Essay by Eric Worrall
Imagine content so tedious that watching other people play computer games can increase viewer interest.
Here’s how the gaming industry can shape perspectives on climate change
Dec 21, 2022
- The gaming industry is creating more games designed to educate players on the threats posed by climate change.
- While video games can encourage behavioural change among gamers, they can also create a false impression of easy fixes, research has found.
- The difficulty lies in visually representing the gradual, incremental nature of the problem, which is largely caused by an invisible gas, developers say.
The $200-billion gaming industry is increasingly featuring the climate crisis, but it’s just as likely to lead to harms as gains.
…
Platforms like YouTube and Twitch have encouraged some climate researchers to experiment with streaming to attract viewers, but with mixed results.
In 2018, Henri Drake, then a doctoral student in physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, started the channel ClimateFortnite to stream the popular video game Fortnite on Twitch. As he played, guests spoke about politics and the environment.
Several major publications covered the channel, but Drake shut it down after a few months.
ClimateFortnite went “predictably viral,” Drake said in an email. But he said the format was not an effective way to talk about science due to the game’s fast pace and the focus required to be effective.
An attempt to pivot to games like Eco and Civilisation VI, which were better for climate-based discussions, came at the cost of less engagement from viewers, he said.
“These games are excellent and effective at communicating both the problem of climate change (and, crucially, its solutions) but they unfortunately are not very appealing for live-streaming,” Drake said.
…
Read more: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/12/gaming-industry-climate-change-games-environment/
The climate researchers could be onto something, but I’m not sure computer games are the solution they are looking for. They need to find an online activity which engages viewer interest, but does not tax them intellectually to such an extent they can no longer simultaneously discuss the climate crisis.
Real porn and climate porn?
So, it’ll be computer games within computer games?
Discussing politics and the environment whilst playing an online fantasy game.
Seems about right, the west is living in political fantasy land at the moment anyway.
Is this Orwellian level streaming of propaganda?
Are they eventually going to go to the Clockwork Orange level, where the propaganda subjects will have their heads restrained to only view the screen and there are clamps to hold the eyelids open?
Do you get bonus points if you make hockey sticks?
Do hockey sticks give you super powers?
Nothing like scaring children to make crazies feel good about themselves
“The climate researchers could be onto something, but I’m not sure computer games are the solution they are looking for. They need to find an online activity which engages viewer interest, but does not tax them intellectually to such an extent they can no longer simultaneously discuss the climate crisis.”
Eric Worrall
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For God’s sake please stop buying into the bullshit. There isn’t a climate crisis. Stop making suggestions about what climate science needs to do in order to complete their objectives.
I remember there used to be a cartoon called “Captain Planet and the Planeteers” to try and engage kids to save the environment.
It didn’t last long.
Steve the article is marked “climate propaganda” and “ridiculae”. I was mocking them.
“… problem of climate change (and, crucially, its solutions) but they unfortunately are not very appealing for live-streaming,” Drake said.”
They’re not very appealing for dead-streaming in the scientific literature, either. Are they unaware that this is the perfect metaphor for putting lipstick on a pig? Here’s an idea. Show an actual proof for the belief in man-made CO2 causing global warming.
“… the perfect metaphor for putting lipstick on a pig…”
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First chuckle of my day (-:
No surprise.
I remember there was a racing game that had Obama billboards on side of the road built into the game.
Do you think they reported a campaign contribution to the FEC after every lap you completed?
SOME campaign violations are OK.
Defund the FEC.
I speak as a French citizen. (Which is why my POV on US politics is valid and shall be heard.)
The human race will never be wiped out completely, but this article just points out that Darwin is biding his time. What an incredible amount of fools there are.
I buy £35 video games to play so I can be lectured on climate change.
– something said by no one ever.
“These games are excellent and effective at communicating both the problem of climate change (and, crucially, its solutions)”
SO its games that work to convey imaginary problems and their solutions.
I have a one word suggestion:
Debate!
You do have to love the contradictions that occur, over time.
Some while ago when shoot-em, kill-em, blow-em up video games were still novel & new, strong/loud arguments were put up against them – saying that playing those sorts of games would cause/exacerbate/trigger those kinds of behaviour out in the real world.
Of course the games’ makers, sellers and promoters were vehement in their denial of such claims – that playing/watching graphic variations on physical and material violence and dysfunction was gonna create a society of well-adjusted peace-loving kittens, all nicely in touch with their Social, Empathic and Feminine Sides.
i.e. That folks were perfectly capable of distinguishing Real from Fake at all times
Now we’re told that video games do enhance the behaviours that are portrayed within said games and are to be encouraged. ##
sigh: Is there anything or anybody in this world that hasn’t contradicted it/themself or ‘sold out’ over the last 4, 5 or 6 decades?
Is there now anything of Real Actual Value, either been created or left over of what previously existed?
## Be careful what you wish for, even more careful that it hasn’t already come true
Lots of important and valuable things have been left to us by our forbears. Our entire world is composed of jigs, countless incremental process improvements over time, which have delivered us modernity and a life mostly free of the kind of backbreaking toil our ancestors endured.
And all of which the leftists are trying to destroy.
Gambling is not an industry, it is an affliction like alcoholism.
The gamblers are harvesting enough money to get cocky about their influence.
One of the more evil dodges is the expensive repetition on the airwaves of the slogan “gamble responsibly”. That is impossible. No gambling is responsible, any more than kids behind the school dunny block puffing away at tobacco or pot of worse. Good for a giggle, then harm for a lifetime.
In summary, I disapprove of gambling. Geoff S
Actually I think some of these games accidentally did the right thing.
Take Humankind for example. A 4X world builder where you start as simple hunter gatherers and develop to the space age.
In the late game of this title they start bring in nasty polution (gasp).
What players quickly discovered was that no matter what YOU did as a player, it was always the NPC nations that screwed you over.
So… pretty accurate really.
Eric,
I know I’m a week or so late with my comment, but I still believe it’s worthwhile to add for clarity…
Really I have two things to say on the above. First, as someone who enjoys (as a hobby) the interactive nature of video games over the passive nature of simply watching TV/shows/sports, I’m going to consistently push back against the smug notion that video games are for children (not that you said this, but it leads to my real point). And having established a foothold there, it’s not so hard to understand why people would want to watch “experts” in their hobby of choice, expertly doing said hobby. We don’t chide hunters for watching hunting videos, or home-chefs for watching cooking vids.
Secondly, and more importantly, it should be noted that the gaming community, such as it is, is, in my observation, extremely progressive and leftist. Woke, if you will. There is an entire sub-culture of our youth, young adults, and even not-so-young adults, engaged in this world who are being fed a steady diet of woke leftist identify politics, complete with all the normal ancillary talking points you’d expect. Climate change is just another item on a long list of checkmarks pushed on a daily basis.
rip