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Is a Convergence of Broadcasting and Games on the Horizon? Game Developers Gallery Exhibit Debuts at 2018 NAB Show in Las Vegas

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to Antoine St-Pierre with ATM Cegep de Jonquiere.

LAS VEGAS, Nev.— The over 100,000 attendees at this year’s 2018 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show, may have noticed something different—perhaps even unique. Gaming made its first-ever, debut, at the world’s largest tradeshow for media, entertainment and technology during the event on April 9-12.

“The first question I get from people is, ‘Why are you here? The simple answer is why not?” said Dustin Adair, NAB Show game exhibitor and game developer at Scary Robot Games. “I’ve had literally dozens of conversations with people that said, ‘I had no idea you guys were going to be here, but my boss says we need to take this thing and find some way to do gamification—whatever that is. Can you explain it?’”

Given that there are over 2 billion gamers worldwide, according to the 2017 Global Games Market Report, and that these gamers are expected to generate over $118 billion in revenue by 2019, it doesn’t seem surprising that the broadcast industry has taken notice.

“Gaming is more and more a media business, and media, is more and more a gaming business and they are becoming one and the same. This is fertile new ground,” said Chris Brown, NAB executive vice president of conventions and business operations.

Four Las Vegas-based game developers representing virtual reality, personal computing (PC) and mobile games were brought together to showcase multi-platform capabilities and opportunities in creative content. Among the Game Developer Gallery exhibit companies were: Dotware Games, RealityRig, Scary Robot Productions and Slipgate Studios.

NAB officials said they are hoping to introduce to show attendees the extensive possibilities of gamification and broadcast content.

“Fundamentally we are in the storytelling business. Games are about storytelling, media is about storytelling and our show is about bringing the two and the best of the best in the mix,” said Brown.

Some industry experts came to the NAB Show this year specifically to attend this exhibit.

“I traveled from Toronto, Canada to see the first Game Developers Gallery. I want to learn the technology to create experiential content. I’m delving now into real, experiential events and experience,” said John Barros, FMAV content designer. FMAV is one of Canada’s largest audio and visual live event technology production companies.

For industry experts such as Barros, the Game Developers Gallery exhibit was intentionally designed to deliver a hands-on, interactive experience hoping to aid creative dialogue between show attendees and game developers.

The Game Developers Gallery exhibit, led by Dotware Games Executive Producer, Conner Torres, was a 40 foot by 40 foot, 1,600 square-foot area that housed a fully-immersive virtual reality space, mobile-games arena with MULTIPLAYER and Leap Touch motion and a dedicated area for PC games never before released.

Designed by Conner Torres, below is an animated video of the Game Developers Gallery exhibit.

“The Game Developers Gallery space is being used by game companies and creators to showcase products that aren’t even on the market yet,” said Torres, who debuted his own PC game, Akhenaten: Rule As Pharaoh.

By the conclusion of the NAB Show, exhibit organizers were thrilled with the feedback received by show attendees.

“Almost the universal response was wow games, this is great. I wanted games to be here last time, I wanted something unique like this. I wanted to talk to game developers and I have ideas for how to use games in my business. We want to gamify the news or we want to gamify broadcasting,” concluded Torres.

Only time will ascertain, if and when and to what extent, broadcasting and gamification will converge in the future. However, one thing is for certain, bearing witness to this innovative territory of experiential content creation feels very exciting.

Interested in more related content? Continue on below to watch an exclusive panel interview as these local area game developers talk industry trends.

Still, want more? Check out these funny outtakes from the video interviews: