Playing for the Planet’s Annual Impact Report 2023 has confirmed that over $700,000 was raised in the year’s Green Game Jam.
Half of the alliance’s gaming members also met their commitments for the year, while every other member made at least a partial delivery on their commitments – be that reducing a carbon footprint, implementing green activations into games or supporting colleagues on the way to becoming more sustainable.
Five new organisations signed up for the alliance in 2023, further expanding awareness of Playing for the Planet among the gaming community, and the cause inspired action at events worldwide, Pocket Gamer Connects included.
Green games
Since founding in 2019, Playing for the Planet has grown to 34 major gaming companies and 10 trade associations. The cause’s efforts to preserve the climate continued in 2023 as decarbonisation of the games industry accelerated.
40 games were entered into 2023’s Green Game Jam, which focused on protecting the ecosystems of harlequin toads in the Amazon, snow leopards in the Himalayas, and manta rays in the Western Indian Ocean.
The year’s big winners were Supercell’s Boom Beach, Wooga’s June’s Journey, and Outfit7’s My Talking Angela 2 – chosen for their successful integration of the year’s themes in-game. And with 85 million daily active users across the 40 games entered, over $700,000 was raised for the three endangered species and their ecosystems – enough money to cover more than 56,000 hours of work towards preserving them.
In partnership with Milkywire, Playing for the Planet selected eight organisations to distribute these funds to: ProPurús, Atelopus Survival Initiative (Re:wild), Gaia Amazones, International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, Snow Leopard Trust, CORDIO East Africa, Marine Megafauna Foundation, and Love the Oceans.
For the cause
“Playing for the Planet is a solid foundation that acts as a beacon for all our awareness creation work on climate and environment. Together we’ve reached so much more than we could have ever reached as an individual company,” said Rovio senior manger of sustainability Tommi Lappalainen.
Speaking for Amazon Games – a new member in the alliance as of 2023 – chief creative officer Greg Gobbi added: “We are honoured to be joining the Playing for the Planet alliance, as it brings together the voices of our industry in support of sustainability in our work, both internally with our employees and externally with our players.”
As for 2024, Playing for the Planet is opening the Green Game Jam to all studios rather than being an invite-only event. The alliance has set a target of 25% membership growth this year and intends to explore the applications of AI in bringing about change.
