The DeanBeat: How Oculus’ Mike Abrash took my mind off Palmer Luckey
If anyone could take my mind off the missing-in-action Palmer Luckey at the Oculus Connect conference, it was Michael Abrash, chief scientist of Oculus,...
The DeanBeat: Westworld finds the frontier between the real and the virtual, between humans and A.I.
HBO’s Westworld debuts on Sunday as a major TV show that delves into enduring sci-fi and morality themes about whether we should create human-like...
The DeanBeat: Using creativity to determine your own destiny in games
In the past week, I combed the San Francisco Bay Area to find the most inspiring game developers. I went from Cupertino to Novato, from...
The DeanBeat: The intersection of sci-fi, video games, and real-world tech
Video game designer Will Wright was fond of saying that a dog-eared copy of Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash was the business plan...
The DeanBeat: Let the shooter wars begin
It’s that time of year when Battlefield and Call of Duty go to war. Both sides are about to make a lot of noise...
The DeanBeat: What Pokémon Go has done for augmented reality
For more than five years, Vuforia has been selling augmented reality. More than 30,000 apps have used the Vuforia platform for AR, which is...
The DeanBeat: Why Donald Trump should play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Deus EX: Mankind Divided has been in the works for several years, but its sci-fi plot is a prescient allegory for our U.S. Presidential...
The DeanBeat: Where Pokémon Go should go next
Niantic Labs is riding a rocket, generating an estimated $200 million in revenue in its first month with Pokémon Go. It grew faster to 10...
The DeanBeat: What we learned from GamesBeat 2016
Episode 9 of our GamesBeat series of conferences is over. We heard the Yoda-like wisdom of 105 speakers at our ninth annual GamesBeat event...
The DeanBeat: A report from the stormy seas of gaming at Casual Connect
Every year, I enjoy going to the Casual Connect USA conference in San Francisco. It’s a place to listen to talks, roam the hallways, gossip...