This past Friday, a bunch of mobile game companies have activated environmental content inside their games in partnership with the UN, the Rainforest Alliance & Oceana. In the 6 years since it began, 2.5 million trees have being planted & over $700,000 has been raised for wildlife conservation.
Hi everyone, this is our third year doing this in our game, but our first time actually reaching out to the larger ecological community!
Most climate/environment activations in tech are little more than a ‘click to donate’ type of addition.
For the 2026 Green Game Jam, our 9-person Canadian development studio wanted to test a different model in our GPS-based RPG game 'Orna' (think Pokemon Go, with swords and magic).
We integrated Rainforest Alliance and Oceana funding targets into our GPS-based mobile game, requiring players to physically walk miles in their own neighbourhoods to participate in restoring virtual biomes. (And the associated in-game purchases help fund their targets)
I wanted to share the video we built for the initiative and open a discussion: How else can we leverage gamification to drive physical climate action without relying on 'click-to-donate' fatigue?
Gamers are such a massive audience of billions, and we think there could really be something TO this long term!