Sam Hill (left) and Ben Barker (right) developed the Run An Empire app
Tell us about your new idea, Run an Empire Run an Empire is a game that runs through a smartphone app. It uses GPS to record the paths players take when out for a walk or run – local neighbourhoods will become new arenas for strategic play. To control a territory, a player simply has to sprint, jog or saunter around it. For a competing player to capture it from them, they need to do the same – either faster or more often. Territory can be better protected from invasion by encircling it multiple times.
The key to success is dedication. The game is designed for people like us, not naturally gifted athletes – a slow player can beat a faster opponent if they show more determination.
Rather than a gamified fitness app, we see Run An Empire as a strategy game with sports-like, real-world elements. While there’s certainly a potential health benefit, which we’ll enrich as best we can with player analytics, what we’re really excited about seeing are the strategies players use to achieve victory.
What are your backgrounds? PAN Studio is a design practice with a specific interest in developing enriching experiences that in some way impart intellectual, sensory or emotional value.
We make digital platforms and services that challenge how we live our lives and how we engage with existing systems. We believe that a collaborative, responsive approach leads to better results and products that audiences actually engage with.
Our background is in design and interaction, and game logic is something we try to apply to everything we design.
How did you come up with the idea? The nub of the idea came in late 2012, while developing ideas for the first Playable City Award. We went on to develop Hello Lamp Post, but the theme of localised ‘ownership’, combined with play, came up several times.
Health and fitness apps, location and Quantified Self tools, and mobile games are three well-defined, heavily subscribed categories of smartphone app. What was beginning to form for us was the idea of something that worked across all three categories.
What do you hope to achieve with Run an Empire? Sports can be somewhat divisive. Though the global market is worth billions of pounds, in the United States something like 60 per cent of adults simply “don’t like sports” at all (source: SIFA and ACTIVE Network, 2012).
But many sports possess an incredible culture, and playing them can tap a deep well of sensations and emotions – it’s a shame not to feel more involved with them. Run An Empire is an attempt to reconcile with the intentions behind sport – application of skill, social mediation and play – and make them applicable to a gaming generation.
Our big idea is getting people who don’t currently run, running. We know so many people love genuinely compelling game mechanics, and we want to use that to make running exciting to a whole new group of people.
At the same time, we hope we can show people who already run how powerful a strong game mechanic can be in rewarding them as players.
RUN YOUR OWN EMPIRE
To find out more and to sign up for Run an Empire updates, visit www.runanempire.com
"People love game mechanics. We want to use that to make running exciting to a new group of people"
CoverMe, the global leader in fitness workforce management, today launches CoverMe PT, an
on-demand personal training platform that connects the right personal trainer to the right
client in under 10 seconds. [more...]
Panatta brought together four of the most influential figures in bodybuilding history on the
stage of RiminiWellness 2026: Phil Heath, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman and Hany Rambod. [more...]
+ More featured suppliers
COMPANY PROFILES
Precor
Precor promises precision-quality products with steadfast reliability that are inspired by exerciser [more...]
IndigoFitness
At IndigoFitness, we create intelligent training spaces that elevate fitness facilities across indus [more...]
Sam Hill (left) and Ben Barker (right) developed the Run An Empire app
Tell us about your new idea, Run an Empire Run an Empire is a game that runs through a smartphone app. It uses GPS to record the paths players take when out for a walk or run – local neighbourhoods will become new arenas for strategic play. To control a territory, a player simply has to sprint, jog or saunter around it. For a competing player to capture it from them, they need to do the same – either faster or more often. Territory can be better protected from invasion by encircling it multiple times.
The key to success is dedication. The game is designed for people like us, not naturally gifted athletes – a slow player can beat a faster opponent if they show more determination.
Rather than a gamified fitness app, we see Run An Empire as a strategy game with sports-like, real-world elements. While there’s certainly a potential health benefit, which we’ll enrich as best we can with player analytics, what we’re really excited about seeing are the strategies players use to achieve victory.
What are your backgrounds? PAN Studio is a design practice with a specific interest in developing enriching experiences that in some way impart intellectual, sensory or emotional value.
We make digital platforms and services that challenge how we live our lives and how we engage with existing systems. We believe that a collaborative, responsive approach leads to better results and products that audiences actually engage with.
Our background is in design and interaction, and game logic is something we try to apply to everything we design.
How did you come up with the idea? The nub of the idea came in late 2012, while developing ideas for the first Playable City Award. We went on to develop Hello Lamp Post, but the theme of localised ‘ownership’, combined with play, came up several times.
Health and fitness apps, location and Quantified Self tools, and mobile games are three well-defined, heavily subscribed categories of smartphone app. What was beginning to form for us was the idea of something that worked across all three categories.
What do you hope to achieve with Run an Empire? Sports can be somewhat divisive. Though the global market is worth billions of pounds, in the United States something like 60 per cent of adults simply “don’t like sports” at all (source: SIFA and ACTIVE Network, 2012).
But many sports possess an incredible culture, and playing them can tap a deep well of sensations and emotions – it’s a shame not to feel more involved with them. Run An Empire is an attempt to reconcile with the intentions behind sport – application of skill, social mediation and play – and make them applicable to a gaming generation.
Our big idea is getting people who don’t currently run, running. We know so many people love genuinely compelling game mechanics, and we want to use that to make running exciting to a whole new group of people.
At the same time, we hope we can show people who already run how powerful a strong game mechanic can be in rewarding them as players.
RUN YOUR OWN EMPIRE
To find out more and to sign up for Run an Empire updates, visit www.runanempire.com
"People love game mechanics. We want to use that to make running exciting to a new group of people"
The UK's four Chief Medical Officers have published a refreshed edition of Physical activity
guidelines: UK Chief Medical Officers' report, updating the evidence that underpins the nation's
physical activity recommendations and placing greater emphasis on strength, balance, reducing
sedentary behaviour and, for the first time, supporting people taking weight loss medications.
Places Leisure has exchanged contracts to build and operate a flagship £60m water and leisure
destination on behalf of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council.
The Republic of Ireland will become the latest market in PureGym’s expanding international
portfolio, with the first launch planned for Dublin in 2027.
Anytime Fitness opened more than one club a day in 2025 and is on track to maintain this rate
of growth this year, as parent company Purpose Brands targets further international expansion.
The £33.9 million Leighton Leisure and Community Centre has opened in Leighton Buzzard, UK,
creating a next-generation public leisure, health and wellbeing hub for the local community.
Walnuts Leisure Centre in Orpington, in the London Borough of Bromley, has reopened following
a £17m transformation designed to secure the long-term future of the public leisure asset and
reposition it as a community wellbeing hub.
The Gym Group, has announced that it's sustained positive trading momentum has continued
through the first half of 2026 and the company remains confident about the outlook.
Luxury boutique Pilates and wellness studio, X-Club, officially launches a
4,000sq ft flagship at
Marylebone on 16 July Built around X-Club’s four pillars of wellness – mind,
movement,
nutrition and therapy – the facility features two group exercise studi
CoverMe, the global leader in fitness workforce management, today launches CoverMe PT, an
on-demand personal training platform that connects the right personal trainer to the right
client in under 10 seconds. [more...]
Panatta brought together four of the most influential figures in bodybuilding history on the
stage of RiminiWellness 2026: Phil Heath, Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman and Hany Rambod. [more...]
+ More featured suppliers
COMPANY PROFILES
Precor Precor promises precision-quality products with steadfast reliability that are inspired by exerciser [more...]
