the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 26 Mar 2024
GC Insights: The Anthro-Pokécene – Environmental impacts echoed in the Pokémon world
Abstract. Public perception of anthropogenic environmental impacts including climate change is primarily driven by exposure to different forms of media. Here, we show how the Pokémon franchise, the largest multimedia franchise worldwide, mirrors public discourse in the video games’ narratives with regard to human impacts on environmental change, demonstrating a trajectory towards greater and more explicit acknowledgement of climate change and anthropogenic impacts in each released game.
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Status: open (until 06 Jun 2024)
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RC1: 'Comment on gc-2024-2', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Apr 2024
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This is an insightful paper that leaves me wishing for a more extensive investigation on this topic. Assuming that in this case there are space limitations, I encourage the authors to expand and deepen their analysis in future publications. Similarly, given more space, I would recommend a deeper engagement with the games and nature/environment/ecology/climate change literature, which has been growing steadily in the past five years or so.
Find below some notes that may improve the paper:
The authors say "In many cases, the graphical quality of games has made it possible for game environments to be indistinguishable from their real-world counterparts (Hut et al., 2019)." I do not think that this sentence is accurate, especially given that the reference provided does not seem to indicate anything of the sort, as it concludes: "We have demonstrated that while geoscientists might be slightly, but statistically significantly, better at separating real world photos of landscapes from video game screenshots, non-geoscientists are still capable of identifying landscapes from a video game, even when both the real world photos and the video game screenshots are filtered through an artistic “van Gogh” filter. This suggests that people recognize the natural features in video game worlds for the fantastical settings that they are..." I would suggest that the sentence is either clarified and properly justified with a reference (what is meant by indistinguishable? In terms of photo-realism? Plausibility of visible geological features? Complexity of ecological modeling?) or dropped altogether.
"... how have they mirror public discourse and priorities?" -> mirrored
In the methods, please clarify what is meant by "game scripts." Are these complete transcripts of all the textual content that players encounter, summaries...?
"The coral Pokémon Corsola, previously depicted as a healthy pink coral, appears in Galar as a white bleached coral" -> I would also add that its type changes from water and rock to ghost, quite overtly implying that the coral is not only bleached but dead.
"The franchise’s use of morally ambiguous storylines to present the nuance and complexity of environmental 100 change and associated decision-making in an increasingly politically polarized world." -> Revise grammar (perhaps "the franchise uses").
"The conclusion of this story notes that in order to create a better world, people must cooperate globally, which is often quoted as a necessary approach to lessen climate impacts, with the COP26 meeting being subtitled Together for our planet (TheUnitedNations, 2021)." -> Beyond the framing of conferences and their messaging, the authors could cite the latest IPCC synthesis report and its insights on climate justice and cooperation as the mitigation and adaptation strategies advocated for.
"Maintaining hope that we can overcome modern environmental challenges if we want to continue to push for improvement, rather than collectively default to hopeless catastrophism." -> Revise grammar, since I am not sure this expression works as a standalone sentence.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-2024-2-RC1
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