New Eco-Friendly Game Packaging Could Save Tons of Plastic Each Year (arstechnica.com) 63
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Sega and Sports Interactive have announced that Football Manager 2020 will be sold in new eco-friendly package that uses much less plastic, and they're pushing for the rest of the entertainment industry to follow suit. The new packaging replaces the now-standard plastic DVD case used for most game discs with a folded, reinforced cardboard sleeve made of 100% recycled fiber. The shrinkwrap surrounding that package has also been replaced with a low-density LDPE polyethylene that's highly recyclable. Even the ink on the cardboard has been changed out for a vegetable-and-water-based version (so it's technically vegan if you're desperate for a snack).
The new packaging does cost a bit more to produce -- about 20 (British) cents per unit (or 30 percent), according to an open letter from Sports Interactive Studio Director Miles Jacobson. But those costs are somewhat offset by reduced shipping and destruction costs for excess units, he added. And as Spanish footballer Hector Bellerin says in a video accompanying the letter, "if there's no Earth, there's no money to spend." All told, Jacobson says the new packaging will save 55 grams of plastic per unit, or 20 tonnes across a print run of over 350,000. That's an extremely tiny dent in the estimated 335 million tons of plastic that is produced annually worldwide. But Jacobson hopes it could add up to a sizable dent if the entire industry follows suit for the tens of millions of discs it produces each year. "We're not the biggest game in the world," Jacobson said. "Imagine what happens if every other game, every film company, every music company switches to this packaging... So I'm throwing down the gauntlet here to ALL entertainment companies who use plastic for their Blu Ray, DVD and CD packaging."
The new packaging does cost a bit more to produce -- about 20 (British) cents per unit (or 30 percent), according to an open letter from Sports Interactive Studio Director Miles Jacobson. But those costs are somewhat offset by reduced shipping and destruction costs for excess units, he added. And as Spanish footballer Hector Bellerin says in a video accompanying the letter, "if there's no Earth, there's no money to spend." All told, Jacobson says the new packaging will save 55 grams of plastic per unit, or 20 tonnes across a print run of over 350,000. That's an extremely tiny dent in the estimated 335 million tons of plastic that is produced annually worldwide. But Jacobson hopes it could add up to a sizable dent if the entire industry follows suit for the tens of millions of discs it produces each year. "We're not the biggest game in the world," Jacobson said. "Imagine what happens if every other game, every film company, every music company switches to this packaging... So I'm throwing down the gauntlet here to ALL entertainment companies who use plastic for their Blu Ray, DVD and CD packaging."
wat (Score:4, Insightful)
Game....packaging?
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Re: wat (Score:2)
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after Steam's last servers go silent
I'm guessing they will outlive all the scratched/fungus attacked/otherwise worthless CD's and DVD's I've had to throw away over the years. I'm already ahead of the curve. Plus if it ever looks like happening - you can still run your stuff in "offline mode". Just make lots of backups, like we used to do :)
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This is a great step forward, but someday people will have enough bandwidth in their homes that they can simply pay using a credit card and then download the entire game over the internet (probably gopher protocol). We will replace packaging with "packets"!! This could also one day be applied to the movie industry to reduce plastic used in VHS cassettes.
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And he has a gauntlet.
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I bet it's made of plastic and styrofoam.
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Be thankful this is Sega and not Nintendo. They have a Power Glove, it's so bad.
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Right. Which is true of everything. So do nothing. Just like on guns. Just keep on truckin till the earth dies. Well, no, the earth won't die, but you will. Great plan.
Re: Literally virtue signaling (Score:2)
We should recycle the shitty games the industry makes instead of burying them in the desert.
P.S. I'm not sure how you literally signal one's virtue, semiphore flags?
Hollow virtue (Score:1)
It sounds well and good, but will just create more waste.
All our CDs, DVDs and BluRays are all stored in their jewel cases.* And my family and friends do the same. These cardboard sleeves will wear out quickly, requiring the discs be moved into proper jewel cases.
