The '100x' DecThe '100x' Deception: How Your 'Green' Digital Library is Dirtier Than You Thinkeption: How Your 'Green' Digital Library is Dirtier Than You Think

Executive Summary: The 'Green Wallpaper' is Peeling

A new report from French carbon accounting firm Greenly has made a spectacular claim, dutifully amplified by the games press: manufacturing and shipping physical video games is "100 times more carbon-intensive" than digital downloads.¹ The central figures are certainly dramatic. Manufacturing one million physical discs emits a reported 312 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), while downloading one million 70GB digital copies emits a paltry 3 tonnes.¹

This narrative is a masterpiece of "green wallpaper" ⁷—a thin, eco-friendly veneer plastered over a convenient corporate conclusion. It provides the perfect, "scientific" justification for a future publishers have craved for decades: one without the pesky, profit-sapping second-hand market.⁸

However, this "100x" figure is not a lie; it is a deception. It is achieved through the art of selective accounting, comparing the entire manufacturing life of a physical object to the first five minutes of its digital equivalent. It conveniently ignores the "hidden environmental cost" ¹⁰ of the digital alternative: the massive, perpetual, and water-guzzling energy required to store that game in a data center, 24/7, forever.¹¹

The most damning evidence against the report's headline comes from the report itself. Buried within the analysis is a fatal contradiction from its own author, who admits that "physical video games may still be less carbon intensive".¹ Furthermore, the report's own recommendations for a greener industry include promoting more trade-in programs and "a new industry and community focus on second-hand physical games".¹

This analysis will dismantle the "100x" claim by revealing what the report omits. The truly greenest gamer is not the one with a 20-terabyte digital library, but the one the industry fears most: the patient, circular-economy gamer who buys, plays, and resells a single physical disc.

I. The 312-Tonne Behemoth: Anatomy of a Convenient Villain

To be clear, a physical disc is not "green." It is a thing, and manufacturing things has an upfront environmental cost. The Greenly report is not wrong to point this out. The 312-tonne figure for one million discs represents the "Original Sin" of physical media, a carbon cost fixed from birth.¹

This upfront "capital cost" includes:

• Resource Extraction: The discs are made from polycarbonate plastics, which are derived from petroleum-based chemicals.¹⁴ The production process also requires aluminum ¹⁴ and the mining of other materials like copper, nickel, and gold, which have significant environmental and human rights implications.¹

• Manufacturing and Transport: The process of pressing discs, printing covers, and assembling plastic cases requires high energy usage.¹ This is followed by the logistics of a global shipping network to move these objects from factories to warehouses to retail stores.¹⁶

• Waste: The report correctly identifies the "excessive waste" ¹ of plastic packaging and the eventual, unfortunate fate of many discs in landfills.¹⁷ This e-waste can leach toxic elements into the groundwater, posing a risk to wildlife and humans.¹⁵

In the Greenly report's accounting, this 312-tonne figure is the beginning and the end of the story. It is a static, terrifying number used as a cudgel. But this is a fundamental methodological flaw. This snapshot analysis ignores the entire second half of the equation: the product's lifecycle. A true Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) does not stop at the point of sale.¹⁸ This 312-tonne cost is a one-time investment; the digital "product," by contrast, incurs a perpetual operational cost.

II. The 3-Tonne Download: A Digital Ghost Story

The 3-tonne figure for downloading one million 70GB games is the report's hero—a number so small it's practically invisible.¹ But this 3-tonne figure is merely an "introductory offer." It only accounts for the transmission of data. This is akin to claiming a car is "emissions-free" by only measuring the energy it uses while parked at the dealership.

This calculation cleverly omits the single largest environmental cost of an all-digital future: perpetual, 24/7/365 data storage.

The 'Digital Library' is a Thirsty, Sleepless Warehouse

The "cloud" is not a weightless, ethereal concept. It is a "colossal, high-security warehouse" ¹², a "massive structure" ¹¹ filled with thousands of hard-drive-bearing racks.¹¹ These "armies of servers" are "gobbling up vast amounts of electricity" right now just so that a digital library is available on demand.²⁰

This infrastructure has a staggering, "hidden environmental cost" ¹⁰ in energy, water, and land use.²² While a physical disc sits passively on a shelf, consuming zero energy, a digital "license" requires a server somewhere to be constantly powered, cooled, and connected.

