Going Green With New Video Game Cases

Source:IGN



Those who recently purchased some of this holiday’s biggest titles for Xbox 360, such as Left 4 Dead 2 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, probably noticed something a little different about their game cases. The circular-style holes behind game discs and instruction manuals are not production errors. It’s a new effort by companies to become more environmentally friendly by reducing excess packaging materials.

Hong Kong-based case manufacturer Viva Group recently rolled style the new style of casing dubbed the ‘Eco-Box’ which significantly reduces CO2 production emissions. The Eco-Box is already being used by movie studios for DVDs, but now it has begun appearing in the videogames industry.

recently spoke with Kyle Sheppard, Manager of Business Development at Viva. He says this initiative to reduce packaging was actually driven by retailers and not game publishers.

“We have had success over the past two years converting the movie studios to the Eco-Box on a large scale and are now working with the various gaming platforms and game publishers on a similar transition for the games market,” Sheppard told IGN. “Retailers are demanding that the entertainment industry and product manufacturers reduce or eliminate the large and wasteful packaging that has become the standard over the last twenty years.’

“Wal-Mart even introduced a packaging scorecard with certain criteria that must be met, including reducing all packaging by 5% by 2013,” Sheppard added. “The Eco-Box already exceeds this goal for the entertainment industry.”

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