BP and Chevron Go Virtual and Green

What do Chevron and BP have in common, besides being leading members of Big Oil? Computer games, apparently. Yesterday, the New York Times reported on BP’s latest rebranding move–a “collaboration” with Electronic Arts on the video game company’s latest version of SimCity, due out November 15th. Unlike previous versions of the popular video game that lets players build their own cities from scratch, this one will include a more “nuanced power generation and pollution simulation” that will “show the trade-offs among three aspects of electrical power: cost, power output and pollution.” Translation: BP’s colorful, green, and yellow sunburst logo will happily adorn “clean” energy options like solar farms, wind farms, natural gas plants, and even gas stations, while “dirty” energy options like coal will remain BP logo-free! In September, Chevron and The Economist teamed up for a similar venture. Their online, interactive game, Energyville, allows players to decide how to outfit a city with solar, wind, coal, biomass, hydro, oil, and nuclear power. The catch? If you try to use only renewable energy sources to supply your city, you’ll be politely informed you need petroleum. So much for thinking outside the box, huh? Image source: media.g4tv.com. > Continue.

News selected by Covalence | Country: Global | Company: Chevron, BP | Source: Mother Jones