The Math on Perpetual Storage: The Silver Bullet

The Greenly report compares 312 tonnes of manufacturing to 3 tonnes of transmission. Let's conduct the comparison they omitted: 312 tonnes of manufacturing versus the perpetual storage of that same data.

1. Total Data Stored: The report's example is one million copies of a 70GB game.³

   • 1,000,000 copies x 70 GB/copy = 70,000,000 GB = 70,000 Terabytes (TB).

2. Annual Energy Cost of Storage: According to industry estimates, storing 1 TB of data in a typical cloud service (which includes all overhead like cooling, networking, and power) requires between 40 and 70 kWh per year.¹²

3. Annual Carbon Footprint: Let's use the most conservative estimate (40 kWh per TB) and the U.S. grid's average carbon intensity (approx. 0.385 kg CO2e per kWh).

   • Annual Energy: 70,000 TB x 40 kWh/TB = 2,800,000 kWh per year.

   • Annual Emissions: 2,800,000 kWh x 0.385 kg CO2e/kWh = 1,078,000 kg CO2e per year.

   • This equals 1,078 tonnes of CO2e every single year just to keep those million "green" copies on a server.

The 3-tonne download cost is not the story; it is a rounding error. The real carbon cost of the digital library in Greenly's own example is 1,078 tonnes in its first year alone—more than three times the 312-tonne "Original Sin" of the physical discs.

The 'Thirst' of the Cloud and the Redownload Racket

This infrastructure is not just hungry; it is "thirsty".²¹ Data centers require "mind-boggling" amounts of water for cooling.¹⁰ A single medium-sized data center can consume up to 110 million gallons of water per year.¹³

Furthermore, a physical disc's carbon cost is static. A reinstall from the disc is "basically 0 carbon extra".²⁰ A digital "license," however, must be re-downloaded to a new console or after a hard drive is full.²⁰ Each re-download pays that 3-tonne carbon cost all over again, multiplying the footprint over the product's life.

III. The Breakeven Point: When Your Download Becomes Dirtier Than Your Drive

This "digital is greener" narrative is not new, and it has been contradicted by peer-reviewed science for years. A 2014 study from the Journal of Industrial Ecology analyzed this very question for PlayStation 3 games.²³

Its findings were the complete opposite of Greenly's headline:

• For an 8.8GB game (the 2010 average), downloading from the network created a larger carbon footprint than manufacturing, distributing, and driving to the store to buy the physical Blu-ray disc.²³

• The study calculated a "breakeven point": for game files less than 1.3 GB, downloading was greener. For any file larger than 1.3 GB, the physical disc was the more carbon-efficient choice.²³

This highlights the "Efficiency vs. Bloat" arms race. While data centers and networks have become more efficient ¹⁰, game file sizes have exploded, from the 8.8GB average in the 2014 study to the 70GB example Greenly uses today—a 700% increase. The principle of a breakeven point remains: the sheer volume of data being perpetually stored and repeatedly transmitted eventually overwhelms the one-time, static cost of the disc.

The following table models the true carbon lifecycle of Greenly's one million games, revealing the crossover point they omitted.

Carbon Amortization: Physical Disc vs. Digital "License" (10-Year Lifecycle)

Storage calculations are based on the 1,078 tonne/year figure derived from.¹ Redownload rates are conservative estimates based on.²⁰

IV. The Greenly Report's Greatest Plot Twist: 'Please, Sir, May I Have Some More... Physical Media?'

The most satirical, and revealing, part of this entire affair is that the Greenly report knows its own headline is misleading. Buried deep in the GamesIndustry.biz coverage is this astonishing "buried lede," a direct quote from study author Stephanie Safdie:

"As a whole, physical video games may still be less carbon intensive than their digital counterparts – but their ultimate impact should not be underestimated." ¹

This single sentence, a complete negation of the "100x" headline, is the quiet confession that the entire premise is flawed. But the self-own does not stop there. When proposing solutions for a greener industry, the Greenly report does not suggest an all-digital, server-based future.

