I'm no fan of Greenpeace, but this kind of report is actually quite constructive in a way that a lot of their campaigns are not. They set out clear criteria and regularly update their rankings, meaning that a company which wanted to take the opportunity to clean up its act would know what to do and would have its efforts reflected promptly in future reports. Nintendo comes last not just out of the videogame companies but out of all the electronics firms they surveyed.

It's worth noting that Nintendo have completely failed to meet their own environmental targets - the report references Nintendo's own environmental policies, which it often seems to ignore. I don't think that independent watchdog groups are doing any harm by reminding companies of their own promises.

@Nick - there are already a vast number of environmental regulations in place in different countries, which are regulated by each country's respective environmental regulators. I find it interesting that Greenpeace aren't measuring regulatory compliance, but are using their own criteria instead. That said, given the patchwork nature of regulation, a survey of regulatory compliance is probably just too complex to do, and Greenpeace's own benchmarks are still worth listening to: a lot of the areas they measure are already law in some places and are becoming so in others. There's a definite trend in all jurisdictions around the world for greater environmental regulation and higher reporting standards, so a wise company would take the opportunity to get ahead of the curve here, clean up its act, avoid future bad publicity and reform its internal processes so as to anticipate future regulatory standards instead of just reacting to them.

"I don't see why Nintendo should give a crap about Greenpeace, or their rankings."

...because if they ignore Greenpeace, they end up getting rubbished in news reports, which is bad publicity, which hurts their reputation? Whatever you think of Greenpeace, it's really in Nintendo's interest to make someone available to answer their questions.

That's just business-speak for genres that loads of people love to play. So making more games in them is surely a good thing? Don't forget that this sort of statement is probably aimed at investors more than gamers, so business jargon as opposed to gaming jargon is probably more appropriate in that context.

"Over the past decades, videogames have undoubtedly come under fire from ... agenda-driven researchers coming to questionable conclusions."

And articles written in the industry press aren't going to be agenda-driven?

Not that I disagree with you. Just saying. For everyone across society to be convinced of the worth of our beloved hobby, the last word on this is going to have to come from objective observers - for example, mainstream media outlets - not the videogaming industry.

Just personally speaking, I think it would be very interesting to see Edge cover the opposite argument. What are the main arguments for why gaming is bad for you, and how credible are they? It would be interesting to hear direct rebuttals to such arguments that are as respectful and well-researched as this article clearly was.

They were at one point - I seem to remember reading somewhere that in the 19th century, when the novel was becoming mainstream entertainment, there was great concern at how such a superficial medium would impact on the moral character of younger generations.

Defensiveness has its place, but at the end of the day, questions about the worth of videogames will disappear in the same way that they did about novels, movies, and popular music: when the majority of adults grew up having them as a normal part of their lives. Give it 20 years and acceptance will become the default position.