Many of us have fond childhood memories of taking a brand new video game console out of its box on Christmas, or peeling off the plastic wrap from a disk case of a game we got as a birthday present. We marveled at the colorful case designs, and read through detailed manuals like a favorite book. Many of us still collect and play physical games and systems, to have a tangible reminder of how fun these games are and all the accomplishments and memories attached to them. If you're like me, the back of your TV is a whole mess of cords and you have a bookshelf loaded with old Wii cases, some with disks that have been practically played to death.
While video games are a fun source of entertainment and an inventive medium of art and storytelling, and the memories we share are fun to look back on, we must take off our rose-colored glasses in regards to the clutter that comes with gaming. This clutter takes up space on our home planet, which may be bad news for its various natural systems.
What is E-Waste?
E-waste is a type of waste from electronic devices. These include computers and video game systems that have been thrown away, whether by the person who bought them or a reseller that gave up on it. Some devices may be broken and unable to function, while others could have worked just fine but were considered outdated or obsolete.
E-Waste in the gaming industry
When people think of video games, they often think of a lot of physical stuff - cartridges, disks, consoles, controllers, and various other accessories that take up space in someone's home. This clutter is made of non-biodegradable material, and can be a risk to the environment if more of these items keep being produced at the rate and speed that they are.
Planned Obsolescence
The main culprit of e-waste in the gaming industry is the implementation of planned obsolescence, a key component of a highly competitive market that emphasizes pumping out games with better graphics and consoles with better performance at an increasingly fast rate. Rapid changes in the industry standards incentivize people to buy each new console or gaming computer that comes out, as well as the new and improved games that come with them. Meanwhile, old products accumulate and are left unused, creating an ever-growing pile of e-waste.
The situation is exacerbated by the sheer number of gamers that are currently active, north of three billion people across the globe. With all these people buying these products, the e-waste problem can get very bad very quick.
How does e-waste impact our planet?
Just like any kind of waste, the buildup of e-waste we're seeing from the gaming industry is detrimental to our planet's systems. Laptops, a common device to play games on, have a very large carbon footprint - around 10 metric tons of CO2 with every metric ton of laptops manufactured - which speeds up climate change significantly. The plastics that our controllers and consoles are made of don't fully disappear, instead staying behind in soil and water and contaminating them. The metal components can also pollute the earth, because harmful chemicals can seep out of them as they break down.
The energy used to mine for the materials to make physical gaming products also takes a significant amount of energy; in 2015, about 7% of global energy use was linked with extracting raw materials from the earth.
What other impacts do video games have on the environment?
Besides "outdated" consoles and gaming-related objects creating harmful physical clutter on our planet, the gaming industry impacts the environment in several more ways. For example, the ongoing competition among companies to see who can make games with the best possible graphics are drastically increasing their energy output to accomplish their goals. While visually interesting, innovations in color rendering and the advent of 4K UHD puts extra stress on the consoles and computers that run the games, resulting in higher energy usage.
The way we play games can also have a significant impact on the environment. Cloud gaming, which is an alternative to digital downloads that involves streaming, puts a huge strain on the networks consoles are hooked up to. Instead of storing and loading everything from files saved on a console, cloud games rely on data centers to do all the heavy lifting, resulting in a much busier network that requires a lot of electrical power to keep working.
What can people do about it?
There are a few things people can do to reduce the negative impact of video game-related products on the environment. If someone is hanging onto a few games and consoles that they don't use anymore, they don't have to throw them away. Instead, they can trade or sell them to select retailers, or opt to donate them. Places with residential programs tend to look for video games often, like shelters and hospitals.
If a machine is broke beyond repair, people can take it apart to retrieve the valuable metals and other materials that were used to make it. If people do this on a large scale, they can help bring these materials back into market circulation, reducing the need to dig anything else out of the earth, which can help decrease pollution and the costs of new video game products. One thing to avoid when doing this is using fire or acid to retrieve the metals, as this can release chemicals in the air and exacerbate environmental problems instead of reducing them.
When it comes to non-physical games, it may help to pay attention to the size of individual games data-wise. Larger games, often with more visual enhancements like 4K graphics, can have an energy output upon download that nearly matches that of making a physical game and delivering them to their destinations. A possible solution would be to stick with smaller or less visually-advanced games, that way you reduce the energy usage per purchase, and you can keep more games on your system.
Are there gaming companies working on reducing e-waste?
With environmental awareness growing, a good handful of video game companies are trying to find ways to reduce their negative impact on the planet, without closing the book on video games altogether. For instance, EPIC Games has implemented a few new strategies to reduce the total energy consumed by their popular battle royale game, Fortnite. These changes, which include a reduction of framerate and resolution in the lobby if a player goes AFK (away from keyboard, or controller) for a long time, are both unintrusive to the gaming experience and save a lot of energy, about 200 megawatts per hour on any given day.
Companies are also adapting their consoles to be more eco-friendly. Nintendo's Switch console, while marketed to a specific group of video game enthusiasts, consumes a lot less power than other consoles currently on the market - only about as much as a smartphone. This is to accommodate the Switch's portable-hybrid, battery-powered design, and it results in a highly efficient machine that's still capable of running some entertaining games with ease. Microsoft's XBOX Series X has innovative energy-saving features that can reduce its energy output when nobody's playing it by approximately 95%.
When it comes to combatting e-waste, some video game companies, like Nintendo, have programs that allow people to recycle the products they bought from that company.
Sources
- https://ecolife.com/recycling/electronics/how-to-recycle-video-games-consoles/#:~:text=Donate%20used%20video%20consoles%20and,to%20take%20your%20used%20equipment.
- https://www.ewaste1.com/what-is-e-waste/
- https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/resources/updates/the-growing-environmental-risks-of-e-waste/
- https://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/playing-dangerously-the-environmental-impact-of-video-gaming-consoles/
- https://quantumlifecycle.com/en_CA/blog/a-look-into-the-e-waste-problem-in-the-gaming-industry/
- https://reboottechrecycling.com/e-waste-recycling/benefits-of-e-waste-recycling-in-the-gaming-industry/#:~:text=In%20the%20gaming%20industry%2C%20e,latest%20features%20and%20better%20performance.
- https://time.com/6696736/sustainable-video-game-companies/
(Disclaimer: Some non-informative images in this slideshow are generated with leonardo.ai)
Credits:
Created with images by luengo_ua - "Video game competition. Gaming concept. White and black joystic on yellow backround." • piyaphunjun - "Electronic waste - old computer circuit boards from recycle industry" • Pixel-Shot - "Modern game pad on color background" • magann - "clock with sticky note" • jamesteohart - "Big data center storage with full of rack servers .Cloud server room 3D rendering ." • rh2010 - "Group of a young office employees dressed casually in the suits having some office work at the meeting table in the bright office"