In commemoration of the World Environment Day and the World Oceans Day, Reliance Games have come up with a unique initiative to raise awareness regarding the hazards of plastic among children and youth. In support of the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Tide Turners Plastic Challenge, a global initiative that engages youth to address the issue of plastic pollution threatening life in oceans, rivers, and on land; Reliance Games will highlight the problems of plastic pollution in video games, a first for the studio.
Little Singham 2022, a runner game with over 50 million downloads is running a new campaign informing players about the adverse effects of plastic on the environment by integrating new features where the players collect plastic bottles and win rewards. Discovery Kids’ most loved show, Little Singham has been winning hearts by emerging as one of the top Indian IPs in the animation genre on television since 2018. In no time, the character extended its fun and frolic in the gaming sphere and replicated the success by leading the charts on Play Store too.
The Little Singham game has also integrated the World Environment Day ‘Only One Earth’ logo within the gameplay.
The Tide Turners youth programme has been backed by the Scout and Girl Guide movement worldwide, engaging some 500,000 youth in over 30 countries.
UNEP India office head Atul Bagai said, “Awareness among the youth is critical to responding to the triple planetary crisis of climate, biodiversity loss, and pollution, the gaming industry, with its vast reach, can play a significant role to engage young players in a fun way to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics.”
Reliance Entertainment (digital) CEO Amit Khanduja said, “Games have the ability to engage, inspire and captivate the imaginations of kids with these initiatives. The mobile games industry has to take the lead in the emerging markets to raise awareness among the next billion gamers coming online to lead the way for climate change.”
The collaboration is part of ‘Playing for the Planet, launched in September 2019 at the UN Climate Summit, a push by UNEP to support the game industry to raise awareness about pressing environmental issues. Reliance Games/Zapak is one of the founding members along with Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Supercell.