How Games Could Boost Environmental Awareness

By this point in the 2010s we’ve achieved something very important in the ongoing struggle to preserve our environment and maintain a healthy climate: conservation and clean energy are cool. This an be attributed to changing attitudes toward climate change, major projects detailing the dangers in accessible ways, or even entrepreneurs and tech leaders like Elon Musk – who, for all his faults and quirks, has undeniably made science cool again for a whole new generation. The fact of the matter is that young people, from millennials on down, understand and prioritize climate change.

Even so, the struggle for further awareness can’t be abandoned. It’s always important for there to be new ways to make more people care about our environment and by extension what can happen to it if we aren’t, as a species and society, more careful. In this piece, we want to briefly explore how video games could play a role in this fight.

Open World Environments With Eco-Elements

This is a vague notion, but one that could have exceptional power over generations of gamers. A game like Far Cry: Primal comes to mind. This is an adventure game set in something resembling a prehistoric world, in which you play as a character whose enemies are wild beasts and roving tribes. Granted, battling nature isn’t exactly the idea here, but it’s the detail with which the natural world is rendered that stands out. A similar game in which your job is to live off of natural resources and preserve an environment that functions as your home could instill a strong message of conservation. It may sound specific, but it’s really not a far cry (no pun intended) from some existing open world games.

Themed Games With Natural Wonders

One of the most popular gaming genres in the world these days is that of casino and slot games, which exist online and on mobile devices. And when you look at some of the free games that are available even for those who don’t like casino betting, you may notice a somewhat surprising prevalence of animated nature. Themes are very important in games like these, because otherwise they’d all be the same, and among these themes are the Nile River, the New World and the search for El Dorado, “Jungle Spirit,” and the mythical Earthly paradise of Shangri-La. If these themes were rendered more realistically, and similar themes were put into place in additional games, it would consistently keep the beauty of nature in front of millions upon millions of players – which can only be a good thing.

Plague, Inc.-Like Games About Climate Change

Plague, Inc. is a game, for those who aren’t familiar, that actually challenges players to destroy the human race. It’s not as grisly as it sounds, though it is a little disturbing. The idea is to invent your own disease and then adjust to mankind’s defensive efforts, helping the disease spread and mutate until you wipe out the population. It actually has a significant following, and has had for years, which makes us wonder if a game that’s essentially the inverse, with a climate change focus, might succeed. Perhaps there are games like this out there, but none have hit it big yet. If a major developer, or even the folks behind Plague, Inc., made an identical game in which you had to adjust environmental protection efforts to combat global warming, it could get a lot of people thinking about this real world struggle.

A New Wave Of VR Experiences

Back in 2016, Salon wrote an article about a new wave of VR eco-games aiming to save the planet. That was probably a slightly ambitious introduction, but it’s an idea that’s still interesting now that we’re a few years into VR and it’s become more popular (and frankly just better). And the idea isn’t just about some of the things discussed above, such as themes and gameplay meant to raise awareness. Actually, it’s about practical benefits in some cases. For instance, the game Doom Prepper Sailors actually involved players controlling remote, 3D printed mini-boats, sailing around waterways competing to see who could identify the most contamination – with the data of what they find being sent to an organization that can actually go clean it up. That’s just one example but it has to get you excited about the potential of VR in eco-friendly gaming.