Welcome to the Greening Games Education Repository where you will be able to find a range of teaching materials that may help in delivering thought-through courses, seminars, and workshops in eco-critical game studies and game development.
All the materials have been developed as part of a three-year-long research project “Greening Games Building Higher Education Resources for Sustainable Video Game Production, Design & Critical Game Studies” (2021-2024)”, during which our interdisciplinary research team with members from leading European universities had been designing, testing and assessing a range of teaching materials for B.A. and M.A. programs, predominantly in game design and game development.
The Greening Games project navigates the richness of ecological considerations in games by working with four interdisciplinary approaches:
Games Infrastructures
Games as objects of nature, relying on material resources and practices
Games Cultures
Games as objects of culture, carrying societal values and providing spaces for activism
Games Production
Games as digital products developed according to workflow processes and practices
Games Content
Games as systems designed with embedded ecological messages and aesthetics
The first two engage with humanities-led topics related to eco-critical game studies, and the latter two fall under the banner of applied approaches to eco-critical game development. Those categories have been considered in all the teaching materials.
More information about the teaching foundations, thematic divisions and materials included in the Repository may be found in our Pedagogical Framework and Teaching Guide.
Multimedia Resources
Podcasts
You can listen to the podcasts on our website. To download them, please click here.
Introduction to greening games production
In this podcast, Andrea Hubert and Lukáš Kolek discuss the topic of environmental sustainability in relation to the development of computer games. They introduce basic concepts and outline different approaches to the problem from a game studio perspective. This podcast serves as an introduction to game production and its environmental impact.
Programmer’s perspective on games production
In this podcast, Veronika Petrova discusses game programming and its environmental impact with Ondrej Paška. They focus on topics such as: common principles of efficient coding and how these contribute to writing environmentally friendly code; the role of existing game engines in environmentally conscious development; as well as the most viable eco-friendly development practices from the perspective of the invested effort.
Video games and their ability to raise awareness of environmental sustainability
In this podcast Silas Lesner explores how video games may raise students’ awareness of environmental sustainability. Long-term engagement with sustainability-related issues is usually the domain of serious games. However, commercial games can and should also take responsibility in this regard. Games may have a positive cognitive and behavioural impact on their players. Gamification serves here as the key tool to encouraging learning through play.
How green is the mass entertainment industry?
This podcast Carlos Jost takes a closer look at the production side of the entertainment industry. With the focus on sustainability, it compares and showcases the consequences of big productions from movies to games. Are our practices sustainable? How can we improve? And is it all worth it for a single piece of entertainment?
How do video games impact the environment?
In this tacky one-on-one conversational podcast, two very similar sounding speakers, both impersonated by Niels van Son, go over how videogames are used to reflect upon and/or directly impact environmental issues in the eyes of the general public. Both famous and independent works are mentioned within a cosy and comedic atmosphere.
Planned obsolescence in the video games industry
Juan Reyes Ortiz explores the practice of planned obsolescence in the video game industry, with a specific focus on consoles and design choices. If you are interested in the overall impact of the industry within the global ecological crisis, you will also find.
The pursuit of environmentally sustainable gaming technology
In this podcast episode of the Greening Games project, host Lara Gülpen explores the intersection of Moore’s Law and the pursuit of sustainable gaming technology. The discussion delves into the historical context and contemporary relevance of Moore’s Law, illustrating how this foundational principle of semiconductor development can enhance energy and resource efficiency in gaming hardware. Drawing insights from examples such as Apple’s iPhone and Sony’s PlayStation, the discussion not only emphasises strategies for reducing electronic waste but also aims to counteract the rapid obsolescence of electronic devices through sustainable technological advancement. By prioritising eco-efficiency over mere increases in computing power, this exploration outlines a promising path towards fostering a more sustainable future in the gaming industry and beyond.
VR raising awareness of environmental sustainability
In her podcast Anastasiia Shara explores how digital media may influence the environmental awareness of its users, specifically within the context of Virtual Reality technology. Can VR help tackle climate change? Let us find out.
Videos
Introduction to the Greening Games Project
Prof. Dr. Mata Haggis-Burridge interviews Prof. Dr. Sonia Fizek about the Greening Games Erasmus+, summarising the approach of: taking games as cultural and design artefacts, understanding the environmental impact of making games, and the ethical and political implications of making games. They discuss how the project’s goal is to produce educational materials for use in a variety of educations.
