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The Play2Act case study series represents a progressively refined programme of research into digital games as tools for large-scale public engagement on climate change and environmental policy. Conducted under the GREAT (Games Realising Effective and Affective Transformation) project in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the three iterations, Play2Act, Play2Act2, and Play2Act3, collectively demonstrate both the significant potential and the inherent constraints of embedding survey instruments within popular digital games. Across all three iterations, games proved capable of reaching audiences at a scale and with a demographic diversity rarely achievable through conventional survey methods. Play2Act alone engaged over 933,000 players across 228 countries with a remarkable 90.7% first-question response rate. The three iterations collectively yielded approximately 221,000 respondents in Play2Act, 19,400 in Play2Act2, and 8,400 in Play2Act3, with the majority of respondents (approximately 70%) aged under 36 and male participants outnumbering other gender groups across all iterations. However, the series also reveals a consistent and instructive tension: whilst initial engagement is high, converting broad exposure into completed surveys remains challenging, and translating survey completion into demonstrable behavioural or policy change is more difficult still. Each iteration introduced methodological refinements, from the shift to a co-branded UNDP instrument in Play2Act2, to the introduction of optional open-text responses and a formal mixed-methods framework in Play2Act3. These changes improved institutional legitimacy and depth of insight but are associated with a measurable decline in completion rates (from ~81% to 64.4% of engaged users), illustrating the inherent trade-off between methodological richness and participant retention. Key thematic findings that recur across all three iterations include: pronounced generational differences in receptivity to games as civic spaces; persistent gender-based divergences in climate engagement patterns; a 'concern-action gap' particularly among middle-aged and financially precarious participants; and the significance of game genre and mechanics in shaping emotional and attitudinal responses to environmental content. A novel and theoretically important finding from Play2Act3 is the identification of systematic non-disclosure as a meaningful indicator of institutional distrust, rather than a neutral data artefact. The series provides strong evidence for games-based methods as a scalable, complementary tool for policy-relevant public engagement, one that demands careful targeting, hybrid methodological design, and sustained institutional partnership to realise its full potential.