Jam - increasing participation and the effectiveness of campaigns.
Second, the Jam has been refined to give businesses more time and space to work on activations as part of a concerted effort to widen participation.
Since its inception, the Green Game Jam has attracted more interest and participation from mobile games businesses because its “seasonal” nature fits with the industry’s games as a service model. Businesses need ideas for new ways to engage players each year, meaning that the Jam offers them a consistent content ‘beat’ to add to their production flows.
But mobile games companies still need plenty of time to come up with great ideas and turn them into in-game experiences. And developers of PC and console games need even longer to add climate content to their games in line with the Jam - a challenge that has proven difficult to overcome during the course of the Jam.
By making the Green Game Jam a consistent part of the industry’s calendar and commencing communications about the event every year, the Alliance has made it simpler for businesses to plan around the event and ensure it is a regular part of their content calendar. This has supported uptake and encouraged regular participation from games business.
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Finally, the Green Game Jam has become a valuable part of the Alliance’s effort to celebrate great ideas, best practice and inspirational individuals within its movement.
The emergence of the annual Green Game Jam Awards has given considerable credibility to the best activations within each event, with different prizes such as the UNEP Award, the Player’s Choice Award and the Media’s Choice Award encouraging all parts of the movement to celebrate best practice.
Importantly, the Awards have also evolved into a natural moment to celebrate the wider, quieter work of the Alliance that may otherwise have gone unrecognised.
In November 2024, the Alliance ran its first wider Green Games Awards to celebrate both the winners of the Green Game Jam and the participants driving meaningful change behind the scenes within the industry.
Hosted by Shay Thompson, the expanded awards saw businesses like Ubisoft celebrated for its deployment of green technology in For Honor and Mojang Studios being named as a change maker for its work in Minecraft. Jude Ower from PlayMob and Jennifer Estaris from ustwo games were both celebrated for their importance in acting as champions of the movement.
This has helped the Green Game Jam to support the celebration of businesses and individuals who may not be able to participate in the main campaign - increasing its importance to the Alliance as a whole.
The Green Game Jam has become an effective vehicle for reaching hundreds of millions of players each year with climate messages and encouraging action.
But its success is also testament to the importance of adopting an iterative, inclusive approach to campaigning which seeks to encourage as many individuals and businesses to participate as possible - while still maintaining a focus on one action point.
The Jam will need to consider ways it can evolve to support other sectors, including the console and PC industry or the burgeoning user generated content space in games like Fortnite and Roblox.
However, it remains a strong foundation for meaningful action from industry - making it a powerful pillar of the Alliance’s work.
