How the Gaming Industry can Level up for the Planet

[Music] good afternoon I'm Sam and it's a pleasure to be here I've got a few things I want to talk about and the first thing is that the UN never ever thinks about video gaming and yes it's the most powerful media channel on the planet and so Trista Patterson who's sitting over there and I came up with a concept for the UN to stop thinking quite deeply about the role that the video and gaming industry can play to move this agenda forward and so where we got to is Trista and I co-authored this report called playing for the planet and we've got a few copies down here that outlines what we think the industry can do and so I've

just got about 10 minutes so just to give you some suggestions about what we think might be possible and I think right now things are looking pretty tough and this is a yes and problem where we need to get all hands on deck to make a difference I think 2019 we've seen some extraordinary events that nobody thought were possible so we've had huge hurricanes through the Caribbean we've had a very hot summer in the UK we've had the Amazon and Australia catch fire and we've also had events that are surprising us all so the tipping points that people are fearing from the science are starting to bear fruit and so what happens at Glasgow the climate summit at the end of this year with the commitments from countries will determine whether we on a one point five degree trajectory or not so really the urgency that we're facing is now and so the UN Environment is behind the sustainable development goals and so if we think about the kind of

world that we want without a healthy biosphere so a clean ocean trees etc etc all the other goals are harder to attain so really the environment is what sustains life on Earth and we need to everything we can to deliver on that we're in a tough spot so this is my boss's boss's boss's boss I think Antonio or big Tony and so he says to waste his opportunity would compromise our last best chance to stop runaway climate change we're not only being immoral but it would be suicidal and I think what's interesting is public opinion is ahead of the politics that we have right now and I think industry is stepping up in a way that we didn't think was possible so we've doing been doing a lot behind the scenes with Microsoft and the commitment they made last week is the kind of transformative step up that we need to see everybody makes it's not about being carbon neutral it's not being carbon negative and thinking quite deeply about what you're able to do it so but I think with

this fatalism is a virus that infects people that thinks why should I bother if it looks that bad then let's give up but really my thing is hope is contagious and nothing is inevitable unless we choose it to be and this is why I think the video gaming industry is part in this have the most degree of creativity they inspire people to think differently and they connect and create communities that aren't there so this is why we thought the plane for the planet initiative was something that we could really make a difference on and and in the room I can see Vladimir from crater Mobile please just come in from Green Man and Jake's at the back as well from internal elephant so really this is an initiative with the industry we're facilitating it as the UN so we launched it in September and grid arendelle with Trista works and play more help bring their communities together and the aim

is to really think about how we can more mindful gaming that's authentic with Guinea game play doesn't interrupt fun and allows people to make different choices through that experience and so for us it really is to think about a different type of way of communicating with with people and to really start to get people to decarbonize their platforms as well and so there's some interesting work sports interacted with miles jacobson and something different about package and there's mother Paula's going to think about that so we don't have to have plastic on everything and other commitments assets come through as well and so we've got 21 companies on board already with a combined reach of 97 million and more set to join as well so there's a great pipeline of new talent coming through so bandai namco i think will join soon and it's pac-man's 40th and so I think he'll be donning the green wellies and green gloves and then also some other big platforms are starting to get excited about this as well so what we're looking to do is is

to make it inclusive opportunity for the many run exclusive partnership for the few this is a little film that gives you a sense of what we're about if we have any sound no no sound that knows no bounds from young to old from Brazil to Bangladesh everyone is playing the video game industry wants to play their part in the biggest challenge of our time [Music] to keep our planet beautiful and level up in the battle against climate change to help the UN achieve the global goals by forming a new alliance for action we have no time to lose the future lies in our hands together we

can all play for the planet [Music] great okay so the gaming industry I think has a superpower that is unrivaled whether you're a kid in Nigeria or in New York everybody's playing games and so what I think is fascinating is that if you look at the countries where game players at its highest it's China its India and then we have Indonesia Philippines Vietnam Mexico all on that list these are all locations where development is about to go through a screaming arc and the choices that the children make in those countries will determine our future and so for us we really think it's an interesting opportunity to reach the many not just a few I also think for me in terms of reach attention demographic and revenue

this industry simply doesn't compete and so the way I think about this is the BBC was created as a maths Bulbul caster for the many that was a public service entity and I think the video gaming industry could play that role if it's thought through in the right way also the nudge unit in British government David Halpern and I are thinking about how do we integrate nudges across different platforms so we're doing something called The Little Book of Green nudges for universities so when you're a student you can be thought and taught about how you can make better choices so they become habits as you grow older and we think there's some insight around nudge and behavior change that the video gaming industry can consider particularly for environmental outcomes so the door is open and the way to get involved is quite simple really the first thing is about decarbonizing your platform to think about benchmarking where you are at in energy travel procurement events and operations learn from others supercell Rovio space ape

