Geeks versus climate change: Understanding American video gamers’ engagement with global warming

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Carman, Marina Psaros, Seth A. Rosenthal, Jennifer Marlon, and 6 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3915934/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 16 May, 2024 Read the published version in Climatic Change → Version 1 posted 4 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract As climate change impacts increase, communicators must engage as many audiences as possible in climate action. One potentially underrated audience is video gamers. Two-thirds of Americans play video games, and video games are a potentially effective climate change communication tool. However, little research has examined whether video gamers have unique value as a target audience for climate communication, and if they do, what might be effective ways to reach them. To address this need, we use two surveys including self-identified video game players in the United States to measure their current engagement with climate change, including through video gaming. In Study 1, a nationally representative survey in the United States (N = 1,006), we found that being a video gamer was slightly positively associated with intentions to take collective action on global warming. In Study 2, restricted to gamers in the United States (N = 2,034), we found that having more friends and family who played video games, and/or being exposed to global warming content in gaming, were also positively associated with collective action intentions. These findings were consistent even after controlling for potential confounding variables such as age, political party, and global warming attitudes. Results suggest that video gamers are a worthwhile potential audience for future climate change communication, combatting the stereotype of video gamers as disengaged or antisocial, at least in the context of climate change. Our study also identifies several potential avenues for future communication with video gamers, particularly outreach to and engagement with gaming communities. Climate change climate change communication video gamers collective action United States Introduction The impacts of climate change are already being felt around the world (IPCC, 2022). The need for climate change communication is increasingly urgent to help diverse publics understand that climate change is happening; already harming people, places, and other species; how people can prepare for the impacts; and how they can help reduce the carbon emissions causing global warming (Leiserowitz, 2019; Moser, 2010). One important principle of communication is to ‘meet people where they are,’ meaning that communicators should understand what their target audience already knows, believes, and cares about, and develop their communication strategy from there (Nerlich et al., 2010). In climate communication, research on target audiences has included identifying both issue-based audiences through segmentation (e.g., Leiserowitz et al., 2021), as well as affinity-based audiences, such as outdoor recreationalists like runners, campers, etc. (Cunningham et al., 2020; Knight & Hao, 2022). This study focuses on another recreational audience group: video gamers. Video games are one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world, with a global audience of billions – including more than 200 million Americans (ESA, 2023), and thus represents a large potential target audience. Moreover, video games are themselves a potentially powerful communication medium given that gamers often have stable commitments to a specific media platform. In recent years, video gaming has grown in popularity as a tool to encourage both climate change learning (Ouariachi et al., 2019) and behavior change, at both individual and collective levels (Douglas & Brauer, 2021; Fernández Galeote et al., 2021). However, thus far there has been little research to investigate how video gamers themselves view climate change. Video gamers are a substantial proportion of the population overall, with nearly two-thirds of adults (62%) in the U.S. saying they play video games at least an hour per week (ESA, 2023). Despite this size and diversity of the gaming population (ESA, 2023; Patterson & Barratt, 2019), the broader image persists of gamers as, at best, disconnected from and apathetic toward ‘real-world’ issues like climate change (McGonigal, 2011), and, at worst, supporting and even participating in antisocial actions such as misogynist harassment and violence (Aghazadeh et al., 2018). Moreover, even if video gamers in general might be interested in climate change, this apparent interest may be a function of their youth rather than their affinity for gaming since they skew younger than the general population (ESA, 2023), and younger people are generally more engaged on climate change issues (Ballew et al., 2019; Marlon et al., 2022). Therefore, there is a need to disentangle these factors when investigating video gamers’ potential to engage with climate change science and solutions. In this research, we conducted two quantitative studies of self-identified video game players in the United States to understand their beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions regarding climate change. In Study 1, we examine whether video gamers differ from non-gamers in their likelihood of engaging in collective behaviors to reduce climate change. In Study 2, we explore what gamer characteristics predict a greater likelihood of engaging in those collective behaviors. We find that being a video gamer is positively associated with climate change collective actions even after controlling for age, political party, and climate attitudes. Our study highlights the importance of treating video gamers as a unique audience of potential climate actors and contributes practical insights to engage them. Video gaming as a tool for climate change communication and education Video games can be an effective medium for climate change communication and education. Modern video games are designed to be engaging, social, immersive, and satisfying forms of recreation, and may include design elements that can promote cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement with climate change topics (McGonigal, 2011; Ouariachi et al., 2019; Wu & Lee, 2015), including in-depth issue exploration, empathy-building and perspective-taking, and interactive simulations of complex models and systems (McGonigal, 2011; Wu & Lee, 2015). Video gaming can also enhance feelings of personal efficacy, promote long-term thinking and skill development, tell meaningful stories, and facilitate social interaction with others (Fernández Galeote & Hamari, 2021; McGonigal, 2011; Ouariachi et al., 2019). Most video games that have been studied in the context of climate change fall into the category of serious games, which are games primarily designed to promote learning and motivate action rather than provide entertainment (Fernández Galeote & Hamari, 2021; Reckien & Eisenack, 2013). Serious video games have been used in both formal and informal educational settings to teach about many climate change-related topics (Fernández Galeote et al., 2022; Reckien & Eisenack, 2013), and have been found to have positive impacts on learners’ understanding of climate change science (Smith et al., 2019), and pro-environmental attitudes (Georgiou et al., 2023; Janakiraman et al., 2021). However, evidence of their effects on behavior is limited (Georgiou et al., 2023). While serious games have grown in use as a tool for climate change communication and engagement, video games designed for entertainment (i.e., commercial games) can also be an effective medium to engage audiences on climate change issues, and many developers in the commercial gaming industry have incorporated, or are interested in incorporating, climate change content (Fernández Galeote & Hamari, 2021; Patterson & Barratt, 2019; Whittle et al., 2022). For example, since 2020, a coalition of video game makers has held an annual “Green Game Jam” to incorporate climate-related content into entertainment titles, and a survey of players found that they were willing to commit to behaviors such as tree planting and reducing meat consumption after participating (Mensah-Bonsu et al., 2022). Entertainment games can incorporate many of the same best practices as serious games – such as efficacy enhancement – to promote climate change engagement, although Fernández Galeote & Hamari (2021) found that entertainment games incorporate fewer of these practices compared with serious games. Nonetheless, research in other domains has found that video gamers can engage in prosocial actions after playing entertainment games, including interacting more kindly with others after playing Super Mario Sunshine and Chibi Robo (Gentile et al., 2009), formation of social groups in World of Warcraft (Zhang & Kaufman, 2015), and engaging in positive health behaviors in Pokémon Go (Yang & Liu, 2017). Less research has focused on collective behaviors in gaming, which helped motivate our research questions in this study. Video gamers as an audience for climate change communication Although research on video games has shown that gaming can be an effective climate communication medium, little research has examined the views and preferences of video gamers as an audience for climate communication specifically. Existing evidence on gamers’ willingness to engage in prosocial action is mixed and limited. Past research on video gamers’ engagement with social issues has focused on potential links between video gaming and real-world violence (Anderson, 2004) and misogyny (Fox & Tang, 2014), but meta-analyses and longitudinal studies have shown no evidence of causal links between them (Ferguson, 2007; Kühn et al., 2019). Other research suggests that video gamers have the potential to be mobilized toward prosocial collective action, though the potential for pro-climate action, specifically, is not clear. For example, Molyneux et al. (2015) found a positive association between playing multiplayer online games and civic participation via formation of both in-game and real-world social bonds (i.e., social capital). Jung (2020)’s study of online video gaming adults in South Korea found that both exposure to news through in-game sources, and being involved in the gaming community, had small but statistically significant positive relationships with political behaviors such as attending a rally. However, the study did not specify what kinds of social causes these political behaviors were meant to address. Additionally, Bacovsky (2021a) found that adolescent video gamers in Sweden tend to be politically engaged and discuss political issues with other video gamers, but their engagement is more likely to be in support of political groups associated with privacy and technology issues (i.e., the Swedish Pirate party) rather than social or environmental issues (i.e., the Green party). By contrast, in a separate study, Bacovsky (2021b) found that adolescents who played online games more often were less likely to be interested in political and social issues overall. The challenge of engaging video gamers on climate change may be best articulated by McGonigal (2011), who argues that video gamers tend to perceive themselves as disconnected from reality and ‘real-world’ issues. However, this disconnection results from a frustrated desire for a better reality, rather than a true lack of care. However, she finds that games that show gamers possibilities of a better reality can have a powerful effect on their likelihood to engage in prosocial actions, including in the context of climate change (McGonigal, 2011). Theoretical framework and research questions Climate change and risk communication theories argue that