Why we're turning our attention to gaming and the climate crisis Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Why we're turning our attention to gaming and the climate crisis A beginning. Feature by Robert Purchese Senior Staff Writer Updated on 13 Oct 2021 79 comments I think I've always suspected that something happens behind the TV when I download a game or a patch, or I play online, but I've never seriously stopped to think about what. And when I say behind the TV, I don't mean actually behind the TV, I mean on the internet. I know that data gets piped out and sent back, because that's how I download the files to play games, but beyond that, I don't really know what's truly taking place. I've never needed to think about it before. Except recently, I began wondering. I am worried about the climate emergency and I was looking at my life and thinking about the things I do and the effect they have on our world. And I looked at gaming and I didn't know. It seemed quite clean. There's no packaging waste in the way there once was because I download most of my games, and none of my machines cause noticeable spikes on my electricity smart meter, not like my shower does. But then there was this niggling thought that perhaps it wasn't as clean as I wanted it to be. Somewhere in my mind I knew it had to do with data centres, and I'd heard some pretty bad things about how much power they consumed. 'Why don't we know more about this?' I wondered. But as I looked around, I couldn't find the information I needed. At around the same time, my fellow Eurogamer writer Chris Tapsell came to me with similar thoughts of his own. He'd been alarmed by the IPCC report on climate change and wanted to look more closely at what the games industry was doing to improve. So, we decided to work together. We decided to pool our resources and find the answers we readily couldn't. What does it cost the environment when you download a game? Today, we're publishing our answer. In our report - What does gaming's all-digital future mean for the climate crisis? - we introduce the problem, look in depth at how the industry is handling it, and then consider our collective role in the equation and what to do next. The report will be supplemented tomorrow by a piece summarising what we learned. It's been a lot of work, and we've spoken to many people and read many papers while putting together our report. But we believe these are the issues we should be talking about, and writing about, more, and we hope that in providing you with a clearer picture of them, we can help stimulate those conversations. Time is running out. But the topic of sustainability and video games is bigger than we could ever fit in one report (which is pretty large as it is), so I want to assure you that we want to do more. The climate emergency is too urgent for us to look away now. Consider this, then, a beginning. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More Features Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Feature What games get wrong about horses And what they could do about it. 28 Feature Shout out to all the Overwatch supports - where would we be without you? Merci. 55 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 4 Genshin Impact Path of Gleaming Jade dates, login event rewards Including other anniversary rewards and how to claim them. Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store