In the past 2 decades, reflections on video games’ ideological and political aspects—and their overarching media ecosystems—have grown. Despite this, few contributions focus on environmental issues, mainly empirically-oriented studies or ecocritical contributions vis-à-vis shared models and systematizations. Starting from the “To The Last Tree Standing” campaign carried out in 2017 for Greenpeace Poland to stop the deforestation of the Białowieża forest, this research sets out to elaborate an analytical model to outline the constitutive dimensions to be taken into account in analyses of how video games and environmental activism can intersect in a specific intentional communicative instance. The results, which relied on semi-structured interviews with executives and designers (n = 3) and inductive thematic analysis and sentiment analysis of the YouTube comments, delineate three initial categories (controversy, campaign network, and game ecosystem). This evidence highlights new development trajectories for studying the intersection between the gaming world and ecological activism.
AbrahamB. J. (2022). Digital games after climate change. Palgrave Macmillan.
2.
AbrahamB. J.JayemanneD. (2017). Where are all the climate change games? Locating digital games’ response to climate change. Transformations, 30(1), 74–94. https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/handle/10453/121664
3.
AmadoriG. (2020). Video games for environmental communication: Raising awareness through sandbox games and streamers. Comunicazioni Sociali, 3, 391–404.
4.
ApperleyT. (2011). Gaming rhythms: Play and counterplay from the situated to the global. Institute of Network Cultures.
BerrimanL.MascheroniG. (2019). Exploring the affordances of smart toys and connected play in practice. New Media & Society, 21(4), 797–814. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818807119
BreuerJ.BenteG. (2010). Why so serious? On the relation of serious games and learning. Journal for Computer Game Culture, 4(1), 7–24. https://hal.science/hal-00692052
13.
ChangA. Y. (2019). Playing nature: Ecology in video games. University of Minnesota Press.
14.
CharmazK. (2014). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis (2nd ed.). Sage.
15.
de la Hera Conde-PumpidoT. (2017). Persuasive gaming: Identifying the different types of persuasion through games. International Journal of Serious Games, 4(1), 31–39. https://doi.org/10.17083/ijsg.v4i1.140
16.
DishonG.KafaiY. B. (2022). Connected civic gaming: Rethinking the role of video games in civic education. Interactive Learning Environments, 30(6), 999–1010. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2019.1704791
17.
EkaputraG.LimC.EngK. I. (2013). Minecraft: A game as an education and scientific learning tool. ISICO 2013.
18.
EklundK.McGonigalJ. (2007). World without oil [ARG Video Game]. Presented by Independent Television Service (ITVS), San Francisco, CA.
19.
Fernández GaleoteD.HamariJ. (2021). Game-based climate change engagement: Analyzing the potential of entertainment and serious games. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CHI PLAY), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3474653
FrascaG. (2005). Play the message: Play, game and videogame rhetoric [PhD diss]. IT University, Copenhagen.
22.
GeeE. R.TranK. M. (2015). Video game-making and modding. In GuzzettiB.LesleyM. (Eds.), Handbook of research on the societal impact of digital media (pp. 238–267). IGI Global.
23.
GeeJ. P. (2012). Situated language and learning: A critique of traditional schooling. Routledge.
GerberA.UlrichM.WägerF. X.Roca-PuigròsM.GonçalvesJ. S. V.WägerP. (2021). Games on climate change: Identifying development potentials through advanced classification and game characteristics mapping. Sustainability, 13(4), 1997. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041997
GuestG.MacQueenK. M.NameyE. E. (2011). Applied thematic analysis. Sage publications.
28.
HamiltonW. A.GarretsonO.KerneA. (2014). Streaming on twitch: Fostering participatory communities of play within live mixed media. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 1315–1324). ACM.
29.
HemmiA.CrowtherJ. (2013). Learning environmental activism through social networking sites?The Journal of Contemporary Community Education Practice Theory, 4(1), 1–7. http://concept.lib.ed.ac.uk/article/view/2355
30.
HungC. Y. (2007). Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated meaning-making practices of Asian immigrant adolescents in New York City. In In situated play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference (pp. 248–253). University of Tokyo. http://www.digra.org/dl/db/07312.05225.pdf
JacobsR. S. (2020). Serious games: Play for change. In The video game debate 2 (pp. 19–40). Routledge.
33.
JenkinsH. (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: Exploring participatory culture. New York University Press.
34.
JohnsonM. R.WoodcockJ. (2018). The impacts of live streaming and Twitch.tv on the video game industry. Media, Culture & Society, 41(5), 670–688. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443718818363
35.
KafaiY. B.BurkeQ. (2016). Connected gaming: What making video games can teach us about learning and literacy. MIT Press.
36.
KatsaliakiK.MustafeeN. (2015). Edutainment for sustainable development: A survey of games in the field. Simulation Gaming, 46(6), 647–672. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878114552166
37.
KellyS.NardiB. (2014). Playing with sustainability: Using video games to simulate futures of scarcity. First Monday, 19.
38.
KolekL.RopovikI.SislerV.van OostendorpH.BromC. (2022). Video games and attitude change: A meta-analysis. PsyArXiv.
39.
LernerJ. (2014). Making democracy fun: how game design can empower citizens and transform politics. The MIT Press.
40.
MadaniK.PierceT. W.MirchiA. (2017). Serious games on environmental management. Sustainable Cities and Society, 29(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2016.11.007
OuariachiT.Olvera-LoboM. D.Gutiérrez-PérezJ.MaibachE. (2019). A framework for climate change engagement through video games. Environmental Education Research, 25(5), 701–716. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1545156
48.
PattersonT.BarrattS. (2019). Playing for the planet – How video games can deliver for people and the environment. UN Environment/GRID-Arendal.
SoflanoM. (2011)). Modding in Serious Games: Teaching Structured Query Language (SQL) Using NeverWinter Nights. In MaM.OikonomouA.JainL. (Eds.), Serious Games and Edutainment Applications (pp. 347–368). Springer.
55.
StanitsasM.KirytopoulosK.VareillesE. (2018). Facilitating sustainability transition through serious games: A systematic literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 208(1), 924–936. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.10.157
56.
SteinkuehlerC.WilliamsD. (2006). Where everybody knows your (screen) name: Online games as “third places”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(4), 885–909. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00300.x
57.
StevensR.SatwiczT.McCarthyL. (2008). In-game, in-room, in-world: Reconnecting video game play to the rest of kids’ lives. In Salen TekinbaşK. (Ed.), The ecology of games: Connecting youth, games, and learning (pp. 41–66). MIT Press.
TyackA.WyethP. (2016). Reflective experiences in videogame play. DiGRA Australia 2016.
60.
van AtteveldtW.van der VeldenM. A. C. G.BoukesM. (2021). The validity of sentiment analysis: Comparing manual annotation, crowd-coding, dictionary approaches, and machine learning algorithms. Communication Methods and Measures, 15(2), 121–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/19312458.2020.1869198
61.
VenturiniT. (2010). Diving in magma: How to explore controversies with actor-network theory. Public Understanding of Science, 19(3), 258–273. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662509102694
