New Study Finds Physical Games Are 100x More Carbon-Intensive Than Digital

A new study has revealed its findings on the carbon footprint of physical video games, and unsurprisingly, digitally downloaded games are considered to be more environmentally friendly in comparison to physical. French carbon-accounting firm Greenly studied the environmental impact of various systems and the production of video games, finding that physical copies of games are “100 times more carbon-intensive” than their digital counterparts.

According to Greenly, the manufacturing and transportation of physical games–with 1 million discs being used as an example–could produce 312 tons of carbon dioxide, while 1 million downloads of the same game–if it were 70GB in size–would equal three tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

“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 explained to 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 disc copies of games.”

Ultimately, the production of a physical game disc involves the extraction of rare earth metals and the production of plastic, which in turn requires the usage of machines, processes, and labor that contribute to the drain on resources. This includes the manufacturing of consoles, with Greenly estimating that these devices consume 3.9 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity a year in the US and are responsible for the production of 1.6 million metric tons of CO2e (Carbon Dioxide equivalent). Factor in television sets also running on electricity, and the ultimate impact of gaming across traditional consoles, mobile devices, and cloud gaming is significant.

So what’s an environmentally conscious gamer supposed to do? Greenly found that handheld systems produce far fewer emissions–13.8kg CO2e per year with the Switch, for example–and the firm also suggested that companies look at methods to reduce their overall energy consumption.

This has been an area where Microsoft has been heavily focused with its use of recycled materials and energy-saving power modes.