effective climate change communication matches an audience to outreach methods and messaging to promote behaviors that reduce harms from climate change (Leiserowitz et al., 2021; Nerlich et al., 2010). Our research focuses on the audience of video gamers and their behaviors related to climate change, with the intention of informing future methods and messaging development. We operationalize the measurement of behavior as collective actions related to climate change, also known as public sphere actions (Lacroix et al., 2022; Stern, 2000). These actions can be taken alone or with others (such as activist organizations), and are meant to influence the behaviors of other individuals, governments, and businesses (Lacroix et al., 2022; Stern, 2000). These behaviors are important because they can have broad-reaching impacts such as changes in government regulations or corporate practices related to climate change (Stern, 2000). There has been significant theoretical and empirical research to identify attitudinal and demographic factors that are positively associated with personal and collective action on climate (Bamberg & Möser, 2007; De Groot & Steg, 2009; e.g., Howe, 2021; Steg et al., 2014; Stern, 2000). Attitudinal factors that appear consistently in this research include injunctive social norms (i.e., what behaviors other people expect; De Groot & Steg, 2009; Steg et al., 2014); descriptive social norms (i.e., what behaviors other people are actually doing; Bamberg & Möser, 2007; De Groot & Steg, 2009); risk perceptions (i.e., perception that climate change is both likely and harmful; Bamberg & Möser, 2007; Bouman et al., 2020; Howe, 2021; O’Connor et al., 1999; Stern, 2000); feelings of collective efficacy (i.e., perception that one can act and their actions will make a difference; Bamberg & Möser, 2007; De Groot & Steg, 2009; Howe, 2021; Steg et al., 2014; Stern, 2000); feelings of personal responsibility to act on climate change (Bamberg & Möser, 2007; Bouman et al., 2020; De Groot & Steg, 2009; Steg et al., 2014; Stern, 2000); and personal experience with climate change impacts (Howe, 2021). Demographic factors relevant to climate change behaviors include age and education, as younger and more educated people are more likely to hold more pro-climate attitudes (Ballew et al., 2019) and support political action on climate change (Marlon et al., 2022). Additionally, in the United States, political ideology and party affiliation are also strong predictors of climate attitudes and actions (Drews & van den Bergh, 2016; Leiserowitz, Maibach, Rosenthal, Kotcher, Goddard, et al., 2023). In Study 1, we investigated whether being a video gamer has a significant relationship with likelihood of engagement in collective climate behavior after controlling for these attitudinal and demographic factors. Because existing research on video gamer engagement with social issues has shown mixed results, we did not hypothesize a specific direction in the relationship. Additionally, while our study draws on existing theoretical research on attitudinal factors related to collective action, we did not seek to identify any new attitudinal factors but rather control for their effects. Therefore, Study 1 had the following research question: RQ1: Do video gamers in the United States differ from non-gamers in their likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, after controlling for key correlates of climate engagement? In Study 2, we drew on theoretical research about video gamer engagement generally (i.e., not specific to climate change communication). One theory of gamer engagement identifies three main motivations for playing games: social (i.e., to interact and cooperate with other players), immersion (i.e., to explore the world and story of the game), and achievement (i.e., to compete and/or demonstrate one’s skills at the game) (Yee et al., 2012). Research on gamers and behavior has found that these three motivations can affect not only gaming engagement, but also engagement with behaviors outside of games (Orji et al., 2017; Yang & Liu, 2017). Additional gaming research suggests that gamers’ social ties with other gamers affects their likelihood of taking political action (Bacovsky, 2021a; Jung, 2020). Bacovsky (2021a) found that video gamers often engage with each other on political issues through online discussion and civic engagement, suggesting that gaming social communities provide an important forum for political engagement. Jung (2020) explored these issues directly and found that playing video games with others, and self-reported involvement in online gaming communities, were positively associated with participation in political action. However, the relationship between social and motivational factors related to gaming, and behaviors related specifically to climate change, has not previously been studied. Accordingly, in the current study, we measure both motivations and social ties. Based on this theoretical guidance, Study 2 had the following research question: RQ2: To what extent do video gamers’ motivations and/or social ties indicate greater likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, after controlling for key correlates of climate engagement? Study 1 Methods Sampling and Recruitment Detailed information about study methods are provided in the supplemental materials. Data for Study 1 were collected October 10-20, 2021, from American adults (age 18 and older) who were recruited from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel using probability sampling methods. Respondents answered questions in a web-based survey on climate change attitudes, self-reported behaviors, and policy support. This survey was one wave of a larger, ongoing study (AUTHORS, 2021). The final sample included 1,006 respondents. Quota groups were not used, but post-stratification weights were used for descriptive statistics based on gender by age group, education, race/ethnicity, income, and geographic region. Weighted and unweighted sample demographics, including U.S. Census norms, are provided in Supplemental Table 1. Measures and Analysis All measures included in Study 1 were part of an ongoing national-level study (AUTHORS, 2021) and have been validated in other studies (e.g., AUTHORS et al., 2019; AUTHORS et al., 2022). The dependent variables for Study 1 were three measures of collective (i.e., public sphere) climate actions: political behavior intentions, consumer activism intentions, and discussing global warming with others. The measure of political behavior intentions asked about intentions only; the consumer activism measures asked about both past behavior and future intentions; and the discussing global warming measure asked about general behavior. All measures are based on participant self-report. Details about question wording are provided in the supplemental methods. To answer RQ1 we used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models for the three dependent variables. Our predictor variable for Study 1 was whether participants said they played video games. Responses were coded to a dummy variable where 0 = Does not play video games (“Never”, n = 555) and 1 = Plays video games (all other responses, n = 451). We included numerous covariates to control for the effects of factors that are already well-known to be associated with collective climate behaviors based on existing empirical and theoretical research: injunctive and descriptive norms, collective efficacy, risk perceptions regarding global warming, personal experience with global warming, and perceived personal responsibility to act on global warming. These covariates were all measured as single items, with the exception of collective efficacy, which included two items. Covariates also included key demographic variables that are known to be associated with global warming attitudes and behavior (Ballew et al., 2019): political party, age, education, gender, and race/ethnicity. Age and education were measured as ordinal variables, while political party, gender, and race/ethnicity were measured as categorical variables. The final political behavior intention measure was developed using confirmatory factor analysis, included in Supplemental Table 3. The final collective efficacy measure was not based on factor analysis because it only included two items. Instead, we used the mean of the two collective efficacy items. The final consumer activism intention measure was determined as an index variable based on both past self-reported behavior in the past year, and future intended behavior in the next year, so that consumer activism intention is scored relative to past behavior. The rubric used for determining these scores are provided in Table 1. INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE All other variables were analyzed as single items, and descriptive statistics for the measures are provided in Supplemental Table 2. Results RQ1: Are American video gamers different from non-gamers in their likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, after controlling for other relevant factors? To examine whether American video gamers differ from non-gamers in their likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, we regressed whether participants played video games onto three collective climate actions, while controlling for attitudinal and demographic covariates. We conducted separate regressions for each of the three collective actions, and we found that being a video gamer had a small but statistically significant positive relationship with each of them: political behavior intentions ( b = 0.05, p = 0.02), consumer activism intentions ( b = 0.09, p = 0.003), and discussing global warming ( b = 0.06, p = 0.03; see Table 2 for standardized coefficients, Supplemental Table 10 for unstandardized coefficients and confidence intervals, and Table 3 for simple zero-order coefficients and Cohen’s d effect sizes). INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE Discussion In a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, we found that video gamers were more likely than non-gamers to engage in collective actions on climate change (e.g., political behavior intention and consumer activism intention). Specifically, the analysis showed that being a video gamer has a small but statistically significant positive relationship with all three climate change behaviors and intentions when controlling for demographic and attitudinal covariates (including political party and age), and two of the dependent variables (excluding discussing global warming) when not controlling for these covariates. While the size of the relationships are small, it is important to note that there were no negative relationships between being a video gamer and likelihood of engagement in collective climate change action. This runs counter to studies that suggest playing video games might have a negative relationship with engagement in prosocial behavior (e.g., Bacovsky, 2021b), and provides evidence in support of studies that found positive relationships with other prosocial behaviors such as political engagement and activism (Bacovsky, 2021a; Jung, 2020). However, Study 1 does not explore the types of video gamers who might be more likely to engage in these behaviors, or why. Study 2 investigates these issues. Study 2 Methods Sampling and Recruitment Data for Study 2 were collected May 30-June 7, 2022, from American adults (age 18 and older) who were recruited from the Nexus Polling online panel using non-probability (opt-in) sampling methods. Because there is no publicly available benchmark data for video gaming adults in the United States, the demographic parameters for the sample quotas and weights were estimated based on the video gamer subgroup from Study 1. Details on recruitment are provided in the supplemental methods, and weighted and unweighted