Game Impact Theory: The Five Forces That Are Driving the Adoption of Game Technologies within Multiple Established Industries

The computer gaming industry has begun to export powerful products and technologies from its initial entertainment roots to a number of “serious” industries. Games are being adopted for defense, medicine, architecture, education, city planning, and government applications. Each of these industries is already served by an established family of companies that typically do not use games or the technologies that support them. The rapid growth in the power of game technologies and the growing social acceptance of these technologies has created an environment in which these are displacing other industry-specific computer hardware and software suites. This paper puts forward a game impact theory that identifies five specific forces that compel industries to adopt game technologies for their core products and services. These five forces are computer hardware costs, game software power, social acceptance, other industry successes, and native industry experimentation. Together these influence the degree and rapidity at which game technologies are adopted in a number of industries. This theory is meant to be useful to managers who must make decisions about adopting, investigating, or ignoring these new technologies.