STRATEGIES

Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries — is a Horizon Europe funded project that supports Europe’s game industries in realising their potential as drivers of sustainable innovation, contributing to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal and delivering an economy that works for people.

Europe’s game developers are a vital cultural and creative industry (CCI) whose capacity to meet climate goals must be achieved as a matter of urgency. There are over 4,900 video game developer studios in Europe, employing 98,000 people, with a combined revenue of €23.3bn (ISFE and EGDF, 2022). Although smaller in size, Europe’s board game industry is also a significant CCI, with revenues projected to reach $4 billion by 2023. In both video and analogue game development, micro and small enterprises represent over 90% of the industries. This presents specific challenges in the climate transition for the game industries. STRATEGIES will provide the support needed to facilitate decarbonization and move towards sustainable production practices in which games and game technologies are fully recyclable. STRATEGIES also supports game developers as first movers among Europe’s CCIs, paving the way in green technological developments. Game development is an innovative design practice that can be harnessed to drive an inclusive societal climate transition. STATEGIES therefore not only addresses the challenges faced by the game industries, but seizes on the opportunities for game developers, and on the unprecedented reach of games among European citizens. 

To address the challenges and opportunities facing Europe’s game developers, the STRATEGIES project offers a programme of research devised by small and micro game developers at the forefront of green transformations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) supporting business development of the game industries in Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands, experts working at the intersection of policy and sustainability science, and academics working at the leading-edge of the study of games and climate change.

STRATEGIES develops policy recommendations and business model analysis to unlock the potential of the game industries to drive societal change. We are developing leading-edge carbon accounting tools for both analogue and video game production and carbon literacy training for game developers.

The reach of games is huge: 52% of the population between the ages of 6 and 64 plays video games (ISFE and EGDF, 2022). Recognising this, our research will develop and promote improved game design for sustainability, helping the game industries make games to support the behavior changes among citizens that will be key to the success of policy aimed at societal transformation.

The Strategies project will begin on Feb 2024 and run until 2028.