Leaders from Epic Games, Roblox and others in the gaming industry discussed how close we are to an open metaverse at this year's GamesBeat Summit by VentureBeat. Catch up on everything said with these highlights, including why companies need to have "enlightened self-interests;" that it will be users, not companies that will create the metaverse; the role of storytelling; and the importance of ethics in the virtual space.
Twenty years ago, at the dawn of the Xbox era, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney convinced Bill Gates to spend a billion dollars on more memory chips for the Xbox. He faced a lot of pressure, but Tim didn’t back down. After all, it was Bill Gates’ money. And it was the right thing to do for gamers. Fast …
Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki wants to inhabit the metaverse — an online place where we work and play and entertain ourselves. He has dreamed about it for a long time, and he has so many followers now that Roblox will likely be one of the most credible candidates for building the metaverse, the universe …
Former Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz has started a new company called Sun and Thunder to focus on AI characters and interactive storytelling. In an interview with GamesBeat, Abovitz said the company represents a fusion of technology, intellect, and art. The aim is to create “synthetic beings” and tell …
Cyberpunk 2077 introduced another take on virtual reality when it launched late last year. Braindancing (the downloading of data from an experience to view it through someone else) saw players experience an event from another person’s point of view. It went deeper than what we experience in the …
The metaverse isn’t just an opportunity for a new kind of social world. It can give players a chance to create stories over multiple different media worlds. Jeff Gomez, CEO of Starlight Runner Media, talked with moderator Neon Media CEO Mark Long during the “The Metaverse and Transmedia Narratives: …
Richard Bartle hopes the metaverse will be a place where we can be our best selves, and where the operators of the virtual universe will help us achieve that. Bartle is one of the leading academics on video games and is a senior lecturer and honorary professor of computer game design at the …
Diversity and inclusion isn’t just about an initiative or program that serves a specific function for a specific underrepresented group of people in a given industry. D&I is meant to be a holistic model that desperately needs full saturation in every facet of every industry. In this particular …
Culturalization is a gigantic part of game development. The best way to make sure your game will work in another country and culture is to adapt it to the people living there. Language, according to several experts, is just the beginning of that process. “Language is the bare minimum,” said Facebook …
Major events like the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Gamescom, and the Tokyo Game Show have played a significant role in creating excitement in the games industry, even when the pandemic forced organizers to host events online. Marketers have still found that engagement goes “through the roof” when …
The game industry isn’t done breaking down barriers to make games more accessible. That’s the view of Jason Rubin, vice president of play at Facebook, as expressed in a fireside chat at the GamesBeat/Facebook: Driving Game Growth event. By knocking down these barriers, companies like Facebook can …
Last year was pretty bad for everyone, personally. But the game industry did well as people turned to games to distract themselves from reality and find socially distanced friends. The game industry’s revenues grew 19% to $174.9 billion in 2020, according to market researcher Newzoo. Mobile games …
