Date: March 31st 2025

Authors: Sonia Fizek (WP2 lead, professor at TH Köln), Ruth Dorothea Eggel (post-doctoral researcher at TH Köln), Odile Limpach (co-founder at SpielFabrique), Matthes Lindner (researcher at SpielFabrique), Hugo Derivry (researcher at SpielFabrique), Christian Paller (doctoral researcher at Malta University), Isabel Grünberg (MA student researcher at TH Köln), Marie Taeger (MA student researcher at TH Köln)

Suggested citation: Fizek, S., Eggel, D. R., Lindner, M., Paller, C., Limpach, O., Derivry, H., Grünberg, I., Taeger, M. (2025). Green Transition at Play. State of the Art Report on the Environmental and Social Sustainability of Video and Board Game Industries. Project STRATEGIES - Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries.

What is the goal of this report?

The aim of this report is to map out the environmental and social sustainability landscapes of the European video games and board games industries.

Who is this report for?

This report has been written for a broad audience, including academics, game developers, business and financial actors, policymakers as well as the general public interested in games & sustainability.

What is this report about?

The report provides a systematic overview of diverse sustainability related information: underpinning frameworks, guidelines and initiatives, EU policies, design tools and green games. It also critically approaches the liberal sustainability paradigm within which many of the initiatives and guides operate. The aim of this work is to help the readers grasp the current fragmented picture around sustainability issues within the European video games and board games sectors.

The report is a milestone in research on work cultures and sustainability practices, especially those related to environmental concerns and working conditions, including questions of well-being, diversity and equality. The insights gained from this report will allow our research team to design an ethnographic study of sustainable values, practices and processes behind game development and ultimately contribute to the larger question of the meaningful, sustainable transition of the European game industries. Although our major focus is on the video games industry, we are including foundational information related to the board games industry as well.

This report is divided into three parts:

• Part I - (Re)Framing Sustainability;

• Part II - Sustainable Video Games Industry;

• Part III - Sustainable Board Games Industry.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank colleagues who were involved in reading and commenting on this report. Special thanks go to Chloé Germaine (Manchester Metropolitan University), one of the principal investigators of STRATEGIES.