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Zuckerburg's proposition as recalled by oculus CEO
- Thread starter -COOLIO-
- Start date
Vow of Silence
Banned
So. Why is the immediate response to the Facebook/Oculus Rift news for so many people a giant, Vader-esque NOOOO! Its a gut reaction, an instinctual rejection. Is it without merit? Are the cool heads who enter the discussion with talk of capitalisation, lowering of risk, facebook's non-interference with acquisitions and time-to-market the people who we should defer to when it comes to making a judgement about it? The role of this smooth negotiation is to talk down the gut response, which has not been given sufficient time to express itself coherently. It's still in the emotional stage, and it's so strong that it's lost some credibility - accusations of overreaction and entitlement are all over the place now, and there's a backlash against the initial backlash.
I've thought about why I feel negative about the acquisition, and tried to translate this into some coherent thoughts.
VR is the closest thing weve got to a new frontier, a world ready to be shaped and populated by raw ideas. The world was there before the Oculus Rift came along, we just couldnt access it very well. We populated it in novels, films, we populated it in late night conversations with our friends about the future. We had freedom to do that. Our imagination was free to do that. But we couldnt visit it. Then the Oculus Rift came along and suddenly this world has become accessible. The Oculus Rift is significant in how it emerged, through Kickstarter, backed by everyone, championed by John Carmack, crowds and figureheads cheering it on. In spirit, it felt like it was 'ours', and by approximation, so were the virtual worlds we were going to create and explore together.
The Rift is perhaps a modern day equivalent to the Caravel, the first ship that was capable of crossing the ocean to discover new lands, an explorer that allows us to voyage into the previously unknown climes of Virtual Reality. It's not a brand. Its not beholden to any messaging or corporate line. Its a piece of engineering, of human creation. It allows us to do something. It's defined purely by its capabilities, and so is neutral, allowing us room to simply use it creatively.
And now facebook has bought it and the whole virtual landscape feels tainted with the corporations metallic tang.
I dont like facebook because I dont like the way it frames, co-opts and claims human interaction and friendship under a brand, and loads that brand with creepy, cult-like messaging. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. Imagine an aircraft hanger full of people standing in line, wearing facebook hoodies, saying in monotone unison Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. And repeating it, hundreds of times. We all know that, really, that message is Were going to co-opt and direct all technology centred around human social interaction to make as much money out of the human farm that use it as possible.
What facebook has done with its acquisition of Oculus is attempt to claim the Wild West before the wagons have got there. It's tied its brand to the future of our imaginations and what they can achieve. As a company they've always relied on the audience to provide all their content and co-opted it within their ecosystem to make money out of it, but this is on another level entirely. This is more significant than WhatsApp, or Instagram. Those werent new things that gave access to a new world of possibilities. Facebooks acquisition of Oculus VR is the stuff of science fiction dystopias. It alters the whole conversation. The talk about markets and consumers and costs and being 'professional' misses the point. This is about the democratic envisioning and creation of our future world being bought by a corporation that wants to own, mediate and control how we communicate with each other, for monetary gain, and has a history of dubious behaviour to that end. That may sound dramatic, but VRs potential to be revolutionary in human culture is that strong. Its the closest were going to come to accessing and co-creating another dimension, cyberspace, and what happens on that dimension will feed back into the real world, and change that in turn. New political economies could arise. New visions of what humanity could achieve. This is Gutenberg Printing Press level stuff here. But now Facebook is there already, waiting for us all, prepping their targeted ad system and virtual shopping malls, ready to re-create the current paradigm of consumerism and ad-riven marketing bullshit for us to finally arrive in and go and like.
If I may allow myself a momentary emotional outburst to sum up: fuck that.
I've thought about why I feel negative about the acquisition, and tried to translate this into some coherent thoughts.
