Game Engines Are Driving the Future of Experience
- By: Tim Madison
Game engines occupy a strange space in the consciousness of location-based entertainment as well the larger culture.
On one hand, they are the chief technology behind the largest sector of the entertainment industry. Last year, global gaming generated $180 billion in revenue, more than the global film and North American sports industries combined. Game engines are being adopted by more and more sectors outside of gaming, like architecture, engineering, and medicine. Most notably, the film and television industries are using major platforms like Unreal Engine and Unity to create virtual production pipelines that are fundamentally changing the nature of the job.
On the other hand, game engines are still an undiscovered country for a surprising number of organizations, even within the world of attractions and destinations. There is still a leftover tendency to regard them as the domain of gaming developers. While some organizations have been quick to recognize the wide-ranging creative potential of game engines, others lag behind.
If you don’t know much about the game engines, here’s several big takeaways about the technology:
- Game engines have applications far beyond just gaming.
- The concept of “gaming” itself, as a medium and a form of immersive storytelling, is going to cross more and more boundaries in the future.
- Game engines are making a wide range of visual and interactive development tools far more accessible and user-friendly.
In November of last year, I wrote a piece for Blooloop to provide an introduction to game engines for the neophyte. It outlines the major components of technology, some of the biggest names in the industry, and the reasons why game engines are destined to play a big role in the future of immersive experiences. I invite you to check it and let us know your thoughts!