Jon Peddie Research Selects Epic Games Founder and CEO for Technology Advancement Award

During yesterday’s Jon Peddie Research (JPR) Annual SIGGRAPH Luncheon for press and analysts, Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney accepted the JPR Technology Advancement Award, which celebrates people, individuals, and organizations that have helped nurture and  protect new technologies enabling further development. 

In announcing the award, JPR President Dr. Jon Peddie praised Tim’s career in game development as it has “led the trajectory of the game industry from shareware and bulletin boards, to first-person shooters to VR and new experiences.” 

Peddie goes on to say that through Tim’s leadership Epic “has been able to anticipate the many shifts in technology and consumer interests and adapt when change comes at them.”

An excerpt from the post linked above states:

Sweeney has been known as an outspoken commentator on the course of technology evolution—always pushing for better hardware, open platforms, and faster innovation from suppliers and industry colleagues. “Not always patient, and not a big compromiser, but Sweeney is what the industry has needed to keep moving forward,” notes Peddie.

Game engines are rapidly becoming real-time content creation tools for a wide range of industries, mediums, and genres. The shift is being enabled by the innovations of several companies including Autodesk, Crytek, Epic, and Unity to name the companies most aggressively moving to new markets.

Epic’s Unreal Engine was an early alternative for game developers who wanted a supported, stable platform for development; it has inspired a generation of game developers to create unique, imaginative and compelling games. 

Going forward, Tim Sweeney and the Unreal Engine team promise to push the the grand experiment of interactive 3D content to enable new kinds of games, and beyond games to add 3D interactivity to digital applications in all fields including marketing, filmmaking, TV production, manufacture, design and more. 

“Along the way, we fully expect Tim Sweeney to continue to be an outspoken advocate for better technology, open platforms, and full opportunities for developers,” says Peddie.

The JPR Technology Advancement Award comes only one day after SIGGRAPH Real-Time Live! where the Epic team and Unreal Engine partners received the Best Real-Time Graphics and Interactivity for a new real-time cinematography demonstration based on Ninja Theory’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Epic took home the same award during SIGGRAPH 2015 for the Unreal Engine 4 animated short A Boy and His Kite.