Gaia

For the Trees: Envisioning Sustainable Futures Through Ecomodded Minecraft

This extended abstract, presented at DiGRA 2026, examines the authors' use of "ecomodding" to transform Minecraft into a site of ecological reflection and critique.

• The project hosted a multiplayer Minecraft server powered entirely by solar energy, running publicly for ten weeks in summer 2025, with a second phase planned for 2026 as part of debates on carbon-neutral game design and the energy footprint of online play.
• The 2025 modpack Gaia's Riddle introduced pollution, extreme weather, temperature extremes, and resource scarcity, and players largely adopted an ecomodernist, anthropocentric stance, treating nature as hostile and sheltering in a technologically sustained enclave while surrounding biomes deteriorated.
• Players formed strong communal bonds, cooperative groups, and negotiated shared resources, and these social connections continued in conversation when the solar battery depleted and the server went offline.