* We have a few multi-disc carriers, but discs are frequently rotated out and back to their jewel cases. Sure, we could buy more carriers, but shuffling between carriers is not as convenient as using jewel cases.
Is this different than (Score:2)
the cornstarch packing peanuts that melt all over your stuff when the delivery person leaves your package out in the rain?
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download (Score:2)
Or you could just buy the game online.
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No thanks. Some of us still want physical copies. Preferably without online Internet requirements like DRM.
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Good luck.
How many contemporary games can you name that actually contain the game on the disc instead of a glorified web installer?
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That is why I don't buy and play newer games anymore. I am old school from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
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Most single player console games should still be playable completely offline.
Sure, you're missing the day 1 patch and the game's buggy as hell, but it should still play.
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Even the last game I bought on DVD 10 years ago required online patching. That ship has sailed.
Annoyingly, the patch encompassed downloading an entire new copy of the game.
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If only there were some kind of DRM-free online store where you could make physical copies if you wished, they could put all the Good Old Games on there...
Disc cases are not just temporary packaging (Score:4, Interesting)
I much prefer proper "jewel cases", as fragile as they sometimes are, to paper or cardboard sleeves. They provide much better protection for the disc, and you can read the title on the edge, so while they do take up more space it's easier to find things.
And if you don't want or need the disc anymore, you can still re-use the jewel case. Often I'll take the discs that come with cardboard sleeves and put them in plastic jewel cases from discs I no longer have (eg old Windows 9x games). Really easy to print new inserts from templates as well.
Now I'm sure not everyone re-uses cases, but re-use is even better than recycling. In my case if everyone starts shipping in sleeves, at some point I'll have to start buying empty cases
Huh late to the party... (Score:1)
Re: Huh late to the party... (Score:2)
Downloading the game and its updates multiple times is a waste of energy and more importantly your time.
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1. I said energy, not money.
2. The better your job, the more valuable your time.
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energy and more importantly your time
Emphasis mine. I was merely addressing the most important part which you seemed to be so concerned with. Apparently energy isn't such a big deal to you. Certainly not as important as time. So don't give me that "I said energy" crap.
The better your job, the more valuable your time.
Not necessarily. Here's to hoping you have no regrets later in life.
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Emphasis mine. I was merely addressing the most important part which you seemed to be so concerned with.
Oh we all know very well what you're trying to do.
Apparently energy isn't such a big deal to you.
It's a matter of scale. A small energy for a file transfer, but an accumulation of minutes or hours of my time over the life of a game? No thanks. I'd rather pay $200 for the game if that were a choice.
Certainly not as important as time. So don't give me that "I said energy" crap.
I literally wrote energy, and mentioned it first. We both agree that I did. Can you admit that I mentioned energy because I thought it was worth mentioning? Or can there be only one important dimension? If so, then how can time be more important if energy
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You think manufacturing DVDs and cases takes less energy than a simple download?
You need crude oil to make the DVD. We're talking about the fossil fuel industry here. I don't think we're going to get DVDs out of translucent PLA any time soon. Then you need the metallic foil to be able to store data on that disc. And then you need inks to print the top of that DVD. And we haven't even talked about the case yet. Best case scenario, you have a cardboard package with vegetable-based inks like described in the a
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You think manufacturing DVDs and cases takes less energy than a simple download?
No. A disc and packaging and shipping it around is going to take quite a bit more energy than a "simple download". But when is an online game service a simple download? It's more like a download every week for various updates for the incomplete game they inevitably release on the download only model.
You need crude oil to make the DVD.
Plastics are primarily from natural gas feedstocks with a small contribution from the non-fuel waste from crude oil processing. And please remember, plastic is not fuel, it's not energy and more so than arguing
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Physical media is dead... should been done years ago.
Physical media is not dead, and I don't expect it ever to die.
