The EU Is Now Using Video Games to Shape Climate Policy

The EU-funded project GREAT (Games Realising Effective & Affective Transformation) decided that traditional ways of asking people what they think about policy were no longer sufficient. So they went straight to the games kids already play and spent €1.74 million to interrupt children playing mobile games with climate surveys.

They embedded short surveys directly into popular mobile games - including Pac-Man, Subway Surfers, and Fishing Clash - and called it “gaming as a participation tool.”

According to their own success story, the project reached 130 million players, got 1.2 million people to engage with the climate questions, and collected over 200,000 completed surveys.

The project also ran Green Deal “dilemma games” in schools across Europe.

• Austrian kids got to explore green careers through gameplay.
• Cypriot participants discussed green rooftops.
• UK sessions focused on water conservation.

It’s genuinely touching to witness the Commission’s deep respect for national specificities. The right feelings, delivered through the right games.

One researcher explained the mission clearly: “We wanted to give citizens a voice in the climate emergency.”

And they did.

Finally, citizens have been given the voice they always dreamed of.

Modern democracy cannot rely on boring concepts like consent, or public debate.

The project’s full name includes the phrase “Affective Transformation,” which is especially inspiring because it tells us the goal was not merely to ask kids what they think, but to help them feel correctly.

It just needs better propaganda.