How to make your company economically sustainable

gamesindustry.biz:

Sign up for the GI Daily here to get the biggest news straight to your inbox

Many businesses define sustainability as ecological. In 2021, we invited panellists to talk about ways in which game studios and publishers can be more sustainable, for example by reducing their carbon footprint and raising awareness for climate change among their audiences.

At gaming marketing agency Yrs Truly, sustainability takes on other forms besides, in order to show that truly every company in the gaming industry can be sustainable, whether they produce physical goods or not.

"It's a little bit frustrating to see people think of sustainability only in terms of environmental impact, because many companies in games then go ‘Oh well, I don't produce anything physical so this doesn't apply to me'," Yrs Truly founder MJ Widomska tells the GamesIndustry.biz Academy.

"A sustainable business is a business that is run so it can sustain for a long time."

Widomska has broken sustainability down into three pillars – economic policy, society and environmental impact – and argues that many companies in the gaming industry could do more to be economically sustainable in particular by creating a company that is financially viable and secure in the long term.

"One of the most controversial things I've said as part of my talks is that if you are taking every growth opportunity available you are probably not sustainable," she says. "If you take an opportunity to hire people but don't have the structures in place to sustain a team of a bigger size, you are not working sustainably. People get hired for a year on a project and then get fired. It's a horrible policy, but it happens a lot in games."

According to Widomska, sustainable hiring reduces the