What do you do if your gaming company wants to create sustainable and socially responsible games?

Incorporating eco-friendly design in game development is crucial for sustainability. Digitally, this involves optimizing software to lower energy consumption through efficient coding, reducing the processing power needed. For physical games, using recycled materials for packaging and manuals or favoring digital distribution can significantly cut down on resource use. The aim is to lessen your games' environmental impact while ensuring the quality and gaming experience remain uncompromised, aligning your products with environmentally conscious practices and consumer expectations.

To create a sustainable game, there is no secret sauce. All you need is to create something people want to use. Applying Ikigai concepts to any game you want to develop can serve as a North Star, and don't forget to make it fun. After all, you're making a game!

In order to create a game for the ??, it's important to keep it lightweight. If your game is heavy, you should consider using ?? loading to ensure quick loading times. It's important to keep in mind that people dislike waiting, especially professional players who expect a seamless experience. ??

The controversy around Sweet Baby Inc. highlights a critical balance in gaming between ethical storytelling and player expectations. Sweet Baby, known for prioritizing representation and focusing on marginalized groups, faced pushback from players who viewed these efforts as detracting from game quality. This led to player's not wanting to purchase games associated with Sweet Baby. This underscores the delicate act of integrating social values without alienating players or compromising on gameplay. It serves as a reminder that while inclusivity and ethical narratives are valuable, they must seamlessly blend with engaging gameplay to satisfy a diverse player base, without overshadowing the core gaming experience.

Look, just like in movies, music genres, and TV shows, video games have their audience. If you want to please everybody you'll be pleasing nobody, make sure to tell a story within your game if that makes sense, depending on the genre. Sometimes, being a bit controversial (without hurting anyone) can be helpful to stand out and be interesting to your audience.

When my team and I made GUIDE, there was constant collaboration with the counselling and educational community. We were telling a story about Anxiety, so having the right people looking at it was crucial for representation. We wanted to ensure the content was accurate and wouldn't cause any damage. Additionally, we wanted to know how to reach that market, so getting their feedback was invaluable to the endeavour. We learned a lot about how to better represent mental health issues in games, and how to best reach a segment that would like to engage with the content but didn't know how. Anyone looking to make headway with any issue should reach out the the community affected most by that issue.

Focus on educational content, creativity is key to engaging your audience. Draw inspiration from diverse sources and infuse your unique style into the game. Rapid prototyping allows for quick iteration and adaptation based on audience feedback. Finally, prioritize understanding your audience's preferences to tailor the experience to their needs effectively.

Set Values: Define company values for sustainability and social responsibility. Educate Staff: Train employees on these values and how to apply them. Check Impact: Assess games' effects on environment, society, and economy. Reduce Footprint: Minimize energy use, waste, and choose sustainable materials. Embrace Diversity: Ensure games represent various cultures and backgrounds. Create Ethical Content: Develop games with positive messages and tackle social issues. Engage Players: Listen to feedback and involve players in game development. Support Communities: Help local groups through partnerships or donations. Be Honest: Share efforts and progress openly. Keep Improving: Continuously update practices based on feedback and new ideas.