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Organised around the theme of resilience, the discussions took a more assertive, action-focused tone, bringing together climate scientists, games leaders, designers and public opinion experts to explore how the industry can adapt to change, build resilience across people, planet and play, and turn ambition into practical action.
The key themes that came out of the day can best be summarised as follows:
#1 Everyone supports action for nature.
More In Common’s Daniel Fowler shared how nature is pertinent and salient for everyone, with only 82% of people agreeing nature is important to them. Alice Ourliac from Game Bakers then shared the DNA within their studio that made the award winning Cairn, sharing that two-thirds of players play games they already know, so building themes and activations in games players already love could be more efficient. Katy Blake from The University of Oxford, and Boris Maniora from Ubisoft Annecy then shared how nature is intrinsic in play, with many games past, present and future leaning into biodiversity themes.
#2 An a-ha moment for Positive Tipping Points.
Professor Tim Lenton then talked about how in a 2 degree world, Britain could be experiencing -20 centigrade degrees shocks and that the world needs to be moving 5 times faster in reducing emissions if it is to hit its Paris climate goals. This talk was sobering, yet wasn’t a treaty of despair. The opportunity for positive tipping points is ripe, with an unlikely inspiration provided by Morten Harket’s a-ha. Back in the eighties, they took on the Norwegian government's fossil fuel policies, launching an EV revolution in the country where today over 90% of these cars are clean-powered, showing what’s possible when collective social action amasses on an issue.
#3 Mind your language
When is milk regular and why is gas prefixed with the word natural? The talk from Wolfgang Blau on how the language we use reinforces norms and expectations across society, was a topic that kept recurring in discussions throughout the day.
#4 The value of repetition
“By doing more of these kinds of things, we will do more of these kinds of things” said Maria Sayans, the CEO of ustwo. Turning up can be half of it at times, but Deborah Mensah-Bonsu from Supercell built on this, talking about how green theme actions have now evolved into seasons in Hay Day, which is leading to green game activations beating expectations, with titles in the 2026 edition of the Green Game Jam seeing a 20% increase in play-time in game, with one green activation led to a 32% increase in revenue.
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#5 Courage calls for courage
Finally, Shelby Iapoce-Lintz said from Hasbro reminded us of the words of F Scott Fitzgerald, who said that we’re in an era where we need to be “able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.” The determination, persistence, creativity and tenacity of this creative sector were on full display at this year’s summit. The next twelve months will show us how collectively, this practice can be turned into action.
If you’d like to get involved do drop a note to info@playing4theplanet.org and we’d be happy to share more.
