The Guardian

'Video game planes emit real carbon': why gaming is not merely guilt-free escapism

Video games seem like radical relief from hard reality, but they’re also deeply implicated in the problems we collectively face
Video games have seemed to somehow float above the trials of 2020, as one of the few creative industries still able to make stuff during the pandemic. Photograph: Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images

There’s a woman in my social media feed who has spent the past week flying around the world in an Airbus A320. Remember travel? The degree of enviousness with which I look at her photos of skylines and mountains is well past being impolite.

She’s not really travelling, of course. She’s playing Microsoft Flight Simulator, the latest video game to capture the public’s imagination as a kind of Covid-19 era balm. This is a game that uses Bing maps satellite data to create a one-to-one scale replica of the entire planet, ready for players

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Guardian

The Guardian8 min read
PinkPantheress: ‘I Don’t Think I’m Very Brandable. I Dress Weird. I’m Shy’
PinkPantheress no longer cares what people think of her. When she released her lo-fi breakout tracks Break it Off and Pain on TikTok in early 2021, aged just 19, she did so anonymously, partly out of fear of being judged. Now, almost three years late
The Guardian4 min read
The Golden Bachelor’s Older Singletons Have Saved A Franchise
Strange as it may sound, one of the hottest shows on TV this fall has been … an old dating series now catering, for once, to senior citizens. That would be The Golden Bachelor, a new spin-off of America’s pre-eminent dating series in which a 72-year-
The Guardian6 min readRobotics
Robot Dogs Have Unnerved And Angered The Public. So Why Is This Artist Teaching Them To Paint?
The artist is completely focused, a black oil crayon in her hand as she repeatedly draws a small circle on a vibrant teal canvas. She is unbothered by the three people closely observing her every movement, and doesn’t seem to register my entrance int

Related Books & Audiobooks