Fortnite booth at E3 2019
Fortnite booth at E3 2019
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The DeanBeat: The real and the fake trends of gaming in 2019

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

When my Uber driver discovered I was going to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), he exclaimed, “Are you in games? I was the voice actor for Lamar in Grand Theft Auto V!”

My jaw hung open for bit, and he said, “I’m Gerald ‘Slink’ Johnson. I’m making a little extra money on Uber.” This is why, if they ever shut down E3, I’ll be the last one to abandon the show. It never ceases to amaze me the surprises I run into at gaming’s biggest trade event. It is these happy accidents that always tell me something about gaming that I didn’t know. It’s a vast industry where it is very hard to separate the real trends from the fake ones. But the happy accidents make the show valuable for me.

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Written by

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.