At Game Developers Conference, not only were we excited to host a virtual booth demonstrating our ArcGIS Maps SDK for game engines capabilities, but we were also looking forward to attending sessions and interacting in the live chat with attendees.
With ArcGIS Maps SDK for game engines, we focus on the developer components for Unity and Unreal Engine. This product is in beta, and we're preparing for a pre-release in August, with our first production release scheduled for Q1 of 2022.
There are many opportunities available to developers with building out games. The developer technology for data provisioning capabilities as part of the system can help developers out who are wanting to use real-world data. We encourage those who are to look at and work with ArcGIS Maps SDK for game engines to bring real-world data, geography, and/or a geographic content -- essentially bringing geospatial -- to their games.
There may also be developers who want to work at a more granular level within the apps that they are building for game development, and with still adding an element of real-world data, a great option would be for a look into ArcGIS Platform. ArcGIS Platform offers a set of location services, which includes basemaps and other analytics as well, so that developers who want to work "closer to the metal", but also want to take advantage of location or geospatial services and capabilities that are outside of the box, can do so. The documentation on those capabilities are available here.
In addition to having the virtual booth, we were also able to attend some of sessions being offered during the conference that were particularly interesting to the developer community:
- Business & Technology Trends in the PC Gaming Landscape (Presented by Intel)
- Program your Games Today. Prepare for Tomorrow. (Presented by Intel)
- Fair Play Summit: LIVE Fireside Chat: The Disruption and Harms in Gaming Framework: Six Month Check-In.
- Fair Play Summit: Tackling Cheating In Gaming.
- Community Safety: What Does It Mean?
- Advocacy Microtalks
- Conquer Challenges No Matter Your Team Size (Presented by Perforce)
We enjoyed our time at the conference and were able to welcome a number of visits to our virtual booth, and we look forward to seeing the involvement in our public beta program.
If you yourself are interested in participating in the ArcGIS Maps SDK for game engines public beta program, sign up here: https://esriurl.com/a4ge.
