Hm, when I read this thread title I thought about a different kind of game technology than the rest of you it seems.
I was just pondering this yesterday because I was talking to a PhD student in the geology program that I'm studying at about his thesis project. He was using a super-realistic modeling program to simulate cave-ins underground (like in a mine tunnel or similar). The program calculated all the real-world physics to an exact degree, including the strength properties and existing fractures of the rock involved, how each piece of rock interacted with each other, and how the solid rocks in the ceiling would actually break into smaller pieces before falling.
Realism to this degree required the program to run for between two and eight weeks for
each simulation. He had to have like five computers running it simultaneously just to get any progress made. It's weird that a game physics engine can simulate moderately realistic physics and do it so fast it can be rendered in realtime, but I guess
true realism is a big step up. However, a big part of it for games is that the video hardware is specifically designed to do those kinds of operations much faster than a regular CPU.
With the new physics hardware coming out, I wonder if it wouldn't have many scientific applications as well as just gaming? Funny that leisure activities have driven the development of this technology, but then there's a lot more money in games than in scientific modeling software.