sample demographics are provided in Supplemental Table 5. The final sample included 2,034 participants, which had a median completion time of 15 minutes. In order to identify video gamers in the sample, the video gaming question from Study 1 (i.e., “How often do you play video games?”) was used as a screener question for Study 2. Participants who answered “Never” were screened out. Responses were required for all questions, including the screener. Validation. Because national-level data on American video gamers’ climate change attitudes is limited, we conducted a validation analysis comparing the Study 2 sample with the Study 1 video gamer sub-sample on the climate change attitudinal covariates that were measured in both studies. Detailed results from this analysis are shown in Supplemental Figure 2. Based on this analysis, we concluded that the samples were sufficiently comparable and that all of the dependent variables and climate change attitude covariates from Study 1 would be appropriate to include in Study 2. Measures Nearly all of the measures for the dependent variables (i.e., behaviors) and covariates (i.e., climate change attitudes and demographics) included in Study 2 were identical to those used in Study 1. Study 2 also included several new independent variables relating to video gamer motivations and characteristics, drawn from existing studies of video gamers. Details on question wording can be found in the supplemental methods, and descriptive statistics for the measures are reported in Supplemental Table 7. Dimension reduction. We used the same dimension reduction methods for the dependent variables in Study 2 as we used in Study 1 (Supplemental Table 6) and for the climate attitude covariates. For the gaming motivation items, we determined that the items were best suited to be used as a single-factor index ( motivated ) rather than as measures of the three separate motivation types suggested by Yee et al. (2012) based on the results of exploratory factor analysis (Supplemental Figure 4 and Supplemental Table 11). Binary measures of gaming with other people and exposure to global warming content were developed based on participants’ self-report. All other measures were analyzed as single items. Analysis Model selection. Similar to Study 1, OLS regression modeling was used to conduct the analyses in Study 2. Because there is limited theoretical guidance on gamer characteristics that might be relevant to collective climate action, we included a multistep process to determine which independent variables relating to gaming to include in the final model, detailed in the supplemental methods (Supplemental Figure 3 and Supplemental Tables 8-9). Model fit analyses (see Supplemental Table 9) suggested three predictor variables that produced the best-fitting model for the climate action dependent variables: being motivated to play games, self-reported exposure to global warming content through gaming , and self-reported proportion of friends and relatives who play video games . Results RQ2: To what extent do video gamers’ motivations and/or social ties indicate greater likelihood of engagement in collective action on climate change, after controlling for other relevant factors? We regressed the three gaming characteristics variables onto the three collective climate actions, while controlling for attitudinal and demographic covariates. We conducted separate regressions for each of the three collective actions. We found that being motivated to play video games did not have statistically significant relationships with any of the dependent variables, including political behavior intentions ( b = 0.01, p = 0.56), consumer activism intentions ( b = 0.03, p = 0.24), or discussing global warming ( b = 0.01, p = 0.75). However, exposure to global warming content had small but statistically significant positive relationships with consumer activism intentions ( b = 0.09, p < 0.001) and discussing global warming ( b = 0.06, p = 0.008), though not with political behavior intentions ( b = 0.01, p = 0.73). Additionally, the proportion of friends and relatives who play video games had statistically significant positive relationships with all three behaviors: political behavior intentions ( b = 0.06, p = 0.003), consumer activism intentions ( b = 0.09, p = 0.001) and discussing global warming ( b = 0.08, p = 0.001). Table 4 shows standardized regression coefficients, while unstandardized coefficients and confidence intervals are presented in Supplemental Table 12. INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE Discussion This study used cross-sectional survey data to measure video gamer characteristics that were positively associated with potential collective action on global warming. Analysis showed that having a greater proportion of friends and relatives who played video games, and self-reported exposure to global warming content in gaming, both had positive relationships with consumer activism intentions and talking with other people about global warming. By contrast, being a motivated gamer did not have significant relationships with these behaviors after controlling for other factors. Like in Study 1, the regression coefficients for video gaming characteristics were small but statistically significant after controlling for global warming attitudes, age, and political party. Furthermore, similar to Study 1, there were no negative relationships between gamer characteristics and likelihood of engagement in collective climate change action. These findings provide additional support for our analysis from Study 1, in contrast to findings that people who play video games are less likely to engage in prosocial behavior (e.g., Bacovsky, 2021b). Gaming motivations were not significantly associated with any of our dependent variables. These findings counter other research which finds that different motivations can affect different prosocial behaviors (Orji et al., 2017; Yang & Liu, 2017). However, our results should not be interpreted as contradicting gaming motivations theory more broadly. The differences in our results may be because our sample differs from samples used in previous research on gaming motivations such as the Gamer Motivation Profile (Quantic Foundry, 2015; Yee et al., 2012). First, our study sample is smaller than for the Gamer Motivation Profile, and second, our sample includes any people who play any video games, even infrequently, rather than the group of self-identified ‘gamers’ who participated in the gaming motivation studies. A focused sample with more intensive gamers may reveal more nuance in gaming motivations. General Discussion We conducted two quantitative studies to examine video gamers as an audience for climate change communication. We found that, overall, playing video games (Study 1), and having a higher proportion of friends/relatives who play games and/or being exposed to global warming content through gaming (Study 2), have small but significant positive associations with collective action intentions regarding global warming (i.e., political behavior, consumer activism), with no negative associations even after controlling for demographics and global warming attitudes. Our results suggest that video gamers may be somewhat more inclined toward climate action compared with non-video gamers, and they are clearly not less so. This research shows the value of the video gaming audience to climate change communicators. Video gamers are at least as likely as non-gamers to engage in collective action on climate change, and our findings show that video gamers’ receptiveness to climate change engagement is not solely attributed to demographic differences (e.g., that they are young and/or politically Democratic-leaning). In fact, our model of consumer activism intentions (Table 3) shows a positive coefficient for age, meaning that older video gamers were more positively inclined than younger gamers toward this behavior. These findings are important because many video game developers have begun incorporating climate messaging into games (Whittle et al., 2022), and our research indicates that these efforts are worthwhile, and not only to a youth audience. Both studies add to existing research on video gamers’ engagement in social issues generally by investigating the specific issue of climate change, and by adding measures of consumer activism intention, which have not been included in other studies on video gamers’ collective behaviors. This latter addition is notable because we consistently find significant relationships between gaming, gaming characteristics, and consumer activism intentions, suggesting that this may be an effective type of behavior to explore in future interventions. Study 2 adds to this research by including both motivational and social gaming factors in one model, and by showing a positive association between having more friends and relatives who play games and potential engagement in collective action on climate. These results support and add to Jung’s (2020) and Molyneux et al.’s (2015) findings that video gamers’ participation in online gaming communities, particularly through the formation of social relationships, was positively associated with civic behaviors. They also support environmental research finding that social connections are linked to collective action on environmental issues (Cho & Kang, 2017; Macias & Williams, 2016). Finally, our results align with best practices on global warming engagement through video games, which include social components (Ouariachi et al., 2019). The findings also add to the broader research on people who play video games by combating stereotypes of this group. Video gamers are often stereotyped as young white men (Duggan, 2015) who are disconnected from, if not outright hostile to, real-world concerns and prosocial causes (Aghazadeh et al., 2018; McGonigal, 2011), even though other research has shown, as ours does, that the gaming population is much broader and more diverse than these stereotypes (Duggan, 2015; ESA, 2023). Our study also adds to this research by also combating stereotypes of people who care about the environment, who are often conceptualized as wildly different from, if not mutually exclusive of, video gamers (e.g., Bashir et al., 2013). Instead, we find substantial overlap between these groups: Many video gamers are concerned about – and willing to take action on – climate change, and many people who are willing to act on climate change play video games. We offer several caveats for interpreting these findings. First, while we found statistically significant positive associations between being a video gamer and collective action intentions, the standardized beta coefficients (and Cohen’s d coefficients) are small, meaning that video gamers may be positively inclined toward collective actions on climate change, but they are not substantially so when compared with non-gamers. Second, being a video gamer is unlikely to be a causal factor for engagement on climate issues. Being a video gamer may be a reflection of other factors, such as personality, that might predict both gaming engagement and climate engagement (cf. De Hesselle et al., 2021; Milfont & Sibley, 2012). Finally, while we show that there is a positive relationship between being a video gamer and intention to engage in collective action on global warming, that does not imply that every individual video gamer is willing to engage with climate change issues. Like Americans overall, there are video gamers who are dismissive of the topic. However, like Americans overall, these dismissive video gamers are only a small proportion of the total population (Leiserowitz, Maibach, Rosenthal, Kotcher, Ballew, et al., 2023). Additionally, our study relies on self-report for both current and past behaviors (i.e., talking about global warming and participation in