Yale program on climate change communication announces a new report, “What do video gamers think about global warming?”

 

Video games have become one of humanity’s favorite forms of entertainment, with an estimated 3 billion players worldwide. People of all ages, nationalities, genders, and socioeconomic statuses play video games. Games can raise public climate change awareness and knowledge, simulate potential climate futures, and provide training in climate solutions, including emissions reduction and disaster preparedness, all within a fun environment.

 

The report presents results from a national survey, conducted in partnership with Unity (the world’s leading platform for creating and operating interactive, real-time 3D (RT3D) content) investigating global warming knowledge, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior among video game players in the United States.

 

The study finds that video gamers are similar to Americans overall in many of their beliefs and attitudes regarding global warming. About three in four video gamers (73 per cent) think global warming is happening, and the majority of video gamers (56 per cent) understand that it is mostly human-caused.

 

These proportions are nearly identical to the proportions in the U.S. population overall, as measured in the Climate Change in the American Mind study conducted in April and May of 2022 (72 per cent  of Americans said global warming is happening, 56 per cent  said it is human-caused). 

 

However, video gamers are much more willing to take action to address global warming than Americans overall. A majority of video gamers (55 per cent ) say they either “often” or "occasionally" discuss global warming with family and friends, compared with only about one in three Americans overall (33 per cent).

 

Moreover, video gamers are more likely to say they would sign a petition about global warming, volunteer their time or donate  to an organization working on global warming, contact government officials about global warming, support an organization engaging in non-violent civil disobedience meet with an elected official or their staff, or personally engage in non-violent civil disobedience. 

 

Also the results reveals that many video gamers are already engaging with global warming content in games. About one in five video gamers (22 per cent) have seen or heard content related to global warming as part of gaming in the last 12 months, either as a topic in a game they have played (16 per cent) or in a video gaming stream they have watched (16 per cent).

 

Additionally, about one in eight gamers (13 per cent) say they took actions based on the content they learned about global warming in a game or gaming stream.-OGN