Gamers Fighting Climate Change - Wooga Commits to Plant 200,000 Trees Following Successful In-Game Tree-Planting Event with June's Journey Players

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Jun 13, 2022, 09:00 ET

BERLIN, Germany, June 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a successful tree-planting event in June's Journey®, the #1 highest grossing hidden object game worldwide* from Playtika® studio and mobile games developer Wooga®, Wooga has committed to plant 200,000 trees in 2022. This is a result of June's Journey's participation in the 2022 Green Game Jam, a vital player-driven initiative to highlight the important role we can all play in protecting the world we live in. This is the second year in a row that Wooga has joined the Green Game Jam, this year committing to plant 8 times more trees versus 2021 as Wooga decided to significantly scale up the initiative following last year's success when June's Journey players succeeded to reach the targeted number of planted trees within a mere 90 minutes.

As part of 2022's Green Game Jam, Wooga, in collaboration with search engine Ecosia, has committed to planting 200,000 trees in 2022 in locations across the globe where they are needed most. Between 5th and 6th June 2022, trees began to be planted virtually and in the real-world via June’s Journey player contributions.

Between 5^th-6^th June, Wooga, in collaboration with search engine Ecosia and as part of this year's Green Game Jam, saw trees planted virtually via June's Journey player contributions. The popular free-to-play mobile game offered players the opportunity to re-forest in-game while collectively promoting direct climate action and planting trees in locations across the globe where they are needed most. Ecosia, tasked with coordinating the tree-planting in the real world, supports over 60 tree planting projects across more than 30 countries worldwide, prioritizing biodiversity hotspots - areas with a particularly large number of rare species.

The Green Game Jam is an initiative from the Playing for the Planet Alliance which is facilitated by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). It aims to leverage participants' player bases to inspire people to learn and act in support of the environment through green activations in games. The 2022 Jam themes are Food, Forests and our Future and the collective goal amongst participating gaming studios is to shift one million players' food choices for the environment and plant and protect one million trees. This year saw the largest edition of the Green Game Jam to date, featuring roughly 40 studios worldwide.

Nai Chang, Managing Director at Wooga, said: "Given the overwhelming enthusiasm and passion demonstrated by our players during our 2021 Green Game Jam initiative it was clear to us that in 2022 we can and should aim much higher. We are over the moon that we managed to 8X the number of trees to be planted this year! This fits our belief at Wooga in the importance of creating awareness of, and taking action against, climate change; the least we all ought to do as individuals, consumers and responsible businesses."

Sam Barratt, Chief of Youth, Education and Advocacy in UNEP's Ecosystems Division, said: "It's great to see Wooga's growing contribution to restoring landscapes as a result of the Green Game Jam. We look forward to seeing what more Wooga can do to restore landscapes through the power of play in the coming years."

Jon Marks, Head of Business Development at Ecosia, said: "We're delighted to provide a simple way for June's Journey players to be climate active as they come together for the Green Game Jam. Partnering with conscious companies like Wooga enables us to continue to fund and protect reforestation in biodiversity projects around the world to future-proof our planet."

Alongside this year's tree-planting event, Wooga continues to create awareness for this year's Green Game Jam with activities on its social media, is conducting pre- and post-campaign surveys to better understand players' opinions towards green activations in games and invites the player community to participate in a forest-themed quiz with a chance to win exciting in-game bonuses.

This follows the successful participation of Wooga in the Green Game Jam last year which saw real-world trees planted for the purchase of in-game tree decorations at June's Journey up to 25,000 trees - this Wooga initiative received the 2021 'Player's Choice' award. This was in addition to Wooga's in-game fundraising campaign organized with TreeSisters on Earth Day 2021 when ~116,000 trees were planted as part of the charity campaign Root to Rise.

Wooga has been building its corporate social sustainability (CSR) efforts in recent years, becoming a carbon neutral mobile games developer since 2020 and increasingly promoting eco-friendly and climate-active messaging across its games while implementing small yet meaningful acts across at its Berlin-based studio such as stopping the use of bottled water and switching to entirely green energy.

June's Journey is available to download for free on the App Store and Google Play.

* Between January 2020 and April 2022, June's Journey was #1 by Consumer Spend within the Hidden Object (Puzzle) Subgenre across Worldwide iOS & Google Play, according to Data.ai.

About Wooga®

Wooga GmbH, the Berlin-based mobile games developer established in 2009, has created successful and unique mobile app games including June's Journey, Pearl's Peril® and Switchcraft®. In 2018, Wooga was acquired by social games company Playtika.

About June's Journey®

June's Journey invites players to relax with a story of romance, intrigue, and mystery in a glamorous hidden object game straight from the roaring 20s. Players have the opportunity to step into the role of amateur detective June Parker and set out on a journey and escape to a bygone age as they search for hidden object clues, from the parlors of New York to the sidewalks of Paris.

About Playtika®

Playtika Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: PLTK) is a mobile gaming entertainment and technology market leader with a portfolio of multiple game titles. Founded in 2010, Playtika was among the first to offer free-to-play social games on social networks and, shortly after, on mobile platforms. Headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, and guided by a mission to entertain the world through infinite ways to play, Playtika has offices worldwide and employs over 4,000 employees.

About Green Game Jam

The first Green Game Jam was born out of the gaming industry's commitments at the 2019 Climate Action Summit, after which many of the members of the Playing for the Planet Alliance wanted to do more to leverage the power of gaming. The Playing for the Planet Alliance was created to support the video gaming industry to achieve the following core objectives: 1. To rally the industry to reduce its carbon footprint and to ensure it has the tools to measure, reduce, and set targets to decarbonise. 2. To inspire environmental action through green activations in games. 3. To share the learnings of the initiative so that others in the industry can follow suit. 4. To explore new strategies for the future around new games and approaches to storytelling.

About Ecosia

Ecosia is the search engine that plants trees, planting in 30+ countries with local organizations. Ecosia restores and protects biodiversity hotspots and, instead of monocultures, it grows over 500 different native species where they are needed most – always shoulder-to-shoulder with local communities.

SOURCE Playtika