The metaverse, but not the way you think: game engines and automation beyond game development

ABSTRACT The production of videogames routinely uses automated techniques to generate content, rig animations, map light, and script behaviors. The automation of programming and artistic functions is increasingly baked into game engines that work with other software applications in 3D production ecosystems, which are laying the foundations for what is being pitched by platform companies as the future metaverse. Platform studies has analyzed automated decision-making through the politics of classification. Game studies has investigated engines such as Unreal and Unity as platform tools that consolidate power through asymmetries of interconnectivity and interoperability. This commentary discusses the automaticity of game engines as platform tools for designing and simulating interactive 3D worlds within and beyond games. Outlining the structuring force of game engines from game development and entertainment media to architecture, engineering, construction, and manufacturing, I speculate on the implications of engines for game workers and game studies.