China Steams Ahead in Gaming; MetaHuman Creator and the Uncanny Valley

Published: Feb. 20, 2021, 2:15 a.m.

b'We have two brief segments \\u2014 taking up less than 16 Minutes! \\u2014 in this week\\u2019s episode of "16 Minutes," where we talk about tech trends in the news, what\\u2019s hype/what\\u2019s real, and where we are on the long arc of innovation. Both segments touch on trends in gaming/ online worlds and entertainment \\u2014 both now and "next."\\xa0\\n\\nFirst, Steam China: Steam \\u2014 the cloud library and marketplace for buying, selling, and storing games that was launched by Valve in 2003 and is now the largest distribution platform for PC gaming \\u2014 just released an official Chinese version.\\n\\nNext, Meta Human Creator: Epic Games\\u2019 3D graphics platform Unreal Engine revealed an early peek at a new content creation tool that aims to make creating digital humans easier.\\n\\nSo what does this all mean? We talked to a16z partner Jonathan Lai, a former product manager at Riot Games, who joins 16 Minutes co-host Zoran Basich for both segments to share a quick take on these news items and the trends overall.'