In January 2026, STRATEGIES researcher Joost Vervoort spoke on a panel at Pocket Gamer Connects, a UK-based games industry conference. The panel was led by Tara Mustapha (Code Coven), Jennifer Estaris (Netflix), Joshua Nilson (Maskwa Games) and Bryan Mashinter (MashLab) and focused on how games can contribute to positive change in society. Joost talked about how STRATEGIES engages both with making games more sustainable and with games as a space for exploring sustainable futures.

GAME ONLY is one of the Sustainable Games Alliance partners integrating the Sustainable Games Standard into their carbon accounting and reporting tool, JYROS 🙌

STRATEGIES is pleased to announce the publication of four new research reports exploring how immersive technologies, artificial intelligence, and innovative pedagogical methods can support a sustainable transition for Europe’s game industries.

Together, these reports address STRATEGIES’ central missions: (1) Reducing the environmental footprint of game production and play and (2) strengthening the transformative cultural potential of games to support environmental awareness, critical literacy, and ecological shared futures.

Each report is now available to download here. 

What does it take to move people from knowing about climate change to caring enough to act — and to imagine different futures together?

A new STRATEGIES‑supported study, Beyond awareness: Climate games as invitations to care for the future (Moossdorff & Vervoort, 2026), explores this question through the lens of games. Drawing on an analysis of 287 climate‑related games, the research shows how play can become a powerful space for practising care for the future.

This work directly contributes to STRATEGIES’ mission to understand how games and can build  expand our collective imagination and support cultural responses to the climate crisis.

Some time ago, Volha Kapitonava, former Disco Elysium community manager and managing director for ecogame The Regreening, wrote a wonderful blog post titled ‘Joy is the radical tool games need to turn eco-anxiety into agency’. She wrote about the importance of joy in games that try to engage with the problems of ecological destruction. She mentioned our game All Will Rise, a role playing game about taking billionaires to court for destroying the planet, as an example.

I wholeheartedly agreed with this perspective, and it prompted me to try and write down my own thoughts about the importance of joy in games and in life, and how this informs our thinking about All Will Rise.

New global framework empowers games companies to measure and reduce carbon emissions, driving widespread industry sustainability.