Greening Games: Interview with Charles Games
Alex and Lukas from Charles Games (a social-impact video game developer from Prague) discuss their game Beecarbonize. They explain that it is a game about strategies to tackle the climate crisis, trying to represent both the challenges and opportunities to save life and humanity. They also discuss how the game’s design choices came about, including why it is a highly systemic game rather than a narrative experience.
Greening Games: Introduction to designing for implicit and explicit messages about sustainability
A recording of an online seminar in which Prof. Dr. Mata Haggis-Burridge addresses the question ‘what can a game developer do to reduce and balance the environmental cost of video games?’ At the core of the message, the talk conveys it is essential to generate hope for the future – without hope, taking action becomes almost impossible. Strategies to build knowledge, pro-environmental attitudes, and a sense of efficacy through games are addressed.
Greening Games: Interview with Frans Melissen
An interview with Prof. Dr. Frans Melissen, Professor of Sustainability Transitions at Breda University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. Frans discusses his history of work in sustainability, with the ups and downs of attempting to influence topics such as the recycling of heavy metals in electronics, and how video games can be a tool for supporting the behavioural (social, economic, cultural, and political) changes which are necessary to keep our planet liveable. Alongside practical steps for creating a sustainable society, Frans emphasises that games can support messages of kindness and love in society to support the transitions we urgently need.
Written Documents
Teaching Guide
The Teaching Guide provides an in-depth description of all the didactic materials. It is a useful read for those, who would like to integrate the Greening Games resources into their own seminars, lectures and workshops.
Pedagogical Framework
The Pedagogical Framework presents our modular and interdisciplinary teaching and learning philosophy. It is the bedrock for all the teaching methods and tools that we offer to the higher education community.
Project-based Activities
Project based activities may be used during seminars and workshops. They are aimed at varying group sizes and durations. Typically they last 1-2 hours and are designed for class sizes of 10-25 participants.
For hands-on game development students, we recommend the design focused activities in the categories Games Production & Development as well as Games Content.
Games Production
Games Content
For students with a cultural/media studies approach, our activities in the categories Games Infrastructures and Games Cultures may hold more interest.
Games Infrastructure
Course Packages & Briefs
Course Packages
In module-based education, students are taught a topic across a range of weeks or months, culminating in some form of assessment. This is a traditional method for education across many European and international high-education institutions. This collection of documents outlines course structures for both bachelor’s and master’s level courses related to games as parts of culture: as media, discourse, and their physicality. The main course documents also include an extensive bibliography of suggested reading, which can assist both teachers in gaining a strong grasp of the material and students who wish to expand their knowledge.
We encourage teachers to use this and other curricula documents as inspiration for their own exploration of our teaching materials. Below we are presenting exemplary course packages (syllabi with session-by-session descriptions).
Project Briefs
Some universities, particularly those teaching hands-on game development, teach by giving students projects to complete. In approaching these projects, students are given external and internal (creative) motivation to engage with pre-set concepts and themes. Students are required to adopt the necessary team roles to complete the project (hence this also being called ‘role-based learning’) and so they gain both practical skills and intellectual insight into the complexity of a project.
This approach of using projects begins with giving students a project brief and then supporting their knowledge and skills over a period of weeks (typically 2-6 months, but times vary).
In project-based learning, teachers play a mentor-like role, allowing students to develop insight and expertise through their desire for progress, rather than because the teacher has dictated it is necessary.
Examples of project briefs with environmental themes:
Greening Games Education Report
Sustainability Kit
Presentation Slide Decks
Our lecture decks cover a variety of topics and with different audiences in mind. These can be used as one-off lectures, or combined to support broader perspectives for students. While the decks are designed to be ‘dropped in’ curricula, we strongly recommend that lecturers mix and match concepts and update the slides with more recent examples, so that students recognise examples from their own experiences.
Introductory Slide Deck
Focus Lecture Decks
Games Infrastructures: On the materiality of digital games
Analysis of Video Games: How to make sense of (ecological) games?
Introduction to the video game industry’s environmental impact
Xbox Sustainability DevKit
Theming and systemic pro-environmental messaging in video games
Introduction to designing for implicit and explicit messages about sustainability
On digital games and sustainability
On representation of climate change in digital games
On digital spaces as spaces of eco-activism
Additional Materials
Zotero Library
A literature library, containing links to many sources that can inspire and support the study of sustainability and video games.
Card Deck
The Greening Games Deck is a tool designed to help educators teach about diverse relations between video games and the natural environment. Players are offered an engaging and accessible way to navigate the web of knowledge in green game studies and game development.
The Greening Games Deck may be used in university courses as well as in workshops for developers and the wider public.