consumer activism) as well as exposure to global warming content, which may not reflect actual behavior or exposure to content. We also measured behavioral intentions (i.e. political behavior intention and consumer activism intentions), and self-reported environmental behavioral intention does not necessarily translate to real-world behavior (Bamberg & Möser, 2007). Moreover, because the three behavior measures were drawn from existing questions from a long-running study, they differ from each other in structure and question wording. We decided to include all three measures to explore the relationships between our predictor variables and multiple types of dependent variables; however, comparative differences in these relationships by dependent variable should be interpreted with caution. Finally, our study only included American adults over age 18. Youth under age 18 (Bacovsky, 2021a, 2021b), and people outside the United States (Jung, 2020; Lewis et al., 2019) engage with both video games and climate change issues differently from adults and Americans, respectively. Implications for communicators and future research Overall, our study suggests that the social dimensions of video gaming may play an important role in helping engage video gamers in climate change action. This supports the recommended best practices of Ouariachi et al. (2019), namely including social elements (i.e., interacting with other players) in game design as a way to promote climate engagement and action. Moreover, our study suggests that it may be valuable to engage with video gamers not only through games themselves but also through their social circles in the gaming community. Video gamers with more friends and relatives who play games may be more likely to take action on climate change, and these gamers also are more active in online spaces for gaming, and have higher trust in many information sources (see Supplemental Figure 6). Some online influencers have already engaged their followers to take pro-environment behavior, such as YouTubers Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) and Mark Rober, who have raised $20 million to plant trees and remove ocean plastics since 2020 (Solman, 2022). Another important area for future research is assessing the outcomes of interventions targeting video gamers. Many video game interventions focus on serious games developed for educational purposes (e.g., Fernández Galeote & Hamari, 2021; Gerber et al., 2021), despite nascent efforts by the commercial video gaming industry to educate and engage video gamers, which have shown promising signs of engagement but have yet to be rigorously studied (Mensah-Bonsu et al., 2022; Whittle et al., 2022). Fernández Galeote & Hamari (2021) offer several suggestions for improving the effectiveness of entertainment video game interventions, such as including more direct calls to action and promoting players’ feelings of efficacy. Our study suggests that these, along with social attributes already present in many commercial games (Fernández Galeote & Hamari, 2021), may be useful for promoting real-world action. Game studios can take action on both the methods and the messaging aspects of the theoretical framework described above. Specifically, studios can implement methods (in the form of game mechanics) which encourage gamers to use the social dimensions of games to communicate about and organize real-world action. For example, in-game rewards could be provided to gamers that take real-world social action, such as posting about climate-related game content on social media sites, or make an in-app donation to a climate-related cause. Because most video games already have robust player measurement systems in place, the efficacy of different game mechanics could be measured relatively easily. Finally, research is needed to better understand how video gamers engage with climate change through gaming over time. The elements of interventions that can promote longer-term engagement with global warming are deep engagement, general mental models, and social norms (Goldberg et al., 2020). These elements strongly align with video gaming, which can promote taking the long view, ecosystems thinking, and experimentation (i.e., deep engagement and mental model-building) (McGonigal, 2011), as well as the development of social communities (and thus new social norms) (Molyneux et al., 2015; Zhang & Kaufman, 2015). Moreover, video gaming is a long-term habit, meaning there is potential for repeated engagement with climate change topics through games and gaming communities (McGonigal, 2011). Conclusion Climate change is and will continue to be an urgent social problem, so climate communicators need to engage as many audiences as possible in climate action. Video gamers are a potentially valuable audience for climate change communication, and many video gamers are ready and willing to take collective action to combat climate change. This study should help future communicators understand video gamers as an audience so that they can meet video gamers where they are – including in a game. Declarations Acknowledgements Thank you to Paula Escuadra with the International Game Developers Association Climate Special Interest Group; Grant Shonkweiler with the Adrienne Arsht – Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council; Jerome Hagen with Microsoft; and Sebastien Dore with Ubisoft for providing their industry knowledge and perspective during question development. Ethics approval and consent to participate This study was approved by the Yale Institutional Review Board. Consent for publication All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to Climatic Change. Competing interests statement The authors have no competing interests to report. Funding Study 1 was funded by the 11th Hour Project, the Energy Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Grantham Foundation. 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Tables 1 to 4 are available in the Supplementary Files section Supplementary Files gamersgwsupplementalmaterials.pdf gamersgwTABLES.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 16 May, 2024 Read the published version in Climatic Change → Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 21 Feb, 2024 Reviewers invited by journal 11 Feb, 2024 Editor assigned by journal 06 Feb, 2024 First submitted to journal 01 Feb, 2024 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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The need for climate change communication is increasingly urgent to help diverse publics understand that climate change is happening; already harming people, places, and other species; how people can prepare for the impacts; and how they can help reduce the carbon emissions causing global warming\u0026nbsp;(Leiserowitz, 2019; Moser, 2010).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne important principle of communication is to \u0026lsquo;meet people where they are,\u0026rsquo; meaning that communicators should understand what their target audience already knows, believes, and cares about, and develop their communication strategy from there\u0026nbsp;(Nerlich et al., 2010). In climate communication, research on target audiences has included identifying both issue-based audiences through segmentation\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Leiserowitz et al., 2021), as well as affinity-based audiences, such as outdoor recreationalists like runners, campers, etc.\u0026nbsp;(Cunningham et al., 2020; Knight \u0026amp; Hao, 2022).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study focuses on another recreational audience group: video gamers. Video games are one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world, with a global audience of billions \u0026ndash; including more than 200 million Americans\u0026nbsp;(ESA, 2023), and thus represents a large potential target audience. Moreover, video games are themselves a potentially powerful communication medium given that gamers often have stable commitments to a specific media platform. In recent years, video gaming has grown in popularity as a tool to encourage both climate change learning\u0026nbsp;(Ouariachi et al., 2019)\u0026nbsp;and behavior change, at both individual and collective levels\u0026nbsp;(Douglas \u0026amp; Brauer, 2021; Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote et al., 2021).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, thus far there has been little research to investigate how video gamers themselves view climate change. Video gamers are a substantial proportion of the population overall, with nearly two-thirds of adults (62%) in the U.S. saying they play video games at least an hour per week\u0026nbsp;(ESA, 2023). Despite this size and diversity of the gaming population\u0026nbsp;(ESA, 2023; Patterson \u0026amp; Barratt, 2019), the broader image persists of gamers as, at best, disconnected from and apathetic toward \u0026lsquo;real-world\u0026rsquo; issues like climate change\u0026nbsp;(McGonigal, 2011), and, at worst, supporting and even participating in antisocial actions such as misogynist harassment and violence\u0026nbsp;(Aghazadeh et al., 2018). Moreover, even if video gamers in general might be interested in climate change, this apparent interest may be a function of their youth rather than their affinity for gaming since they skew younger than the general population\u0026nbsp;(ESA, 2023), and younger people are generally more engaged on climate change issues\u0026nbsp;(Ballew et al., 2019; Marlon et al., 2022). Therefore, there is a need to disentangle these factors when investigating video gamers\u0026rsquo; potential to engage with climate change science and solutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this research, we conducted two quantitative studies of self-identified video game players in the United States to understand their beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions regarding climate change. In Study 1, we examine whether video gamers differ from non-gamers in their likelihood of engaging in collective behaviors to reduce climate change. In Study 2, we explore what gamer characteristics predict a greater likelihood of engaging in those collective behaviors. We find that being a video gamer is positively associated with climate change collective actions even after controlling for age, political party, and climate attitudes. Our study highlights the importance of treating video gamers as a unique audience of potential climate actors and contributes practical insights to engage them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eVideo gaming as a tool for climate change communication and education\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVideo games can be an effective medium for climate change communication and education. Modern video games are designed to be engaging, social, immersive, and satisfying forms of recreation, and may include design elements that can promote cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement with climate change topics\u0026nbsp;(McGonigal, 2011; Ouariachi et al., 2019; Wu \u0026amp; Lee, 2015), including in-depth issue exploration, empathy-building and perspective-taking, and interactive simulations of complex models and systems\u0026nbsp;(McGonigal, 2011; Wu \u0026amp; Lee, 2015). Video gaming can also enhance feelings of personal efficacy, promote long-term thinking and skill development, tell meaningful stories, and facilitate social interaction with others\u0026nbsp;(Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote \u0026amp; Hamari, 2021; McGonigal, 2011; Ouariachi et al., 2019).