Solar Server's Carbon Report
hard data for the nerds
Firstly, I want to thank everyone who has played Known Mysteries and for your support. It has been really lovely (and a relief) to have the game be released from my grip and into the world.
I’m writing today to share something very exciting, especially for all you eco-nerds: I worked with Dr. Benjamin Abraham of AfterClimate to provide an analysis of Solar Server's carbon output.
I wanted to do this for a few reasons: I was inspired by Ben’s report on the videogame Saltsea Chronicles which you can fine here. It proposes that games use a climate rating system, which I think is a really great idea to have studios be more accountable. Solar Server is also my first real attempt at making the videogames I make actually be low-carbon, rather than just about the environment, such as the earth is a better person than me or UnearthU. I wanted to know if what I was doing was actually doing what I intended.
I encourage you to read the entire report; it compares the creation of Known Mysteries with other games made by indie studios, and goes in detail about the differences between hosting the game on my own server versus different data centres across Canada. But one quick highlight:
Known Mysteries cost about 650 to 690 kgCO2e for the whole project – less than one ton. This is very very small in comparison to most videogame production. But, alarmingly, 70% of the emissions were from me traveling by plane from Calgary to San Francisco for GDC… to talk about Solar Server! Even though a few years ago I decided I would only fly for work a maximum once a year, it made me think that I should never fly for this project, it is too antithetical. (As a side note that I will write more about in a future letter, I recently listened to Tech Won’t Save Us’ 4 part series on data centres and learned that they currently produce 2-3% of the world’s emissions, equivalent to air travel—and that will only go up if AI continues to work its dirty magic).
Check out the full report here: www.solarserver.games/report.html
I have a lot more to say about some of the findings, as well as some other topics I’ve had on repeat in mind for the past while, such as: the perceived judgement of environmentalist projects, if others should make their own servers (answer: if they think it would be fun, yes. Otherwise, no), moving away from established platforms like Steam and onto my own website, and design tactics and flaws in Known Mysteries. Look forward to these thoughts over the next months and thank you for subscribing!
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