Change is the only constant: Cultural impact of real-time media software and content

The presentation analyzes a fairly new techno-cultural phenomenon — the increasing popularity of real-time media in today's digital media landscape. Specifically, it addresses the cultural impact of commercial game engines for designing different media genres and content based on 3D, real-time computer graphics — games, narratives, animations. Technical capabilities of game engines allow to design new types of content within the same environment, blurring the line between specific media genres (e.g., animations or games). This leads to new types of media remediations (Bolter and Grusin 1999) and convergences (Jenkins 2006) — both at the level of creative practices and media content. "Baymax Dreams" (Disney & Unity, 2018) and "Adam" (Unity & Oats Studios, 2016- ) were chosen as examples of real-time media titles to illustrate the argument of the presentation. Consequently, the analysis is going to illustrate how thanks to real-time media new media genres can emerge, hybrids situated at the intersection of video games (interactivity) and cinema (cinematic representation). Theoretically and methodologically, the research is based on software and platform studies approaches, informed by critical theory and media studies perspectives.