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The landscapes of the fantasy recreation Guild Wars 2 are dotted with luscious vegetation, lots of which, just like the blue flax flower, are impressed by their real-life counterparts. This crossover between video video games and nature impressed Aleks Atanasovski and Hannah Younger, creatives at promoting company Wieden+Kennedy, to push the thought a step additional and supply avid gamers a possibility to develop their favorite recreation vegetation in actuality, difficult the concept gaming and nature hardly ever merge.
In idea, in fact, everybody can simply come up with seeds from vegetation featured within the recreation, and easily sow them of their backyard — you may go to your native nursery for that. Nevertheless, the thought behind SeedSaga’s official collaboration with Guild Wars 2 is to make use of the recognition of the sport to create a way of a real-life seed planting quest past the display.
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“It is harnessing the gamer’s love of getting merch from their favorite recreation, and having the chance to develop and nurture one thing like they might within the recreation, however with the ability to develop vegetation in the true world,” Younger tells Mashable.
Within the spirit of the sport, the SeedSaga packaging is branded in a method that transforms the seeds and planting directions right into a type of treasure looted on a quest. It resembles an merchandise you would possibly discover in your recreation stock, emblazoned with a picture of the plant taken from the sport as an alternative of a photograph.
A SeedSaga-branded package deal containing flax flower seeds
Credit score: SeedSaga
In its first version, SeedSaga provides seeds from three vegetation from Guild Wars 2: the blooming passiflora, flax flower, and a crimson sunflower, all native to the UK, the place the venture is presently restricted to.
“As a result of video games are impressed by real-life vegetation, [there is a huge] quantity of vegetation within the recreation which are precisely the identical as in nature,” Atanasovski tells Mashable. “We made three luggage, however we might have made one thousand.”
The marketing campaign’s first run is restricted not solely with regards to the number of seeds it provides, but additionally within the quantity of branded seed packets it’s going to distribute. Avid gamers interested by planting have been requested to submit an software to the SeedSaga workforce, explaining why they’d wish to have the seeds. Atanasovski and Younger are nonetheless attempting to shortlist the candidates, however they discovered some recurring patterns within the members’ solutions. As Atanasovski explains, the responses are “generally primarily based on a relationship with nature, but additionally the way it reminds [the applicants of] one thing about their family members. A number of solutions have been like, “This flower makes me consider my girlfriend.” Or “This flower makes me assume once we met within the recreation.”
A lot within the spirit of gaming, SeedSaga launched on March 2, 2024 through an in-game “nature stroll” on Twitch led by streamer Maddie Mead, a.okay.a. littlebunny_x and wildlife TV presenter and activist Nadeem Perera, who can also be the co-founder of Flock Collectively. The latter is a birdwatching group that goals to attach younger folks with nature, and make the outside accessible to all. For Perera, the separation between gaming and nature is bigoted.
“In the intervening time, the gaming world and the out of doors world are nearly mutually unique once we discuss them. And I actually do not assume it must be that method,” he tells Mashable. “I am outdoor on a regular basis, however I additionally play video video games. None of them cease me from doing the opposite. So I actually need to deal with this narrative and redefine what it means to be a gamer, in addition to what it means to be a ‘nature individual.'”
Credit score: Guild Wars 2
To Younger, humanity’s means to understand and profit from nature is obvious even within the online game area.
“Within the gaming group, speaking about nature is one thing that is actually thriving for the time being,” she says. “There are such a lot of issues on Reddit and Twitter the place persons are speaking not concerning the video games, like missions, or the quests that they are doing, but it surely’s like recognizing the landscapes that they are taking a look at, and appreciating them identical to they do if they’re on a hike in the true world.”
It’s a typical false impression that video video games serve solely as escapism. However very similar to in artwork, nature depicted in video games is extra a illustration of the environment than a separation from it. And as such, it is smart that witnessing the fantastic thing about nature within the digital area could make us extra curious concerning the pure world outdoors video video games. Younger, no less than, appears pushed by that very notion.
“The issues folks discuss on Reddit are so breathtaking,” she says. “It is so much like the way you is perhaps outdoors and absorb a forest or one thing actually superb in nature. And I believe it isn’t a matter of avid gamers having one or the opposite. We simply needed to remind them concerning the feeling and the shock that they have been getting in video games, they’d that with nature as effectively.”
SeedSaga is a part of W+Okay’s inaugural venture for the Company for Nature initiative based by Glimpse and Goal Disruptors, and was partially created as a response to analysis displaying that Britain ranks final for nature connectedness in Europe, whereas UK Residents measured lowest for his or her feeling of “oneness with the pure world.”
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