One thing is that people desire tangible connections to the intangible. This goes way back to icons for royalty and gods, and monuments to ancestors and prominent figures in history. When it comes to concerts, plays, and other performances people want photos, T-shirts, posters, and other tangible trinkets to bring home. The most tangible thing we have to connect to this intangible thing we call music is the ability to touch something that cont
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Physical media is dead... should been done years ago.
I still buy music on physical media too.
When your "service" closes down and leaves you with nothing, I'll still have mine.
I'm sure you will find another though, so you can keep paying forever.
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You can still buy music as downloads, not everyone is relying on music streaming services.
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You can still buy music as downloads, not everyone is relying on music streaming services.
Yes, fair enough. There is finally starting to be a decent selection of 16/44.1 or higher music that you can buy without having to subscribe to anything, though region restrictions are still a problem here with sites like HDTracks Canada having a more limited selection, and generally being more expensive than buying the CD from Amazon regardless.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Huh? (Score:3)
No, Pence is clearly a creature only America could produce.
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Also his approximate worth.
You're units are all wrong (Score:2)
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That's a first (Score:3)
Never seen a game company exec so readily admit his product was trash.
Looks like junk (from the little I could see) (Score:2)
I just glanced at at the photos/video, I'm pretty concerned how they seemed to avoid closeups/detailed photos of the packaging. From the little I was able to make out it looked like crap, a glorified cardboard sleeve. Something almost certain to scratch up a disk and fall apart with continued use. I've got DVDs in setups that save almost as much plastic (using a cardboard "case") but still keep necessary features (the plastic clip/disk surround). As with most green-washing schemes this seems to target s
Seems misguided (Score:2)
The Earth will go on (Score:2)
"if there's no Earth, there's no money to spend."
Earth will survive long after global warming claims all life on it.
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Old joke:
Two planets meet
"Dude, you look terrible, what's wrong?"
"I have homo sapiens."
"Oh don't worry. It will pass"
Like the Futurama cases? (Score:2)
I have a bunch of futurama disks-- series 5 6 7 and 8 that come in cardboard packages, Unfortunately, the disks aren't held very securely, and have a habit of spilling out-- so much for scratch free discs.
What plastic ends up in the ocean? (Score:2)
By letting you guess which portion of plastic is made for packaging.
After you answer it says:
Over 8 million tons of plastic end up in oceans each year.
This suggests the packaging plastic used in the west is included in that.
But this is entirely false.
In the west people are relatively rich, they care about the environment.
In Africa and Asia many people cannot afford to do so.
That's where most of the plastic pollution comes from.
In the west we recycle or burn almost all plastic:
https://i.imgsafe.org/c4/c48d8... [imgsafe.org]
So t
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I read that 95% of plastic pollution in the oceans comes from 10 riviers - 8l of which are in SE Asia (the other 2 in Africa).
https://blog.education.nationa... [nationalgeographic.org]
but its us in the west who are at fault, of course.
Really? (Score:2)
British cents???? (Score:1)
Paper Package (Score:2)
Most indie games even went a step further (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't come on physical media anymore at all and are only available on digital download.
Old nintendo games came in cardboard boxes (Score:2)
Physical media dying (Score:4)
Personally, I'd be perfectly happy if everything just moved to GOG. They've ported over most of the features from Steam that I care about by now and everything's DRM-free. I have physical game media that's not even that old that won't work anymore without cracks because the DRM servers no longer exist. What the hell's even the point of having a physical copy if it's not going to work in ten years anyway?
LDPE not a guarantee of recyclability (Score:1)
>LDPE that's highly recyclable
Where I live we're told the Chinese now refuse to recycle anything plastic that isn't a bottle (basically food product/detergent) regardless of material. I assume people in bigger cities have local recycling facilities so that's not a concern.
What packaging? (Score:2)
I mean, has anyone actually bought a physical box with physical wrapping for an electronic game that runs on a computer in the last decade?
Seriously?
How old ARE you people?
Good, all other industries should pay attention (Score:2)
The gaming industry is big news because they make big money, so I hope all other industries pay attention.