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PC gaming alone has bigger carbon footprint than crypto mining so objectively yes they are both anti environmental activities.

wruza 4y ago
Pretty sure if I wasn’t gaming these few hours per week, my carbon footprint would be much higher. E.g. 2kWh is only 8 miles on an efficient EV and probably less than 4 miles on ICE. We have to measure avoidable costs in this case, not essential.
switchers 4y ago
Running cards at full pelt 24/7 vs at most a few hours a day? Doubtful.
- Dma54rhs 4y ago
  There have been see scientific prayers on power us usage snd PC gaming (only) and it comes similar to crypto usage. There are not many things that take tons of energy - heating, cooling, crypto, gaming etc.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Lot of gamers, and the displays add a few more watts each to the total. Fermi estimate: 10 million latest Xboxes, used for 1 hour per day. Power estimates seem to vary from 120 W to 315 W, let's say 200 W including display. That's 2 GWh/day. Probably similar for Playstation, or at least close enough for a Fermi estimate. I'm going to guess similar for PC gaming also. Smartphones are what, about 1 W? But a few billion of them? 1 hour per day makes that another GWh/day? So probably about 7 GWh/day for Xbox + Playstation + PC + mobile, 2.5 TWh/year. Bitcoin is estimated to use 131 TWh/year according to Wikipedia. Yeah, you're right, it's not even close.
iforgotpassword 4y ago
I'd be surprised if it's actually more than crypto; while there are way more gamers than crypto miners, they don't game 24/7, don't have a dozen GPUs per rig etc. Anyways my main point was that a lot of things people do for fun are more or less directly bad for the environment, like for example creating dozens of silly images with stable diffusion. But it's still better than crypto mining imo, as doing "fun things" usually benefits you/your mental health.
renewiltord 4y ago
And we haven't even started talking about dog owners yet.
Dalewyn 4y ago
I'm upvoting this because, at the end of the day, this is brutally accurate. Gaming is not an activity that produces something, likewise any form of entertainment for that matter. So in the sense that nothing comes from the electricity and time used, gaming is an "anti-environmental" activity. I personally don't agree with any of this notion, because life is worthless if we can't accept life is pointless, but if we are striving for a world where consumption must always produce something then gaming is one of many things that must be eliminated.

wruza 4y ago

Pretty sure if I wasn’t gaming these few hours per week, my carbon footprint would be much higher. E.g. 2kWh is only 8 miles on an efficient EV and probably less than 4 miles on ICE. We have to measure avoidable costs in this case, not essential.

switchers 4y ago

Running cards at full pelt 24/7 vs at most a few hours a day? Doubtful.

Dma54rhs 4y ago
There have been see scientific prayers on power us usage snd PC gaming (only) and it comes similar to crypto usage. There are not many things that take tons of energy - heating, cooling, crypto, gaming etc.
ben_w 4y ago
Lot of gamers, and the displays add a few more watts each to the total. Fermi estimate: 10 million latest Xboxes, used for 1 hour per day. Power estimates seem to vary from 120 W to 315 W, let's say 200 W including display. That's 2 GWh/day. Probably similar for Playstation, or at least close enough for a Fermi estimate. I'm going to guess similar for PC gaming also. Smartphones are what, about 1 W? But a few billion of them? 1 hour per day makes that another GWh/day? So probably about 7 GWh/day for Xbox + Playstation + PC + mobile, 2.5 TWh/year. Bitcoin is estimated to use 131 TWh/year according to Wikipedia. Yeah, you're right, it's not even close.

iforgotpassword 4y ago

I'd be surprised if it's actually more than crypto; while there are way more gamers than crypto miners, they don't game 24/7, don't have a dozen GPUs per rig etc. Anyways my main point was that a lot of things people do for fun are more or less directly bad for the environment, like for example creating dozens of silly images with stable diffusion. But it's still better than crypto mining imo, as doing "fun things" usually benefits you/your mental health.

renewiltord 4y ago

And we haven't even started talking about dog owners yet.

Dalewyn 4y ago

I'm upvoting this because, at the end of the day, this is brutally accurate. Gaming is not an activity that produces something, likewise any form of entertainment for that matter. So in the sense that nothing comes from the electricity and time used, gaming is an "anti-environmental" activity. I personally don't agree with any of this notion, because life is worthless if we can't accept life is pointless, but if we are striving for a world where consumption must always produce something then gaming is one of many things that must be eliminated.