VR is the closest thing weve got to a new frontier, a world ready to be shaped and populated by raw ideas. The world was there before the Oculus Rift came along, we just couldnt access it very well. We populated it in novels, films, we populated it in late night conversations with our friends about the future. We had freedom to do that. Our imagination was free to do that. But we couldnt visit it. Then the Oculus Rift came along and suddenly this world has become accessible. The Oculus Rift is significant in how it emerged, through Kickstarter, backed by everyone, championed by John Carmack, crowds and figureheads cheering it on. In spirit, it felt like it was 'ours', and by approximation, so were the virtual worlds we were going to create and explore together.
The Rift is perhaps a modern day equivalent to the Caravel, the first ship that was capable of crossing the ocean to discover new lands, an explorer that allows us to voyage into the previously unknown climes of Virtual Reality. It's not a brand. Its not beholden to any messaging or corporate line. Its a piece of engineering, of human creation. It allows us to do something. It's defined purely by its capabilities, and so is neutral, allowing us room to simply use it creatively.
And now facebook has bought it and the whole virtual landscape feels tainted with the corporations metallic tang.
I dont like facebook because I dont like the way it frames, co-opts and claims human interaction and friendship under a brand, and loads that brand with creepy, cult-like messaging. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. Imagine an aircraft hanger full of people standing in line, wearing facebook hoodies, saying in monotone unison Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. And repeating it, hundreds of times. We all know that, really, that message is Were going to co-opt and direct all technology centred around human social interaction to make as much money out of the human farm that use it as possible.
What facebook has done with its acquisition of Oculus is attempt to claim the Wild West before the wagons have got there. It's tied its brand to the future of our imaginations and what they can achieve. As a company they've always relied on the audience to provide all their content and co-opted it within their ecosystem to make money out of it, but this is on another level entirely. This is more significant than WhatsApp, or Instagram. Those werent new things that gave access to a new world of possibilities. Facebooks acquisition of Oculus VR is the stuff of science fiction dystopias. It alters the whole conversation. The talk about markets and consumers and costs and being 'professional' misses the point. This is about the democratic envisioning and creation of our future world being bought by a corporation that wants to own, mediate and control how we communicate with each other, for monetary gain, and has a history of dubious behaviour to that end. That may sound dramatic, but VRs potential to be revolutionary in human culture is that strong. Its the closest were going to come to accessing and co-creating another dimension, cyberspace, and what happens on that dimension will feed back into the real world, and change that in turn. New political economies could arise. New visions of what humanity could achieve. This is Gutenberg Printing Press level stuff here. But now Facebook is there already, waiting for us all, prepping their targeted ad system and virtual shopping malls, ready to re-create the current paradigm of consumerism and ad-riven marketing bullshit for us to finally arrive in and go and like.
If I may allow myself a momentary emotional outburst to sum up: fuck that.
Maidenpool?
Member
The hurried acquisition probably means Zuck heard that GOOG was interested, and stepped in because he doesn't want them dominating the VR/justputitonmyface market future... which he clearly sees something in. (Is he right? Who knows right now.... he was right about Instagram though...)
I don't see how this would affect the actual product itself, other than possibly lowering the price by $50 bucks or so... which is good for gamers if I'm not mistaken. (I'm guessing $199 US launch for what it's worth.)
I don't see how this would affect the actual product itself, other than possibly lowering the price by $50 bucks or so... which is good for gamers if I'm not mistaken. (I'm guessing $199 US launch for what it's worth.)
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
Didn't they say this same shit when they bought Instagram? Yeah, just because what's on the table now is so good doesn't mean that later down the line when choices have to be made, they won't change them. I never believe things are so black and white when buy outs happen.
indigo-cyclops
Member
It really sounds like a Hollywood scriptwriter was in charge of the proceedings.
This kind of stuff happens a lot. Why? Because it's damn successful, that's why.
Zuck gets it, down to the face-to-face level. Probably why he's so frickin' wealthy.
Thanks.
Guerrillas in the Mist
Member
With this and the Sony device, I think there's a real chance that VR could (finally) be a pretty big deal. Rifts are already being used for a variety of non-gaming purposes, although mainly academic and scientific at this point.
Facebook's just jumping on board the biggest player in what could become a very exciting industry.
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
My thoughts exactly.
