Denny Unger @Cloudhead

Some short thoughts on Steam Frame from a developer perspective (not a tech heavy review)...with some groaning about the industry. youtu.be/UxFVc07rFww

So sorry to hear this Polyarc folks. My heart goes out to all of you 💜 Being bludgeoned in the head repeatedly by this industry gets old. There's little doubt that the people in the reverse recruitment doc are worth every bit of your time if you have the room for them in your studio. Good luck all.

Joined CNBC's Squawk Box to talk about how 70% of AI revenues are coming from Anthropic and OpenAI, NVIDIA's vendor financing by proxy, and how outside of unprofitable AI labs, there's single-digit billions of dollars of demand for AI compute and software. youtu.be/8GWPjTDPVIM

"My talent & plagiarism filter is broke! Send help!".

As our studio builds its first flat & VR cross-play title, this is highly relevant. But VR's new “trough of disillusionment” happened because it did not exceed console-level sales. Chasing Smartphone level adoption isn't VR's fault. https://kotaku.com/moss-console-not-same-vr-2000716668

Happy Canada day! In a world that continues to blow our collective minds in its stupidity, I've never been more proud to be Canadian. Imperfect but pretty damn close...especially by today's standards.

This is rad. A super cheap miracle computer using an adjacent bubble popped fomo industry against itself & ram that can't be harvested for AI... aftermath.site/bc250-steam-...

Would love to see an independently wealthy gaming fixated corporation *cough*, design & manufacture a gaming focused GPU for PC gamers, WHICH CAN ONLY BE SOLD TO PC GAMERS. I know that's a set of impossible circumstances but I can dream.

Can Bluesky bite me already with the character limits? Trying to post something heartfelt or meaningful is really fucking hard within these constraints.

Just want to highlight Ian Hamilton's www.goodvirtualreality.com . Always a pro, Ian delivers a grounded take on the VR industry. Support him and help him grow!

$400,000,000...a half Billion dollars, for a so-so fitness Beatsaber. Just let that sink in. This may be the Alpha of "bro-culture" deals. I clearly didn't do enough Cocaine. VR valuations over-indexed. Thx Chris Milk!

73% of the US population supports "heavily regulated" AI development. Ethical AI, pro-human outcomes, not robbing us of our arts, domain expertise, & deeper purpose isn't just a movement, it's an anti-grift reality. UBI isn't the answer. If you work in this area DO BETTER!

Congrats to Anton and the team at Rust for the big announce! Seeing peers build success upon success in VR speaks to the power of the medium. It is VERY difficult to kill an entire medium just because it has been de-prioritized by other fomo markets. The market still exists.

This isn't just a gut feel, its an unpopular but highly likely trajectory. AI's unsustainable future...

Ironically, I can't tell you that! Because even though it would likely not be a "market success" It's still a unique/novel idea. And there you have the paradox of the gaming industry & Hollywood. So many great ideas will never be made because of outsized capitalist ideals in general.

I've said it for years, but VR massively dropped the ball on FOV. This one tradeoff should never have taken a back seat to other features. At the end of the day VR is about immersion/presence. The more you can demonstrate that vision, the more friction consumers will tolerate. tinyurl.com/2p9jyvsd

"AI as a plagiarism service" pretty much nails every aspect of the ethical problem with AI. And why its so blindingly confusing that grifters are "ok with it!".

Pirating VR games has to be the lowest thing you could do to developers/studios already dealing with epic levels of bullshit & market turmoil. If these people only knew the half of it.

Doubling down on AI has never made less sense...and yet certain companies are doing exactly that. A strategic de-escalation of AI investments would seem prudent before the bubble violently pops & consumer disinterest/angst continues to accelerate & overwhelm the grift (LinkedIN not withstanding).

The defining statement of our times both technologically and geopolitically;

Horizons developers in an uproar. Gazillions invested. Corporate pivots to calm the noise... Meanwhile in VR gamedev land, where the cold wind blows, we're all like:

Until there is a major upheaval or change in the power dynamic within the US; we will continue barreling towards our own irrelevance and ultimate destruction as a species. I don't care how bro-rich you are; how can we be so utterly stupid and reckless?

And...it was a maximum grifting AI con. Shocker! That bubble can't pop soon enough.

So Teamspeak I guess? Massive overreach from Discord that ZERO people should tolerate.

A.I is stagnation.

It's been 2-weeks since our forced downsizing due to external forces. Rather than shy away from that, I'd like to re-amplify our reverse-recruitment list. Some have found new homes but let me again stress that I would work with each one of them again in a heart beat. HIRE! bit.ly/49RJtav

My heart goes out to all the people at Twisted Pixel, Sanzaru, Reality Labs, and others recently impacted by "industry forces". I have no doubt all of these people are the cream of the crop & deserve work in XR. If you see them, hire them! Hoping for brighter days.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Upload VR's "Best PCVR Games: 2025" features 3 of our titles (Pistol Whip, Call of the Starseed, & Heart of the Emberstone) amongst some absolutely incredible company. It is truly an honour to have a place there amongst so many visionary, successful, & heartfelt titles.

Yes and equally, when Generative AI "creates" an image, song, or video, it makes something it assumes represents that thing. Which as a consequence creates souless, obvious, boring, repetitive, slop with zero perspective or value.

I would be remiss not to highlight today's announcement from Valve :) Essentially a Steamdeck on your face, for VR & Flat (with PC streaming). Hits many of the right notes & should make many Enthusiasts very happy. I'll offer more insight in the shorter-term future ;)

To celebrate our 6th year of Pistol Whip, 40+ Scenes, 2 Campaigns, and 500+ Community Remixes (and counting!), we're giving away some swag! gleam.io/FNMAb/happy... www.youtube.com/watc...

Favorite day of the year is here! Happy Halloween all :)

Judge rules George R.R. Martin and other authors can sue OpenAI for copyright infringement • Said ChatGPT generated 'Game of Thrones' content similar enough to infringe copyright • OpenAI’s motion to dismiss was denied

Oh look, even more GROSS. It will be interesting watching the systemic backtrack as the bubble bursts, the fomo quiets, and the cultural zeitgeist around anti-human, unaligned AI usage peaks.

Gross.

The end result of not including VR developers/studios/titles (the domain experts of the last decade). A VR device pretending to be an AR device with no incentives, market, or cohesive strategy to bring XR expertise into a future Apple XR landscape. Tail chasing at its worst.

This weekend was a great time to reconsider a number of streaming services (& alternatives) and save some cash. I'm not sure where the inspiration came from...

Got my Covid consolation prize today :) #bigscreenbeyond2

Sadly Covid hit me ahead of connect but the Cloudhead team is still there! Catch the below folks if you're around & have a great Connect! ➡️ Jo Dunlop 🚀Meta Connect🚀 (CBO) ➡️ J. Tyler McCulloch (Game Director) ➡️ Anna Shane (Senior Producer) ➡️ Mike Wuetherick (Technical Director)

A sobering interview with Dr. Roman Yampolskiy regarding AI safety (or lack thereof) & some VERY near future impacts/predictions. A good primer for those who don't understand the deeper existential outcomes. And a stark warning to those pursuing Super Intelligence. youtu.be/UclrVWafRAI?...

Eeesh...I mean, I've been through periods of "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all" but this is getting ridiculous!

People...its simple: 1. There's only 2 modalities; VR & AR (MR will be thrown away when devices lose that distinction). 2. Reality is malleable, users will move between these 2 modalities based on wants/needs in-the-moment. 3. Both are complimentary mediums, one no less important than the other.