Being green is all the rage these days. Buy organic food, recycle the beer cans left over from your house party last night, switch to LED lightbulbs, all in the name of showing your friends that you care about something other than your favorite reality television show. Nokia’s looking to ride the eco-friendly phenomenon by releasing “Climate Mission 3D”, a game for Symbian phones that has you completing various missions around the world in order to reduce the Earth’s temperature. Sounds like a gimmick, right? Except it’s not, because the more levels you complete, the more “votes” you get. These votes can be used to pick which organization (WWF, IUCN, or Oxfam) will receive 50,000 Euros to continue on their quest to clean up nature. We’ve got no doubt in our mind that people will genuinely feel like they’re doing something to help while playing this thing, but we’ve got a few issues.
First, games don’t fall off trees, they need to be developed. How much money was spent to get make Climate Mission 3D? If it’s more than 50,000 Euros, which we doubt, but you never know, then this whole project is a waste of time. Second, why doesn’t Nokia just give 50,000 Euros away and publish a press release saying how kick ass they are? Third, say the game is awesome, why not bundle it with every Nokia phone currently shipping and then tie it into a user’s Ovi account so he or she can donate directly to their organization of choice?
Listen, it’s not like we don’t appreciate what Nokia is trying to do here, it’s just that companies using tactics like this to promote a green identity is a bit shady. We’d rather read about Nokia mandating that every employee has to plant a tree in 2012 than watch a trailer for a game where you control an army of ants.
[Grab the game straight from the Ovi Store]