and supercell a brief or quite deeply about their footprint what they could do differently and then come onboard with the voluntary commitment this is where I think it gets more interesting which is inspiring action through play so we're working with space ape and others about a new game jam looking at live games to see about how we can bring about more mindful play that has an environmental outcome as well and the way we do that is asking three questions that we're going to put together later this week we were talking with Sony about pause and play to kind of save energy and power which they're looking to do and there's other insights about for acquisitions so instead of just chucking your money at Google and Facebook are there ways within which there could be new instances around trees requisition and I also think there's something around gameplay which often projects a

dystopian rather than utopian future and it doesn't have to be like that and there's something about collaboration of a competition and so are there ways within which there can be a more mindful approach to play and the other thing is I think about listen to your community and choose a cause there's a lot of people are very keen on marine litter is a huge problem an e line that I've done some of the most beautiful games like never alone a thinking about a whole load of ocean based games where they're looking to do some give back in that also nature based solutions Microsoft with their billion dollar commitment last week of thinking about what else they can do with that funds to give back in terms of trees mean trees are the best technology we have to deal with climate change they can suck carbon better than anything else and yet we just view them as something that is part of a landscape rather than something that we rely on and so we need to get a trillion trees back in this world and that's what

we're planning to do for the next decade and there's a challenge there for the gaming industry to take on as well I also think for the industry this is a chance to have a different story I feel like the industry is often the doormat for people that wanna kind of wipe their crap on and this is a chance to really show what difference the industry can make and so for me I feel like there are problems within the industry but there's a lot of good stuff that the industry can do if it chooses to and so I do think there's a chance to build a new narrative around this and so I think my question to you is is really that listen this initiative just providing handrails for you to walk along we don't need to tell you where to go what to do but just to give you kind of tips and ideas about what difference that you could make and I think the initiative that that Trista and I have started I would support many people in the room is really for the UN to facilitate rather than own you know

the industry better than we do but we're just setting you out a challenge and an opportunity to give back and make a difference knowing that that's probably what your players want know that's probably what your staff want and know probably that that's what you want otherwise you won't be in the room listening to me go on so I'll leave it there and I just open the floor for any questions if you have them and thank you for giving the opportunity to speak all right questions hi first of all thank you very much this is fascinating we've been doing a lot of research into this over the past year in a bit right and one thing that's been a real struggle is figuring out all the places where these little bits of funding or available because there are actually all kinds of quite interesting little funds that specifically target these kinds of products rarely specifically for games but you can usually kind of wheedle your

way through but one of the resources that we're definitely missing is some kind of centralized place where it's possible to get information about where as possible to get supports about where it's possible to get funding where we can get information to make sure that what we're giving to players in games is correct rather than just passing on our own preconceptions about sustainability is this something you might be able to provide in some way sure I think Trish and I were talking this this afternoon about research and there's an IG da that's going to come together probably led by Google to think about this practice on funding I think in terms of signposting we may be able to offer that we don't have deep pockets on this but we know other people that might do exactly so I think for us this initiatives four months old so it's

still learning to walk and if there's things that would be more useful for us to help you with then then then yeah let us know and we'll see what we can do right any other questions what photo saw hand thanks a lot for that conference I seen the articles a few weeks ago and the main gaming companies on board I've seen also some glaring omissions such as Nintendo I mean is it in the pipe it was it a straight no how would you extend the list of sponsors on that yeah it's a good question Nintendo have a very specific Japanese culture and they do a lot of good work already in their game and I think what they've done particularly with device designers is really very very good I think many people are stepping back either waiting to see what happens next I think that

ESA plays a certain role maybe in some of that hesitation but the years say have seen this is a very positive initiative that they want to come on board I think different people work at different paces and I think for us it's not to dictate how fast you join this is just to say this is happening and you can come when you're ready so we are in discussion with Nintendo now we do think they will join at some point and the idea is to scale this quite rapidly so that it becomes almost like a a normative process within the industry so they're thinking so when a new game is being designed for they've built that in the beginning rather than retrofitting at the end and it just becomes a process that is just natural run something that it's a bit like well I don't know quite what we do with that so that's we're out of that process I just wanted to see an Vladimir can I just put you on the spot just to for you just to describe what you've done in terms of some of your work so we're mainly focusing on using our

live events to sub-layer integrate green ideas and talk about serious topics and the way we look at it we're not the biggest guys in this alliance and we're not the biggest game developers in the industry and we're quite small compared to some of the bigger names but because more we still talk to some 30 million players every year and over the last 10 years we've been in the business with a choir over 400 million players and that's probably billions of minutes so surely on that scale there is space for serious conversation without taking away anything from the entertainment value or core topics of the games so what we're doing we are designing our live events in a way that plays of the environmental themes such as collecting

garbage saving forests in very subtle ways so we're not being obvious with the messaging we're not saying to go hey we're in this alliance now and you should do this but we are raising those topics were living it with with the players to think about and as a closing thought I was I was listening to yours twice now to your presentation I was thinking that since we joined the Alliance the September I actually changed my own ways a little bit I changed my habits which was not the point and it was never the goal of this participation but it just shows that thinking about something really works even if it's not you know obvious call to action or obvious messaging thank you very much and thank you Sam [Applause]

you [Music]