How players interact with sustainability in ECO

Some types of resource management and simulation games often inadvertently deal with theconcept of resource exploitation which is a natural outcome of emulating real-world systems ina digital environment. Sustainable decision-making is imperative for humanity’s sustainedsurvival and teaching the general populace about sustainability and climate through interactivemedia has proven to be an effective tool in increasing such decision-making. ECO (2018) is agame that deals with a simulated climate that reacts to the player’s actions, this makes it apotential candidate for teaching its players about climate change and sustainable decision-making. This paper looks at ECO (2018) through a close reading with the help of a set ofanalytical lenses to ascertain the player’s relationship with sustainability in the game. The extentto which the game’s simulated climate is interwoven with all other aspects of its progressionshows its potential for being a tool used in sustainability education in spite of the fact that itultimately emphasises innovation over sustainability as the main driver of the player’s decisionmaking.