Despite the instant entertainment it provides, the gaming industry has been slow to acknowledge that developing and playing video games consumes a lot of energy and creates emissions that are responsible for climate change. A researcher has revealed the carbon footprint of the gaming industry, which will amount to more than 81 million tons of emissions in 2022. Dr. Benjamin Abraham, a digital games researcher and founder of AfterClimate, takes a detailed look at how the gaming industry is tackling climate change. In his ‘Net Zero Snapshot 2023’, he publishes an annual report on the progress of the industry’s net zero ambitions. Abraham estimates that the $180 billion-plus video game industry consumes energy and produces carbon emissions comparable to the global film industry.  His conservative estimates revealed that the carbon footprint of the gaming industry is 81 million tons of CO2, but it doesn't specifically distinguish how much is released just from video games. The estimate shows how much video games and big tech companies produced last year, an amount even greater than the amount of small countries. (Jennifer L)