The NYT profiles a Clash of Clans fan who played on five iPads at once

The New York Times profiled a Clash of Clans fan named George Yao who spent six months as a top-ranked player and played the game on five iPads — at the same time.

This game is so big that if you dominate it like Yao did, you can become a worldwide celebrity. Clearly, we are in the age of the decades-long evolution of the game business where playing a game can make you famous. This story gives you a wonderful slice of the gaming life.

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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.