DATA CENTRE BRIEF SERIES SEPTEMBER 2020 BRIEF 3 Reducing the energy use of video gaming: energy efficiency and gamification KEY MESSAGES • Video gaming is an increasingly popular leisure ac- • Playing video games in the cloud, known as cloud tivity worldwide, but it has environmental impacts gaming, can draw as much as a three-fold increase due to the energy used driving climate change and in energy use compared to local gaming. resource issues over the entire life cycle of the gam- • The energy used in gaming should be integrated ing devices. into end-use energy demand forecasts and rou- • Among electric equipment in households, gaming tinely updated with demographic data and tech- devices are gradually becoming more relevant in nology preferences, which can change quickly. terms of their overall energy use. • Improved consumer information and the gamifi- • Playing video games on newer generation game cation of energy information are recommended consoles uses significantly less energy than playing strategies that can have a direct effect on behaviour on computers, when the unit energy consumption change. of the equipment is considered. 1 THE POPULARITY OF VIDEO GAMING lion people regularly engaged in gamingiii. In the United Video gaming is a popular leisure activity worldwide; it States, video games engage about two thirds of the pop- engages millions of people of all ages and is especially ulationiv. As of 2016, the most recent year for which data widespread among the young. Video gaming is enjoyed on consumer preferences is available, mobile gaming 14% on gaming consoles, desktop and laptop computers, and was the preferred gaming platform worldwide, followed media streaming devices. Trends in internet usage pre- by gaming on computers. Gaming on consoles came lastv. dict that video gaming will continue growing, especial- On average, gamers spend more than six hours per week vi ly as more people own smartphones and can afford35% a playing . broadband subscription. Indeed, streaming of games is expected to take off in 2020, as gamers are increasingly Video games have environmental impacts due to their detaching from consoles and computers, and using mo- energy consumption, which drives climate change, and bile devices insteadi. Moreover, some of the most popu- life cycle issues related to the equipment used for gaming lous countries in the world – like China, India and Ban- and for the distribution of games – for example extraction gladesh – now feature among the top 20 countries with of raw materials, manufacturing, and disposal at the end lowest prices of information and communication tech- of life. However, video games also have a powerful in- nologyii; therefore the number of gamers in these coun- fluence on people’s lifestyles, and through gamification 51% tries is expected to continue growing. people can be influenced to adopt pro-environment be- haviour. Therefore, this brief looks at energy use in video Although data on video gaming is not regularly collected gaming and the potential of gamification for promoting Sleep Active mode by national governments, some statistics can be found in energy conservation behaviour. surveys conducted by Navgationmarket insight businesses or in- dustry associations. According to these sources, it is es- THE ENERGY USE OF VIDEO GAMES timated that one third of humanity plays video games, or Playing video games is so widespread that concerns around 2.7 billion people in 2020iii. Asia Pacific contains about energy use and the resulting greenhouse gas emis- 55 per cent of gamers worldwide, with around 1.5 bil- sions are warranted. However, quantifying the energy use Figure 1: Estimated annual electricity consumption of gaming computers in perspective (only client-side energy, excludes connected devices, network and data centre energy). Elaborated with data from Mills et al. (2019)vii. Gaming PC – desktop high-end extreme user Gaming PC – desktop entry-level light user Gaming PC – laptop high-end extreme user Gaming PC – laptop entry-level light user Console Xbox 360 extreme user Console Xbox 360 lightuser 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 Annual electricity use (kWh) 2 of this activity is a tremendous challenge because it in- Figure 2: Estimated unit energy consumption of volves a large number of different platforms and is heav- game consoles in United States. Elaborated with ily dependent on user behaviour, and the technologies data from Urban et al. (2017)xi. used in video gaming are in constant evolutionvii. 