Playing Fortnite While Streaming Climate Messages Raises Interest – Is It Speeding Up With That?

Essays by Eric Worrall

Imagine content so tedious that watching someone else play a computer game could increase viewer interest.

Here’s how the gaming industry can shape its views on climate change

December 21, 2022

• The game industry is creating many games designed to educate players about the threats posed by climate change.
• A study has found that while video games can encourage behavior change in gamers, they can also create the false impression of easy fixes.
• The difficulty, the developers say, lies in visualizing the gradually increasing nature of the problem, largely caused by an invisible gas.

The $200 billion gaming industry is increasingly emphasizing the climate crisis, but it also has the potential to lead to harm as well as profit.

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Platforms like YouTube and Twitch have encouraged some climate researchers to experiment with streaming to engage viewers, but with mixed results.

In 2018, Henri Drakethen a PhD student in physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, started the ClimateFortnite channel to stream the popular video game Fortnite on Twitch. As he plays, guests talk about politics and the environment.

Several major publications covered the channel, but Drake shut it down after a few months.

Drake said in an email that ClimateFortnite was “predictably spreading”. But he says the format is not an effective way to talk about science because the game is fast-paced and requires focus to be effective.

An effort to pivot to games like Eco and Civilization VI, he says, which are better for climate-based discussions, has come at the expense of less viewer engagement.

“These games are excellent and effective at both communicating the problem of climate change (and, importantly, its solutions) but unfortunately they are not very appealing to stream,” Drake said. .

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Read more: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/12/gaming-industry-climate-change-games-environment/

Climatologists might be working on something, but I’m not sure computer games are the solution they’re looking for. They need to find an online activity that captures the interest of their viewers, but doesn’t tax them so intellectually that they can no longer simultaneously discuss the climate crisis.