Manufacture and shipping of physical games is “100 times more carbon-intensive” than digital, new study finds

A new study has found that buying physical copies of games is “100 times more carbon-intensive” than buying the digital version.

The report, ‘The Carbon Footprint of Gaming’, has been produced by French carbon accounting firm Greenly and examines the environmental impact of PC, consoles, mobile, and handhelds, as well as the production of games in different formats.

Greenly found that the manufacture and transportation of physical games has a significant impact on the environment, with the firm’s Théo Nicolau-Guillaumet estimating that the manufacture and packaging of one million discs can emit 312 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

In comparison, downloading the same number of digital copies of a game (worth 70GB) emits 3 tCO2e.

“Although cloud-based gaming can be detrimental as a result of its need for continuous access to energy-hungry data servers, we also cannot neglect the continued impact of manufacturing and packaging physical video games,” study author Stephanie Safdie told GamesIndustry.biz.

“Ultimately, downloading a digital copy imposes emissions linked to electricity use at home, as well as the energy use of the concerned data center – but it does not have the same impact as the emissions created by the industry in terms of landfill and excessive waste, which are primarily still accounted for by physical consoles and hard disk copies of games.”

“As a whole, physical video games may still be less carbon intensive than their digital counterparts – but their ultimate impact should not be underestimated.”

The report highlighted that the extraction of rare earth metals and plastic during the production of physical discs “requires high energy usage and can deplete already-finite water resources.”

“Physical games may still be less carbon intensive than their digital counterparts – but their ultimate impact should not be underestimated”

Stephanie Safdie, study author

Manufacturing consoles has a similar impact, exacerbated by advancements in chip technology, which means that even more electricity is needed to manufacture and ship chips used in console production.

Once manufactured, Greenly calculated that conventional games consoles consume 3.9 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity a year in the US, producing 1.6 million metric tons of CO2e.

When the electricity consumption of TVs is added to the mix, the usage increases to 6.5 TWh per year, producing 2.6 million metric tons of CO2e.

As for PC, Greenly estimates the platform is used for an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes per day, resulting in 84kg CO2e (0.084t) of emissions per year.

When the annual impact of manufacturing emissions are included, this rises to 149kg CO2e (0.149t). With a global player base of roughly 1.86 billion, the annual carbon footprint of PC usage (not just gaming) is held to be 277.14 million tCO2e.

Looking at mobile, the firm estimated that a single mobile user could emit 20 kgCO2e (0.02 tCO2e) during an average session of 97 minutes per day.

It noted that while this number may seem insignificant, it scales rapidly when multiplied by the huge number of mobile players, which adds up to 58 million tonnes per year for a quoted global player base of 2.9 billion on mobile.

Cloud-based gaming, using platforms like Xbox Cloud Gaming and Playstation Now, fared better as it required neither physical games or physical consoles, but this was partially offset by the power demands of the servers that host it.

Greenly found that one hour of playtime emits 0.44kg CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent), noting that players spend 7.6 hours on average playing games per week.

The greenest platform option for players was handheld consoles, with platforms like the Switch emitting 13.8kg CO2e (0.014t) per year.

“Their manufacturing has usually proven less carbon intensive, aiding this baseline figure,” Greenly explained, although the report highlighted that the true impact of use will be slightly higher due to consoles like the Switch being docked to TVs.

The report suggested several means by which games companies could reduce carbon emissions.

These included console manufacturers running trade-in programs that would enable components to be reused, shipping consoles with default settings that would reduce energy consumption and thus carbon footprint, and developers optimising games to minimise electricity consumption as demonstrated by Epic’s work on Fortnite.

It singled out Microsoft’s digital Xbox Series as “one of the most eco-friendly products on the market” due to its energy-saving power and being partly manufactured with recycled materials.

Prominently displaying the likely electrical demand of game downloads in store interfaces and offering discounts for low-carbon downloads or second-hand games would also encourage customers to consider the more environmentally sound choice, the report stated.

Greenly also proposed a new industry and community focus on second-hand physical games in the style of recent trends for thrift/second-hand shopping.

It suggested using moribund physical retail stores to give more space to second-hand products and support in-person trading, encouraged by gaming influencers.