Recently Ubisoft just announced their new line of “green” game cases, which use “ecoTech” recycled plastic and uses manuals accessible inside the game instead of on paper. On the surface, this is a win-win: same game resources but with less environmental impact. Sure, using fewer materials very well means less costs for Ubisoft but doesn’t necessarily translate to any savings passed on the to the customer.

However, on closer inspection, this is really Ubisoft’s way of saying they’re hip without actually being hip. Green, sure, but nearly so much concerned about the green of trees as the green of money. After all, if they really cared about the environment, wouldn’t they do away with arbitrary and completely superfluous packaging almost entirely? If platforms such as Steam or WiiWare have proven anything, it’s that electronic distribution works – that gamers not only respond positively to it, but that it cuts costs as well. It even means more face-time for smaller games by smaller companies who can’t afford to appear on every shelf in every Best Buy, but who could greatly benefit from some visibility on Steam or a likened platform.

And digital distribution is nothing new; the potential has been there for several years, leaving the only carbon footprint being the servers and the energy to power them (which exists and is expelled anyway for any game with online or community play). So saying that the old model of delivering games on an archaic medium (the DVD) via an archaic distribution method (ground transportation) and selling in an archaic fashion (brick and mortar stores) somehow equates to being green because of recycled plastic and less paper is a little like claiming that guns are a little less deadly with a smaller grain count, and doesn’t consider life without guns at all (if you’ll excuse the metaphor). The fear is that the very same model pirates have long used is actually effective. Or perhaps that gamers will be remiss to pay top dollar for completely asinine bells and whistles a la the latest “Halo” version when what really counts is the quality of the gameplay, not the packaging.

It’s the latest trend for companies proclaiming they’re “going green” to total huge sums in an attempt to look impressive. Celestial Seasonings does this by estimating how many trees are saved by not putting a label and string on their tea bags; the wholly worthless “Earth Hour” proposing that people turn out their lights for an hour is another. Sure, these summations look impressive, but not when compared to revamping the model entirely.

So while Ubisoft no doubt has spent tons of money publicly patting themselves on the back for caring about the environment, it means quite little compared with moving to digital distribution: that big elephant in the room that nobody’s talking about for fear of admitting that anything other than DRM-laden physical media could actually work.