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost video games that have been studied in the context of climate change fall into the category of serious games, which are games primarily designed to promote learning and motivate action rather than provide entertainment\u0026nbsp;(Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote \u0026amp; Hamari, 2021; Reckien \u0026amp; Eisenack, 2013). Serious video games have been used in both formal and informal educational settings to teach about many climate change-related topics\u0026nbsp;(Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote et al., 2022; Reckien \u0026amp; Eisenack, 2013), and have been found to have positive impacts on learners\u0026rsquo; understanding of climate change science\u0026nbsp;(Smith et al., 2019), and pro-environmental attitudes\u0026nbsp;(Georgiou et al., 2023; Janakiraman et al., 2021). However, evidence of their effects on behavior is limited\u0026nbsp;(Georgiou et al., 2023).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile serious games have grown in use as a tool for climate change communication and engagement, video games designed for entertainment (i.e., commercial games) can also be an effective medium to engage audiences on climate change issues, and many developers in the commercial gaming industry have incorporated, or are interested in incorporating, climate change content\u0026nbsp;(Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote \u0026amp; Hamari, 2021; Patterson \u0026amp; Barratt, 2019; Whittle et al., 2022). For example, since 2020, a coalition of video game makers has held an annual \u0026ldquo;Green Game Jam\u0026rdquo; to incorporate climate-related content into entertainment titles, and a survey of players found that they were willing to commit to behaviors such as tree planting and reducing meat consumption after participating\u0026nbsp;(Mensah-Bonsu et al., 2022). Entertainment games can incorporate many of the same best practices as serious games \u0026ndash; such as efficacy enhancement \u0026ndash; to promote climate change engagement, although Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote \u0026amp; Hamari\u0026nbsp;(2021)\u0026nbsp;found that entertainment games incorporate fewer of these practices compared with serious games. Nonetheless, research in other domains has found that video gamers can engage in prosocial actions after playing entertainment games, including interacting more kindly with others after playing Super Mario Sunshine and Chibi Robo\u0026nbsp;(Gentile et al., 2009), formation of social groups in World of Warcraft\u0026nbsp;(Zhang \u0026amp; Kaufman, 2015), and engaging in positive health behaviors in Pok\u0026eacute;mon Go\u0026nbsp;(Yang \u0026amp; Liu, 2017). Less research has focused on collective behaviors in gaming, which helped motivate our research questions in this study.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eVideo gamers as an audience for climate change communication\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlthough research on video games has shown that gaming can be an effective climate communication medium, little research has examined the views and preferences of video gamers as an audience for climate communication specifically. Existing evidence on gamers\u0026rsquo; willingness to engage in prosocial action is mixed and limited. Past research on video gamers\u0026rsquo; engagement with social issues has focused on potential links between video gaming and real-world violence\u0026nbsp;(Anderson, 2004)\u0026nbsp;and misogyny\u0026nbsp;(Fox \u0026amp; Tang, 2014), but meta-analyses and longitudinal studies have shown no evidence of causal links between them\u0026nbsp;(Ferguson, 2007; K\u0026uuml;hn et al., 2019).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther research suggests that video gamers have the potential to be mobilized toward prosocial collective action, though the potential for pro-climate action, specifically, is not clear. For example, Molyneux et al.\u0026nbsp;(2015)\u0026nbsp;found a positive association between playing multiplayer online games and civic participation via formation of both in-game and real-world social bonds (i.e., social capital). Jung\u0026nbsp;(2020)\u0026rsquo;s study of online video gaming adults in South Korea found that both exposure to news through in-game sources, and being involved in the gaming community, had small but statistically significant positive relationships with political behaviors such as attending a rally. However, the study did not specify what kinds of social causes these political behaviors were meant to address. Additionally, Bacovsky\u0026nbsp;(2021a)\u0026nbsp;found that adolescent video gamers in Sweden tend to be politically engaged and discuss political issues with other video gamers, but their engagement is more likely to be in support of political groups associated with privacy and technology issues (i.e., the Swedish Pirate party) rather than social or environmental issues (i.e., the Green party). By contrast, in a separate study, Bacovsky\u0026nbsp;(2021b)\u0026nbsp;found that adolescents who played online games more often were \u003cem\u003eless\u003c/em\u003e likely to be interested in political and social issues overall.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe challenge of engaging video gamers on climate change may be best articulated by McGonigal\u0026nbsp;(2011), who argues that video gamers tend to perceive themselves as disconnected from reality and \u0026lsquo;real-world\u0026rsquo; issues. However, this disconnection results from a frustrated desire for a better reality, rather than a true lack of care. However, she finds that games that show gamers possibilities of a better reality can have a powerful effect on their likelihood to engage in prosocial actions, including in the context of climate change\u0026nbsp;(McGonigal, 2011).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eTheoretical framework and research questions\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eClimate change and risk communication theories argue that effective climate change communication matches an \u003cem\u003eaudience\u003c/em\u003e to outreach \u003cem\u003emethods and messaging\u003c/em\u003e to promote \u003cem\u003ebehaviors\u003c/em\u003e that reduce harms from climate change\u0026nbsp;(Leiserowitz et al., 2021; Nerlich et al., 2010). Our research focuses on the \u003cem\u003eaudience\u003c/em\u003e of video gamers and their \u003cem\u003ebehaviors\u003c/em\u003e related to climate change, with the intention of informing future \u003cem\u003emethods and messaging\u003c/em\u003e development. We operationalize the measurement of \u003cem\u003ebehavior\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003eas collective actions related to climate change, also known as public sphere actions\u0026nbsp;(Lacroix et al., 2022; Stern, 2000). These actions can be taken alone or with others (such as activist organizations), and are meant to influence the behaviors of other individuals, governments, and businesses\u0026nbsp;(Lacroix et al., 2022; Stern, 2000). These behaviors are important because they can have broad-reaching impacts such as changes in government regulations or corporate practices related to climate change\u0026nbsp;(Stern, 2000).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere has been significant theoretical and empirical research to identify attitudinal and demographic factors that are positively associated with personal and collective action on climate\u0026nbsp;(Bamberg \u0026amp; M\u0026ouml;ser, 2007; De Groot \u0026amp; Steg, 2009; e.g., Howe, 2021; Steg et al., 2014; Stern, 2000). Attitudinal factors that appear consistently in this research include injunctive social norms\u0026nbsp;(i.e., what behaviors other people expect; De Groot \u0026amp; Steg, 2009; Steg et al., 2014); descriptive social norms\u0026nbsp;(i.e., what behaviors other people are actually doing; Bamberg \u0026amp; M\u0026ouml;ser, 2007; De Groot \u0026amp; Steg, 2009); risk perceptions\u0026nbsp;(i.e., perception that climate change is both likely and harmful; Bamberg \u0026amp; M\u0026ouml;ser, 2007; Bouman et al., 2020; Howe, 2021; O\u0026rsquo;Connor et al., 1999; Stern, 2000); feelings of collective efficacy\u0026nbsp;(i.e., perception that one can act and their actions will make a difference; Bamberg \u0026amp; M\u0026ouml;ser, 2007; De Groot \u0026amp; Steg, 2009; Howe, 2021; Steg et al., 2014; Stern, 2000); feelings of personal responsibility to act on climate change\u0026nbsp;(Bamberg \u0026amp; M\u0026ouml;ser, 2007; Bouman et al., 2020; De Groot \u0026amp; Steg, 2009; Steg et al., 2014; Stern, 2000); and personal experience with climate change impacts\u0026nbsp;(Howe, 2021). Demographic factors relevant to climate change behaviors include age and education, as younger and more educated people are more likely to hold more pro-climate attitudes\u0026nbsp;(Ballew et al., 2019)\u0026nbsp;and support political action on climate change\u0026nbsp;(Marlon et al., 2022). Additionally, in the United States, political ideology and party affiliation are also strong predictors of climate attitudes and actions\u0026nbsp;(Drews \u0026amp; van den Bergh, 2016; Leiserowitz, Maibach, Rosenthal, Kotcher, Goddard, et al., 2023).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Study 1, we investigated whether being a video gamer has a significant relationship with likelihood of engagement in collective climate behavior after controlling for these attitudinal and demographic factors. Because existing research on video gamer engagement with social issues has shown mixed results, we did not hypothesize a specific direction in the relationship. Additionally, while our study draws on existing theoretical research on attitudinal factors related to collective action, we did not seek to identify any new attitudinal factors but rather control for their effects. Therefore, Study 1 had the following research question:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRQ1: Do video gamers in the United States differ from non-gamers in their likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, after controlling for key correlates of climate engagement?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn Study 2, we drew on theoretical research about video gamer engagement generally (i.e., not specific to climate change communication). One theory of gamer engagement identifies three main motivations for playing games: social (i.e., to interact and cooperate with other players), immersion (i.e., to explore the world and story of the game), and achievement (i.e., to compete and/or demonstrate one\u0026rsquo;s skills at the game)\u0026nbsp;(Yee et al., 2012). Research on gamers and behavior has found that these three motivations can affect not only gaming engagement, but also engagement with behaviors outside of games\u0026nbsp;(Orji et al., 2017; Yang \u0026amp; Liu, 2017).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAdditional gaming research suggests that gamers\u0026rsquo; social ties with other gamers affects their likelihood of taking political action\u0026nbsp;(Bacovsky, 2021a; Jung, 2020). Bacovsky\u0026nbsp;(2021a)\u0026nbsp;found that video gamers often engage with each other on political issues through online discussion and civic engagement, suggesting that gaming social communities provide an important forum for political engagement. Jung\u0026nbsp;(2020)\u0026nbsp;explored these issues directly and found that playing video games with others, and self-reported involvement in online gaming communities, were positively associated with participation in political action. However, the relationship between social and motivational factors related to gaming, and behaviors related specifically to climate change, has not previously been studied. Accordingly, in the current study, we measure both motivations and social ties.