Environmental theory and collection of ideas/Eco friendly games

Early Development and Play

Children are naturally interested in play, partaking in games, and toys. Historically, many games or toys did not require anything which would damage the environment. The games of tag or hide and seek are great examples as they simply require at least one other player to create hours of entertainment, in addition to providing exercise and critical thinking opportunities. Nature often provided its own toys such as helicopter seeds, which when dropped from any height would lazily spin to the ground in an interesting pattern. However as people moved to the city, and as demographics changed, these toys became less viable. In industrialized areas many children are unable to socialize freely, and have fewer siblings to play with. Furthermore safety concerns necessitate parental supervision when children meet with others informally, while daycare and school require a more formal and rigid schedule and setting. These factors prevent some of the spontaneous nature of natural play. As a result, artificial toys and games are required to facilitate play in industrialized areas.

This is why it is important to make games and toys more environmentally friendly. A game or toy can be more environmentally friendly by using less resources, providing a greater educational value or engaging the children for more time in an environmentally friendly way.

Books explaining the rules of such games are probably friendly to the environment. However, it is very important to make the game or toy very popular as well, because otherwise children would not really want to play with it. Children usually follow fashion, and people could support a game so that it can be fashionable by a popular story or something else. For this, the creation of a new game might be needed, and a rich person or alliance could support the creation of such popular eco games and toys, setting a competition between game developers with alike material resources, and rewarding them according to their success. For example, there is the idea to create a computer game which would be about saving the life on Earth in the 21st century, by cooperation. In this case, the term for game campaign would coincide with the term for environmentalist/political campaign. For the environment, it seems to be better if the computer game is turn-based and multi-player at one computer, or hot-seat. For the environment, it also seems to be better if there are parts of the game which can be played without a computer too, promoting new games which are more environmentally friendly. It is just a matter of money and creativity to create such a game.

Ethics and games

The people who believe in God and the philosophers might not regard every game as good as others. It is a right question to ask which are the games that are the most ethical to play. To decide this question, many criteria should be considered. Such criteria are the following: it should use environmentally friendly accessories, it should teach what is good, it should help to form a community, it should not help the development of artifical intelligence too much, it should be interesting and fashionable, it should be accessible by the poor people too, it should cause joy to the less talented too, it should do good to the bodily and mental health, and it should be apt to earn money from it, as a sport, or as a creator of puzzles. Apart from these, there may be other criteria. The game can be more interesting if its rules are not too complicated, but at the same time, human creativity can be manifested in it. It is quite hard to create a game which complies with all the mentioned criteria, although that would be the ideal. The lesson to learn from this is that we should not only be environmentally friendly, but ethical in other aspects, too.

Skill and play

Environmentalism is a serious issue, and it is about important problems, but one does not always like to fight a war in which one is likely to lose. That is why those who have suffered much because of the world, and made many sacrifices in order to make the world better, deserve to play, in order not to think about the world, and get more success and sources of joy. Even the hypothesis can come to our mind that a happy person can probably diet, care for his/her body, exercise, and have temperance more easily, because it is more difficult for the sad people to make sacrifices. A professional player could even earn money by skill games, or by writing about games, or by taking part in creating new games. The therapeutic and community-making effects of games are not negligible either. It is not always easy, however, to find a proper playmate. Whoever wins many times, might feel the game more dull, and whoever loses many times, probably does not enjoy the game as much. These times a voluntary handicap by the stronger player may help at the starting of the game, for example, when a grandmaster of chess plays without rooks against a child. This way any of them wins, may enjoy the game. So if we create a game, it is worth taking care of opportunities for voluntary handicaps, or for different skill levels for one-team games. If we play so much that it gives us happiness, and if we can win from our handicapped situation, why should not we try again to solve our problems in real life?

Further reading

• Mary C. Hofmann - Games for Everybody (1905)
• Leigh Anderson - The Games Bible: Over 300 Games - the Rules, the Gear, the Strategies (Workman Publishing Company, 2010)

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