Impactful low-impact games

"As game makers we have to take this seriously"

The video game industry is becoming increasingly aware of its impact on the environment. Numerous sources of CO2 emissions, involving a wide variety of actors, contribute to the industry’s environmental footprint. These include distribution, packaging, hardware manufacturing, resource-intensive game creation, and servers for cloud gaming and multiplayer.

A significant portion of the overall carbon footprint in the gaming industry results from in-game consumption. According to Project Drawdown, Microsoft estimate that high performance gaming devices emits an average of 72 kilograms of CO2 per year.

As game makers, we have to take this seriously and drive the change by shifting the way we design games. If every players could have their gaming experiences consumption reduced by huge amount of Watthours (Wh), we could easily save millions of Wh (considering the average weekly playtime and the number of players around the world).

But gaming is a competitive industry and visual excellence is a big agrument to convince players and press, most new games needs to show the best new-gen graphics !

When the question arose for our latest game, we decided to focus on design, and we needed to start somewhere. We identified three ways to initiate our journey :

UX and UI design

Technical parameters

Gameplay impact

The design way

Our first step was to rethink the UI in the settings menu. We chose to display the graphics settings in terms of power usage rather than visual “quality”.

The next step was to create four different power usage modes, prioritizing simplicity for our users:

Hi-Power

Balanced

Eco

Ultra-Eco

Each mode utilizes different options that we are still refining. In short, the Hi-Power mode uses high-end and CPU/GPU-intensive features like volumetric fog, real-time reflections, high resolution, and unlocked FPS, while the balanced mode uses less intensive features. The Ultra-Eco mode, with lower resolution, FPS, and minimal engine features, focuses on minimizing power usage.

Power usage settings in MoonWakers

Stylised Ultra-Eco mode

With this kind of settings, the Ultra-Eco mode could become ugly. In our game we decide to make it more stylized.

We think that it could be interesting to aim for FPS standards in our games (like in video/cinema formats).

In our four Modes, we defined maximum FPS numbers. We use 77, 60, 48 and 30 (ultra-eco mode). The economy in terms of compute charge is really interesting.

Even if the GPU industry is making huge efforts to launch innovative new techs (FSR, VRR, DLSS) and always chase the best TFlops per Watt ratio, these innovations are mostly used to augment the number of FPS while keeping the visual quality.

With defining FPS limits, we could use the same techs to calculate standardized framerates (77/60/48/30) at the same quality with less power. 

"Defining FPS limits"

The gameplay way

We had a last layer of modifications in link with these eco modes by affecting the gameplay while using the different modes.

We will detail it in an update of this article but in short : If the players change eco modes, their character have access to different abilities.

The technical way

"More abilities by selecting eco mode "

Being incitative

To achieve our goals, it’s imperative for players to be aware of the benefits of their engagement and understand the purpose behind our efforts. A key aspect of our approach is to be motivational rather than punitive, transforming the experience into an enjoyable layer of fun. Consideration should be given to designing a user interface that encourages a shift in the paradigm surrounding graphics settings.

Simultaneously, it’s crucial for players to be conscious of power usage implications when adjusting settings. Our aim is to blend enjoyment with frugality, making the experience of playing these settings both entertaining and ecologically conscious. In this journey, players can not only have fun but also accumulate successes by adopting a more energy-efficient gaming style.