From Fast Company (via GamePolitics):

Ubisoft announced today that the company was launching two green initiatives. Starting with the upcoming Shaun White Skateboarding, Ubisoft games will no longer feature paper manuals packed in with the discs. These games will now feature digital manuals accessible within the games’ menus. "That is going to provide a huge benefit to the environment, but also to the consumer; having a better gaming experience with an in-game manual," said Rich Kubiszewski, Ubisoft’s VP of Operations, "We are forecasting this could be 6 million manuals we could eliminate, with PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, for the rest of the fiscal year. That’s about 180 tons of paper, 360 tons of wood, and about 2,300 acres of small forest." It will be up to individual developers making the games how rich the digital manuals will be, with possible uses of interactive illustrations and video.

Second, the company’s PC games will ship in a case that is made from 100% recycled polypropylene plastic, as will all future PC titles. "It is the first DVD case in the industry that is 100% recycled," Kubiszewski said. "The cases we previously used were recyclable, but they weren’t made from recycled matter." Ubisoft’s partner Technimark is creating the cases. "They are taking all of the DVD cases that were going to the landfill, as well as detergent bottles or whatever it may be, something like 40 million tons of recyclable material," Kubiszewski said. The first such PC title, Splinter Cell Conviction, ships April 27; other upcoming titles and new printings of older titles will also feature the recycled case.

Read the full article at Fast Company…

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Tags: green, manuals, recycling, shaun white, ubisoft