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBased on this theoretical guidance, Study 2 had the following research question:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRQ2: To what extent do video gamers\u0026rsquo; motivations and/or social ties indicate greater likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, after controlling for key correlates of climate engagement?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Study 1","content":"\u003ch2\u003eMethods\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eSampling and Recruitment\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDetailed information about study methods are provided in the supplemental materials. Data for Study 1 were collected October 10-20, 2021, from American adults (age 18 and older) who were recruited from the Ipsos KnowledgePanel using probability sampling methods. Respondents answered questions in a web-based survey on climate change attitudes, self-reported behaviors, and policy support. This survey was one wave of a larger, ongoing study (AUTHORS, 2021).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe final sample included 1,006 respondents. Quota groups were not used, but post-stratification weights were used for descriptive statistics based on gender by age group, education, race/ethnicity, income, and geographic region. Weighted and unweighted sample demographics, including U.S. Census norms, are provided in Supplemental Table 1.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eMeasures and Analysis\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll measures included in Study 1 were part of an ongoing national-level study (AUTHORS, 2021) and have been validated in other studies (e.g., AUTHORS et al., 2019; AUTHORS et al., 2022). The dependent variables for Study 1 were three measures of collective (i.e., public sphere) climate actions: political behavior intentions, consumer activism intentions, and discussing global warming with others. The measure of political behavior intentions asked about intentions only; the consumer activism measures asked about both past behavior and future intentions; and the discussing global warming measure asked about general behavior. All measures are based on participant self-report. Details about question wording are provided in the supplemental methods.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo answer RQ1 we used ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models for the three dependent variables. Our predictor variable for Study 1 was whether participants said they played video games. Responses were coded to a dummy variable where 0 = Does not play video games (\u0026ldquo;Never\u0026rdquo;, \u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e = 555) and 1 = Plays video games (all other responses, \u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e = 451).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe included numerous covariates to control for the effects of factors that are already well-known to be associated with collective climate behaviors based on existing empirical and theoretical research: injunctive and descriptive norms, collective efficacy, risk perceptions regarding global warming, personal experience with global warming, and perceived personal responsibility to act on global warming. These covariates were all measured as single items, with the exception of collective efficacy, which included two items.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCovariates also included key demographic variables that are known to be associated with global warming attitudes and behavior\u0026nbsp;(Ballew et al., 2019): political party, age, education, gender, and race/ethnicity. Age and education were measured as ordinal variables, while political party, gender, and race/ethnicity were measured as categorical variables.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe final political behavior intention measure was developed using confirmatory factor analysis, included in Supplemental Table 3. The final collective efficacy measure was not based on factor analysis because it only included two items. Instead, we used the mean of the two collective efficacy items. The final consumer activism intention measure was determined as an index variable based on both past self-reported behavior in the past year, and future intended behavior in the next year, so that consumer activism intention is scored relative to past behavior. The rubric used for determining these scores are provided in Table 1.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eINSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll other variables were analyzed as single items, and descriptive statistics for the measures are provided in Supplemental Table 2.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eResults\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eRQ1: Are American video gamers different from non-gamers in their likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, after controlling for other relevant factors?\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo examine whether American video gamers differ from non-gamers in their likelihood to engage in collective action on climate change, we regressed whether participants played video games onto three collective climate actions, while controlling for attitudinal and demographic covariates. We conducted separate regressions for each of the three collective actions, and we found that being a video gamer had a small but statistically significant positive relationship with each of them: political behavior intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.05, p = 0.02), consumer activism intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.09, p = 0.003), and discussing global warming (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.06, p = 0.03; see Table 2 for standardized coefficients, Supplemental Table 10 for unstandardized coefficients and confidence intervals, and Table 3 for simple zero-order coefficients and Cohen\u0026rsquo;s d effect sizes).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eINSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eINSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eDiscussion\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, we found that video gamers were more likely than non-gamers to engage in collective actions on climate change (e.g., political behavior intention and consumer activism intention). Specifically, the analysis showed that being a video gamer has a small but statistically significant positive relationship with all three climate change behaviors and intentions when controlling for demographic and attitudinal covariates (including political party and age), and two of the dependent variables (excluding discussing global warming) when not controlling for these covariates.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the size of the relationships are small, it is important to note that there were no negative relationships between being a video gamer and likelihood of engagement in collective climate change action. This runs counter to studies that suggest playing video games might have a negative relationship with engagement in prosocial behavior (e.g., Bacovsky, 2021b), and provides evidence in support of studies that found positive relationships with other prosocial behaviors such as political engagement and activism (Bacovsky, 2021a; Jung, 2020). However, Study 1 does not explore the types of video gamers who might be more likely to engage in these behaviors, or why. Study 2 investigates these issues.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Study 2","content":"\u003ch2\u003eMethods\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eSampling and Recruitment\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eData for Study 2 were collected May 30-June 7, 2022, from American adults (age 18 and older) who were recruited from the Nexus Polling online panel using non-probability (opt-in) sampling methods. Because there is no publicly available benchmark data for video gaming adults in the United States, the demographic parameters for the sample quotas and weights were estimated based on the video gamer subgroup from Study 1. Details on recruitment are provided in the supplemental methods, and weighted and unweighted sample demographics are provided in Supplemental Table 5.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe final sample included 2,034 participants, which had a median completion time of 15 minutes. In order to identify video gamers in the sample, the video gaming question from Study 1 (i.e., \u0026ldquo;How often do you play video games?\u0026rdquo;) was used as a screener question for Study 2. Participants who answered \u0026ldquo;Never\u0026rdquo; were screened out. Responses were required for all questions, including the screener.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cu\u003eValidation.\u003c/u\u003e Because national-level data on American video gamers\u0026rsquo; climate change attitudes is limited, we conducted a validation analysis comparing the Study 2 sample with the Study 1 video gamer sub-sample on the climate change attitudinal covariates that were measured in both studies. Detailed results from this analysis are shown in Supplemental Figure 2. Based on this analysis, we concluded\u0026nbsp;that the samples were sufficiently comparable and that\u0026nbsp;all of the dependent variables and climate change attitude covariates from Study 1 would be appropriate to include in Study 2.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eMeasures\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNearly all of the measures for the dependent variables (i.e., behaviors) and covariates (i.e., climate change attitudes and demographics) included in Study 2 were identical to those used in Study 1. Study 2 also included several new independent variables relating to video gamer motivations and characteristics, drawn from existing studies of video gamers. Details on question wording can be found in the supplemental methods, and descriptive statistics for the measures are reported in Supplemental Table 7.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cu\u003eDimension reduction.\u003c/u\u003e We used the same dimension reduction methods for the dependent variables in Study 2 as we used in Study 1 (Supplemental Table 6) and for the climate attitude covariates. For the gaming motivation items, we determined that the items were best suited to be used as a single-factor index (\u003cem\u003emotivated\u003c/em\u003e) rather than as measures of the three separate motivation types suggested by Yee et al.\u0026nbsp;(2012)\u0026nbsp;based on the results of exploratory factor analysis (Supplemental Figure 4 and Supplemental Table 11). Binary measures of \u003cem\u003egaming with other people\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eexposure to global warming content\u003c/em\u003e were developed based on participants\u0026rsquo; self-report. All other measures were analyzed as single items.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eAnalysis\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cu\u003eModel selection.\u003c/u\u003e Similar to Study 1, OLS regression modeling was used to conduct the analyses in Study 2. Because there is limited theoretical guidance on gamer characteristics that might be relevant to collective climate action, we included a multistep process to determine which independent variables relating to gaming to include in the final model, detailed in the supplemental methods (Supplemental Figure 3 and Supplemental Tables 8-9). Model fit analyses (see Supplemental Table 9) suggested three predictor variables that produced the best-fitting model for the climate action dependent variables: being \u003cem\u003emotivated\u003c/em\u003e to play games, self-reported \u003cem\u003eexposure to global warming content through gaming\u003c/em\u003e, and self-reported \u003cem\u003eproportion of friends and relatives who play video games\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eResults\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eRQ2: To what extent do video gamers\u0026rsquo; motivations and/or social ties indicate greater likelihood of engagement in collective action on climate change, after controlling for other relevant factors?