Understanding Green Gaming: A Systematic Review of Environmental Awareness and Terminology in Video Game Research

The rapid growth of video games as important cultural and economic forces has sparked a clear interest in making the industry more environmentally friendly. One of the prominent examples is the push for green gaming. However, the movement has not successfully taken off. Academically, the term “green gaming” is being used interchangeably between other terms such as “ecological games,” or “ecogames.” The study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to systematically examine the question of what is green gaming? Searching from Web of Science, Google Scholar, and other sources, the author have found 50 eligible documents of various types such as books, articles, doctoral theses. Systematic review of these documents highlights a sparse and understudied nature of the topic video games and environments. Moreover, there is also a lack of clear definition and distinction between various terminologies, which leads to the abovementioned interchanged use of different terminologies in both academic and public writings. In conclusion, the study suggests the term “green gaming” should be understood as an aspect of the green consumption movement.