Japan Gaming Guide

October 15th is Blog Action Day. Its time for us to take a step back from the non stop diet of videogame news and consider the wider effects of what we’re doing. The topic for this year’s Action Day is the environment. We’re going to consider the impact of our hobby on the world around us. You might not think that your gaming habits have much of an impact on global warming, but remember that this is a global problem caused by billions of people doing the same things wrong, and all those billions of things add up. Your actions are as important as anybody else’s, and the only person that can really change what you are doing is you. So what impact can gaming have on the environment?

First of all there’s energy consumption. All those hours in front of your console use electricity, and that energy has to be produced, using oil gas or whatever. You can help here by doing things as simple as switching off when your done, or turning your screen off while you chat on the phone to your friend for half an hour. Batteries are another one. Recharge-ables save whales and your bank balance. Its a win win situation!

There are lots of services around now like Steam, Xbox Live and Playstation Network that let you download games instead of going out to buy them. This is great news for the planet! No packaging, no trip to the store and no shipping disks around the world means there’s a little less stress on our planet then there would be otherwise.

Last of all, remember to recycle! Game and console packaging can be reused, and why not sell your old gaming equipment at a second hand shop instead of letting it gather dust? The more we reuse what we have, the less new stuff we have to buy, and again that’s good news for Earth.

Thanks for reading, and remember what’s good for the Earth is good for you too!

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