14% The energy used in playing video games is much higher than when the first games appeared in the 1970s because of the much higher quality of the graphics, higher resolu- tion of the connected displays, and the streaming of game 35% content. Whereas in 1970s playing a video game would draw 10W of energy, nowadays that number is 70 times higherviii. Yet, the energy consumption of this activity is largely overlooked because the gaming devices in house- holds are typically classified as non-appliances and their power draw is hence assumed to have little significance. PLAYING ON COMPUTERS 51% Of all the possible uses of personal computers, gaming is the most energy intensive. Globally, it is estimated that 54 million people played games on personal computers Sleep Active mode (laptop and desktop), which consumed about 75 TWh of electricity in 2012; this represented about 20 per cent Navgation of total energy used by gaming (excluding streaming de- vices) in that yearvii. The annual electricity use of gam- ing computers varies substantially, depending on the technological components of the computer and the be- haviour of the user. As shown in Figure 1, the lowest range consoles is key for energy efficiency policy design, yet it of electricity used by gaming computers is estimated at requires empirical data on console usage patterns and on 45 kWh per year, for a laptop entry-level computer used the mix of consoles across countries – data that in most by a light user; whereas an extreme user on a high-end cases is not collected or is collected on an ad-hoc basis. desktop computer can use as much as 1124 kWh, that is, nearly 25 times more electricity. Recent studies on energy use by game consoles report estimates done for the United States. The overall ener- Gaming consoles also draw a significant amount of elec- gy consumption ranged from 16 TWh in 2010x to 7 TWh tricity. However, for the entire range of user behaviours, in 2012ix. A study with data for the United States in 2017 from light to extreme gaming, the last generation gaming reckons that game consoles consumed 8.3 TWh in that consoles typically use less electricity than both gaming yearGamingxi. The PC average – desktop unit high-end energy use extreme for the user newer gener- laptops and desktop computers. ation consolesxii is estimated at 123 kWh/yearxi, putting it on parGaming with thePC –energy desktop use entry-level of efficient light washing user machines PLAYING ON GAME CONSOLES sold in the European market. Video gaming also happens through game consoles. Gaming PC – laptop high-end extreme user Game consoles are high performance electronic devices Nevertheless, Figure 2 shows that game consoles still use that have become increasingly sophisticated, with ad- a lot of energy in sleep (stand-by) mode, with nearly half Gaming PC – laptop entry-level light user vanced graphics, internet connectivity, wireless control- of energy use attributed to inactive (navigation or sleep) lers, voice control and gesture recognition. Estimating the modes. Therefore, there are energy saving opportunities Console Xbox 360 extreme user energy use of game consoles is challenging, mainly be- for when consoles are not receiving user input, which cause user behaviours are uncertain concerning power- could be addressed by a default short-time power down ing off consoles after useix. In 2015, a study with field-me- feature, coupled withConsole auto Xbox saving 360 the lightuser game state, when tered usage data found that 20 per cent of game consoles the console is in non-active mode. was never turned on, whereas about 10 per cent were left 0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 on the entire dayx. Characterizing the energy use of game Annual electricity use (kWh) 3 Figure 3: Energy consumption in cloud gaming across different devices. Data and figure generously contributed by Evan Mills. Client-side Streaming (local load only) Cloud Gaming Increase vs local gaming Desktop: Entry-level Desktop: Mid-range Desktop: High-end Laptop: Entry-level Laptop: Mid-range Laptop: High-end Consoles 0 250 500 750 1,000 0% 100% 200% 300% Annual electricity use (kWh) CLOUD GAMING consumption of cloud gaming and local gaming in smart- Local gaming is the conventional way of playing video phones. They found that cloud-based gaming saves ener- games, in which the computing resources used are nearly gy in the mobile device when Wi-Fi is used as the network entirely from the player’s hardware. Conversely, in cloud connectionxiii, xiv. These studies did not consider the ener- gaming the processing tasks are off-loaded to high-end gy use happening on the cloud service side, and therefore servers in a remote data centre and the video stream is have limitations that need to be addressed to understand delivered to computers or consoles via the internet. A what type of mobile gaming is overall more efficient. study based on conditions prevailing in 2016 showed that the energy use in cloud gaming is significantly higher CHALLENGES OF ENERGY MEASUREMENT than in local gamingvii. Note that with cloud gaming the OF GAMING DEVICES majority of computational activity happens at the data Measuring the energy efficiency of gaming devices and centre, and therefore the client-side equipment draws identifying opportunities for energy savings is challeng- less power than with Consolelocal gaming.