Conor McKeown

Videogames are frequently the subject of heated debates: addiction, violence, misogyny, racism: you name it, videogames have in some way been linked to it. But did you know that videogames are also literally destroying the planet we live on?

Of course, videogames are far from the only thing doing this but, as I’ll show in this talk, understanding the environmental cost of videogame production and play is an excellent way to understand the wider environmental, social and political problems that shape our world today.

Drawing on leading voices in the field of ecogames studies, I’ll discuss the impact gaming has on the environment and outline its entanglements with the powerful forces accelerating environmental collapse. However, departing from common wisdom in that field, I’ll also argue that this isn’t a problem that can be solved: instead, I’ll try to convince you that although videogames cannot stop the climate apocalypse, they can help us prepare for and deal with some of the consequences.

Steph Rennick

Women gamers are more prevalent than ever, with 51% of women now playing video games in some capacity. However, they are still underrepresented in many game genres and often face discrimination and harassment. We* collaborated with Unity PR and Undone Games to investigate the barriers to playing video games that women face. A survey of 1000 women who play mobile games revealed that many experience guilt and shame around doing so. In the paper-in-progress, we argue that this is related to feeling excluded from gaming culture. In this short talk I’ll speak a little about the collaboration, show some of the most interesting results, and gesture at the argument.