\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe regressed the three gaming characteristics variables onto the three collective climate actions, while controlling for attitudinal and demographic covariates. We conducted separate regressions for each of the three collective actions. We found that being \u003cem\u003emotivated\u003c/em\u003e to play video games did not have statistically significant relationships with any of the dependent variables, including political behavior intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.01, p = 0.56), consumer activism intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.03, p = 0.24), or discussing global warming (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.01, p = 0.75). However, \u003cem\u003eexposure to global warming content\u003c/em\u003e had small but statistically significant positive relationships with consumer activism intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.09, p \u0026lt; 0.001) and discussing global warming (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.06, p = 0.008), though not with political behavior intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.01, p = 0.73). Additionally, the proportion of \u003cem\u003efriends and relatives who play video games\u003c/em\u003e had statistically significant positive relationships with all three behaviors: political behavior intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.06, p = 0.003), consumer activism intentions (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.09, p = 0.001) and discussing global warming (\u003cem\u003eb\u003c/em\u003e = 0.08, p = 0.001).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 4 shows standardized regression coefficients, while unstandardized coefficients and confidence intervals are presented in Supplemental Table 12.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eINSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eDiscussion\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study used cross-sectional survey data to measure video gamer characteristics that were positively associated with potential collective action on global warming. Analysis showed that having a greater proportion of friends and relatives who played video games, and self-reported exposure to global warming content in gaming, both had positive relationships with consumer activism intentions and talking with other people about global warming. By contrast, being a motivated gamer did not have significant relationships with these behaviors after controlling for other factors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLike in Study 1, the regression coefficients for video gaming characteristics were small but statistically significant after controlling for global warming attitudes, age, and political party. Furthermore, similar to Study 1, there were no negative relationships between gamer characteristics and likelihood of engagement in collective climate change action. These findings provide additional support for our analysis from Study 1, in contrast to findings that people who play video games are less likely to engage in prosocial behavior\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Bacovsky, 2021b).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGaming motivations were not significantly associated with any of our dependent variables. These findings counter other research which finds that different motivations can affect different prosocial behaviors (Orji et al., 2017; Yang \u0026amp; Liu, 2017). However, our results should not be interpreted as contradicting gaming motivations theory more broadly. The differences in our results may be because our sample differs from samples used in previous research on gaming motivations such as the Gamer Motivation Profile (Quantic Foundry, 2015; Yee et al., 2012). First, our study sample is smaller than for the Gamer Motivation Profile, and second, our sample includes any people who play any video games, even infrequently, rather than the group of self-identified \u0026lsquo;gamers\u0026rsquo; who participated in the gaming motivation studies. A focused sample with more intensive gamers may reveal more nuance in gaming motivations.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"General Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eWe conducted two quantitative studies to examine\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003evideo gamers as an audience for climate change communication. We found that, overall, playing video games (Study 1), and having a higher proportion of friends/relatives who play games and/or being exposed to global warming content through gaming (Study 2), have small but significant positive associations with collective action intentions regarding global warming (i.e., political behavior, consumer activism), with no negative associations even after controlling for demographics and global warming attitudes. Our results suggest that video gamers may be somewhat more inclined toward climate action compared with non-video gamers, and they are clearly not \u003cem\u003eless\u003c/em\u003e so.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis research shows the value of the video gaming audience to climate change communicators. Video gamers are at least as likely as non-gamers to engage in collective action on climate change, and our findings show that video gamers\u0026rsquo; receptiveness to climate change engagement is not solely attributed to demographic differences (e.g., that they are young and/or politically Democratic-leaning). In fact, our model of consumer activism intentions (Table 3) shows a \u003cem\u003epositive\u003c/em\u003e coefficient for age, meaning that \u003cem\u003eolder\u003c/em\u003e video gamers were more positively inclined than younger gamers toward this behavior. These findings are important because many video game developers have begun incorporating climate messaging into games\u0026nbsp;(Whittle et al., 2022), and our research indicates that these efforts are worthwhile, and not only to a youth audience.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoth studies add to existing research on video gamers\u0026rsquo; engagement in social issues generally by investigating the specific issue of climate change, and by adding measures of consumer activism intention, which have not been included in other studies on video gamers\u0026rsquo; collective behaviors. This latter addition is notable because we consistently find significant relationships between gaming, gaming characteristics, and consumer activism intentions, suggesting that this may be an effective type of behavior to explore in future interventions.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStudy 2 adds to this research by including both motivational and social gaming factors in one model, and by showing a positive association between having more friends and relatives who play games and potential engagement in collective action on climate. These results support and add to Jung\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;(2020)\u0026nbsp;and Molyneux et al.\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;(2015)\u0026nbsp;findings that video gamers\u0026rsquo; participation in online gaming communities, particularly through the formation of social relationships, was positively associated with civic behaviors. They also support environmental research finding that social connections are linked to collective action on environmental issues\u0026nbsp;(Cho \u0026amp; Kang, 2017; Macias \u0026amp; Williams, 2016). Finally, our results align with best practices on global warming engagement through video games, which include social components\u0026nbsp;(Ouariachi et al., 2019).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe findings also add to the broader research on people who play video games by combating stereotypes of this group. Video gamers are often stereotyped as young white men\u0026nbsp;(Duggan, 2015)\u0026nbsp;who are disconnected from, if not outright hostile to, real-world concerns and prosocial causes\u0026nbsp;(Aghazadeh et al., 2018; McGonigal, 2011), even though other research has shown, as ours does, that the gaming population is much broader and more diverse than these stereotypes\u0026nbsp;(Duggan, 2015; ESA, 2023). Our study also adds to this research by also combating stereotypes of people who care about the environment, who are often conceptualized as wildly different from, if not mutually exclusive of, video gamers\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Bashir et al., 2013). Instead, we find substantial overlap between these groups: Many video gamers are concerned about \u0026ndash; and willing to take action on \u0026ndash; climate change, and many people who are willing to act on climate change play video games.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe offer several caveats for interpreting these findings. First, while we found statistically significant positive associations between being a video gamer and collective action intentions, the standardized beta coefficients (and Cohen\u0026rsquo;s d coefficients) are small, meaning that video gamers may be positively inclined toward collective actions on climate change, but they are not substantially so when compared with non-gamers. Second, being a video gamer is unlikely to be a causal factor for engagement on climate issues. Being a video gamer may be a reflection of other factors, such as personality, that might predict both gaming engagement and climate engagement\u0026nbsp;(cf. De Hesselle et al., 2021; Milfont \u0026amp; Sibley, 2012). Finally, while we show that there is a positive relationship between being a video gamer and intention to engage in collective action on global warming, that does not imply that every individual video gamer is willing to engage with climate change issues. Like Americans overall, there are video gamers who are dismissive of the topic. However, like Americans overall, these dismissive video gamers are only a small proportion of the total population\u0026nbsp;(Leiserowitz, Maibach, Rosenthal, Kotcher, Ballew, et al., 2023).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAdditionally, our study relies on self-report for both current and past behaviors (i.e., talking about global warming and participation in consumer activism) as well as exposure to global warming content, which may not reflect actual behavior or exposure to content. We also measured behavioral \u003cem\u003eintentions\u003c/em\u003e (i.e. political behavior intention and consumer activism intentions), and self-reported environmental behavioral intention does not necessarily translate to real-world behavior\u0026nbsp;(Bamberg \u0026amp; M\u0026ouml;ser, 2007). Moreover, because the three behavior measures were drawn from existing questions from a long-running study, they differ from each other in structure and question wording. We decided to include all three measures to explore the relationships between our predictor variables and multiple types of dependent variables; however, comparative differences in these relationships by dependent variable should be interpreted with caution. Finally, our study only included American adults over age 18. Youth under age 18\u0026nbsp;(Bacovsky, 2021a, 2021b), and people outside the United States\u0026nbsp;(Jung, 2020; Lewis et al., 2019)\u0026nbsp;engage with both video games and climate change issues differently from adults and Americans, respectively.