Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat and John Riccitiello of Unity at the VRX event in SF.
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Unity has democratized game development, but CEO John Riccitiello worries about too much VR hype

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 13 min

Unity Technologies has armed more than 2 million developers with the tools to make video games. And those developers have shown a lot of enthusiasm for gaming’s newest platform, virtual reality. So much so that we could see a flood of systems, games, and startups during the next year.

John Riccitiello, chief executive of Unity, said in a fireside chat with me at the VRX conference this week that he’s really excited about VR, too. But he worries that we’ll have a wave of disappointment next year as the actual sales of VR systems fall short of the wildest hopes. He thinks the market will take two to four years to develop. And that means startups and game developers should plan accordingly for a long road to riches.

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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.