Former EA and Oculus exec David Demartini passes away

David DeMartini, a well-known former executive at Oculus VR and Electronic Arts, passed away at the age of 56.

In recent weeks, DeMartini, known as DeMar, wrote on his Facebook page that he was undergoing a lung transplant. His daughter posted yesterday on Facebook that her father passed away from complications from the transplant.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.