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eImplications for communicators and future research\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOverall, our study suggests that the social dimensions of video gaming may play an important role in helping engage video gamers in climate change action. This supports the recommended best practices of Ouariachi et al.\u0026nbsp;(2019), namely including social elements (i.e., interacting with other players) in game design as a way to promote climate engagement and action. Moreover, our study suggests that it may be valuable to engage with video gamers not only through games themselves but also through their social circles in the gaming community. Video gamers with more friends and relatives who play games may be more likely to take action on climate change, and these gamers also are more active in online spaces for gaming, and have higher trust in many information sources (see Supplemental Figure 6). Some online influencers have already engaged their followers to take pro-environment behavior, such as YouTubers Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) and Mark Rober, who have raised $20 million to plant trees and remove ocean plastics since 2020\u0026nbsp;(Solman, 2022).\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnother important area for future research is assessing the outcomes of interventions targeting video gamers. Many video game interventions focus on serious games developed for educational purposes\u0026nbsp;(e.g., Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote \u0026amp; Hamari, 2021; Gerber et al., 2021), despite nascent efforts by the commercial video gaming industry to educate and engage video gamers, which have shown promising signs of engagement but have yet to be rigorously studied\u0026nbsp;(Mensah-Bonsu et al., 2022; Whittle et al., 2022). Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote \u0026amp; Hamari\u0026nbsp;(2021)\u0026nbsp;offer several suggestions for improving the effectiveness of entertainment video game interventions, such as including more direct calls to action and promoting players\u0026rsquo; feelings of efficacy. Our study suggests that these, along with social attributes already present in many commercial games\u0026nbsp;(Fern\u0026aacute;ndez Galeote \u0026amp; Hamari, 2021), may be useful for promoting real-world action.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGame studios can take action on both the \u003cem\u003emethods\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003eand the \u003cem\u003emessaging\u003c/em\u003e aspects of the theoretical framework described above. Specifically, studios can implement \u003cem\u003emethods\u003c/em\u003e (in the form of game mechanics) which encourage gamers to use the social dimensions of games to communicate about and organize real-world action. For example, in-game rewards could be provided to gamers that take real-world social action, such as posting about climate-related game content on social media sites, or make an in-app donation to a climate-related cause. Because most video games already have robust player measurement systems in place, the efficacy of different game mechanics could be measured relatively easily.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, research is needed to better understand how video gamers engage with climate change through gaming over time. The elements of interventions that can promote longer-term engagement with global warming are deep engagement, general mental models, and social norms (Goldberg et al., 2020). These elements strongly align with video gaming, which can promote taking the long view, ecosystems thinking, and experimentation (i.e., deep engagement and mental model-building) (McGonigal, 2011), as well as the development of social communities (and thus new social norms) (Molyneux et al., 2015; Zhang \u0026amp; Kaufman, 2015). Moreover, video gaming is a long-term habit, meaning there is potential for repeated engagement with climate change topics through games and gaming communities (McGonigal, 2011).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eClimate change is and will continue to be an urgent social problem, so climate communicators need to engage as many audiences as possible in climate action. Video gamers are a potentially valuable audience for climate change communication, and many video gamers are ready and willing to take collective action to combat climate change. This study should help future communicators understand video gamers as an audience so that they can meet video gamers where they are \u0026ndash; including in a game.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThank you to Paula Escuadra with the International Game Developers Association Climate Special Interest Group; Grant Shonkweiler with the Adrienne Arsht \u0026ndash; Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council; Jerome Hagen with Microsoft; and Sebastien Dore with Ubisoft for providing their industry knowledge and perspective during question development.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEthics approval and consent to participate\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study was approved by the Yale Institutional Review Board.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConsent for publication\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission to Climatic Change. \u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCompeting interests statement\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors have no competing interests to report.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFunding\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStudy 1 was funded by the 11th Hour Project, the Energy Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Grantham Foundation. Study 2 was funded through the Unity Charitable Fund at the Tides Foundation. The sponsors played no role in developing, writing, or publishing this article.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAvailability of data and materials\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll data included in the study are available on the study\u0026rsquo;s OSF page at https://osf.io/2ku64/?view_only=ed865004c20745f5abf6f6e690e33042.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAghazadeh, S. A., Burns, A., Chu, J., Feigenblatt, H., Laribee, E., Maynard, L., Meyers, A. L. M., O\u0026rsquo;Brien, J. L., \u0026amp; Rufus, L. (2018). GamerGate: A Case Study in Online Harassment. In J. Golbeck (Ed.), \u003cem\u003eOnline Harassment\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e(pp. 179\u0026ndash;207). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78583-7\u0026nbsp;\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAnderson, C. A. (2004). 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The impacts of social interactions in MMORPGs on older adults\u0026rsquo; social capital. \u003cem\u003eComputers in Human Behavior\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e51\u003c/em\u003e, 495\u0026ndash;503. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.05.034 \u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Tables","content":"\u003cp\u003eTables 1 to 4 are available in the Supplementary Files section.\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":true,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"climatic-change","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"clim","sideBox":"Learn more about [Climatic Change](https://www.springer.com/journal/10584)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"https://www.editorialmanager.com/clim/default.aspx","title":"Climatic Change","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Climate change, climate change communication, video gamers, collective action, United States","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3915934/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3915934/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eAs climate change impacts increase, communicators must engage as many audiences as possible in climate action. One potentially underrated audience is video gamers. Two-thirds of Americans play video games, and video games are a potentially effective climate change communication tool. However, little research has examined whether video gamers have unique value as a target audience for climate communication, and if they do, what might be effective ways to reach them. To address this need, we use two surveys including self-identified video game players in the United States to measure their current engagement with climate change, including through video gaming. In Study 1, a nationally representative survey in the United States (N\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;1,006), we found that being a video gamer was slightly positively associated with intentions to take collective action on global warming. In Study 2, restricted to gamers in the United States (N\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2,034), we found that having more friends and family who played video games, and/or being exposed to global warming content in gaming, were also positively associated with collective action intentions. These findings were consistent even after controlling for potential confounding variables such as age, political party, and global warming attitudes. Results suggest that video gamers are a worthwhile potential audience for future climate change communication, combatting the stereotype of video gamers as disengaged or antisocial, at least in the context of climate change. Our study also identifies several potential avenues for future communication with video gamers, particularly outreach to and engagement with gaming communities.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Geeks versus climate change: Understanding American video gamers’ engagement with global warming","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-02-13 16:04:36","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-3915934/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"","date":"2024-02-21T08:01:43+00:00","index":0,"fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2024-02-11T15:44:26+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2024-02-06T09:59:42+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Climatic Change","date":"2024-02-01T10:19:08+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"climatic-change","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"clim","sideBox":"Learn more about [Climatic Change](https://www.springer.com/journal/10584)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"https://www.editorialmanager.com/clim/default.aspx","title":"Climatic Change","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"em","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"1c329fa1-9e20-4ddf-a129-787aa82a93dc","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 13th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-06-24T15:53:33+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-3915934","link":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03747-w","journal":{"identity":"climatic-change","isVorOnly":false,"title":"Climatic Change"},"publishedOn":"2024-05-17 00:00:00","publishedOnDateReadable":"May 17th, 2024"},"versionCreatedAt":"2024-02-13 16:04:36","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1007/s10584-024-03747-w","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03747-w","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-3915934","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-3915934","identity":"rs-3915934","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}