Instead, it recommends the very things its headline attacks:

1. Trade-In Programs: The report suggests "console manufacturers running trade-in programs that would enable components to be reused".¹

2. Second-Hand Focus: It explicitly proposes "a new industry and community focus on second-hand physical games".¹

3. Physical Retail: It even suggests "using moribund physical retail stores to give more space to second-hand products".¹

This is the ultimate plot twist. Why would a report screaming "digital is 100x cleaner" conclude by recommending a renaissance for used physical games?

Because the authors tacitly admit that the physical disc's 312-tonne carbon cost is amortizable. When a disc is resold, that 312-tonne manufacturing cost is now split across two users. The "per-user" footprint is halved. A third sale divides it by three.

By Greenly's own solutions, the most sustainable model is the circular economy of physical media.¹ This directly contradicts their headline, which relies on a 1:1 comparison (one new disc vs. one new download) and completely ignores the second-hand market. The "100x" headline is a greenwashed gift for publishers; the recommendations section is the fine print where the authors had to admit the actual, more complex truth.

V. The Unseen Cost: Why Your Digital Library Will Die (and Your Discs Won't)

This debate connects directly to the long-term value and preservation of gaming as a culture. The push for an all-digital future is not just environmentally questionable; it is a direct assault on consumer ownership.

• 'Ownership' vs. 'The License': When you buy a physical copy, you "own it permanently".²⁶ It "do[es] not require an account or internet to work".²⁷ When you buy digitally, you are granted a "license" ²⁶, which can be revoked at any time. As Steam finally admitted in 2024, "A purchase of a digital product grants a license for the product on Steam".²⁶

• The Carbon Footprint of 'Digital Preservation': What happens when a digital-only game is "delisted" or its servers are retired? It is gone, forever. At least 2,106 games are already unplayable for this exact reason.²⁶

To "preserve" a digital-only library requires active and perpetual energy consumption. It means keeping "legacy servers" running 24/7 ²⁸, forever burning electricity and consuming water just to maintain access to our cultural history.³⁰

A physical game library on a shelf is the ultimate "energy-saving" mode. It is passive preservation. Its post-purchase carbon footprint is zero.²⁰ The all-digital future, by contrast, is an all-server future, creating an ever-compounding energy and water debt ¹⁰ that we will be forced to pay indefinitely.

VI. Conclusion: How to Actually Game Green (and Not Just 'Greenwash')

The claim that "digital is the greener way forward" is, in short, a convenient fiction. It is a piece of "green wallpaper" ⁷ that, upon closer inspection, is peeling away to reveal a corporate-friendly, anti-consumer, and environmentally questionable framework. It is a narrative that just so happens to align perfectly with the financial desires of publishers who wish to eliminate physical retail, destroy the second-hand market, and lock every gamer into a non-transferable, license-only ecosystem.⁹

The Greenly report's "100x" figure is a statistical parlor trick, one that its own author and recommendations contradict.

So, to answer the query: is digital the greener way forward? No.

• The Actual Carbon Villain is the "Digital Dragon": a 20TB, digital-only library that demands a planet-sized, water-guzzling ¹³ data center be kept running, 24/7, forever, on the faint possibility that its "licensee" might want to download Alan Wake 2 again in 2035.

• The Actual Greenest Gamer is the "Circular Gamer": the patient consumer who buys a used physical copy, amortizing the disc's 312-tonne "capital investment" across multiple owners.¹ This gamer lends the disc to a friend (zero carbon cost) and then trades it in, continuing the cycle.¹

That shelf of physical games is not a carbon crisis. It is a carbon-neutral, passively preserved archive. Preferring physical copies is not just a nostalgic whim; it is the most environmentally sound, pro-consumer, and preservation-friendly choice a gamer can make.