There's been a lot of that "This is how the world works, grow up" attitude going around since yesterday. I understand why, there's truth to the sentiment, this will be hugely benefecial to the raw technology powering VR, money is money but that's not the whole picture.
Look at the conversation around the Rift right now, if the vocal detractors are to be believed; the mindshare, enthusiasm and positive outlook on the technology and where it's headed is fucking gone. Oculus VR had hugely positive public opinion and miles of goodwill. That was an enormous boon to the potentil adoption of VR as a platorm. If that has changed (justified or not) we're talking a huge setback. There's no other way to slice it.
Something Adam Sessler said that I found really interesting is that Facebook is ppublicly traded. With this, any statements coming from Zuckerburg and now Palmer could be taken to court if they don't deliver on what is said. Look at how EA is potentially facing a lawsuit based on Battlefield 4's broken state.
Human civilization will route around it.
Eventually.
And none of us may be around to see it.
Glass Shark
Banned
Hey, remember Back to the Future? You know, that movie series from the 80's? Remember Doc Brown? Marty McFly? DeLoreans???? REMEMBER????
Doc Holliday
SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Exactly, no matter what you think of deal you can't deny than in terms of perception this has been a huge backfire for both companies. Especially from the group of people that would be buying this thing day one.
Remember how people thought the xbox one backlash "Silly, immature, typical internet mob mentality"
Yes there are overreactions and hyperbole. However when there is this much negativity over something from your core audience you should pay attention.
Sorkin? Sorkin.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
fire the brains behind the tech? not very smart.
well sometimes you have to set the market.
everything you mentioned was going to happen once VR took off. everything. it was never going to be just for games and it wasn't going to provide true "freedom" unless you believe the Oculus people wanted to have their product remain niche?
It says quite clearly who owns what. "all outstanding shares of Oculus capital stock and options to purchase Oculus capital stock will be cancelled." Oculus as an independent company will cease to exist. It will be wholly owned by Facebook. Therefore Facebook will call the shots. There is nothing at all complicated about this.
Holy shit this makes the deal actually sound way worse unless you are the most idealistic inexperienced-in-business person there is. This is the very definition of "we want your technology, and we think you're naive enough to believe anything we tell you". Zuckerberg should have offered to throw in a unicorn and an apartment in the lost city of Atlantis while he was at it.
Seriously, you think facebook is going to give them 2 billion for custom hardware and so they can even sell at-cost (zero profit, this is the real tell this is BS), and will let them "stay who [they] are", like it's just a gift? Unless Zuckerberg is a closet VR fanboy (in which case he could have donated a few million to the kickstarter far more easily), secretly a relative, and/or is looking for a major tax loophole on the 2 billion used on this purchase... I'm seeing a Mr. Burns (or more appropriately The Social Network) kick-them-out-of-their-own-office-before-the-ink-dries move in the future.
Edit: Unless of course, the OR team's direction just so happens to align with exactly what facebook wants them to do (which I'm sure will be a totally magnanimous effort to bring new virtual reality technology to the masses completely on their dime and with no strings attached, right?)
That doesn't work because Facebook did not kill those apps.
"what if?"]
yet
mrchampipi
Member
Very fiew people know about the rift right now. And there is no actual (final) product as of yet.
And what will happen when the consumer version will soon arrive on the market? It will be beyond amazing, and all the angry complaining geeks will buy it. FB money will contribute to mass production and huge marketing of the thing: many will be sold.
There will barely be, if any, traces of evil facebook at all for quite some time since the deal is so new.
People buy so-so tech products fully aware of the slavery and horrors linked to them, but won't buy a ground breaking, amazing piece of harware because of Zuckerburg beeing evil? We'll see how many of you skip the Rift when it hit the shelves.
Like I said, justified or not, the discussion has changed. You just defended the Oculus Rift to me. Think about that, forty hours ago no one, anywhere, had the need to convince an enthusiast that the Rift was worth being excited about.
It doesn't matter what happens when the hardware is finally released. It simply doesn't have the groundswell it started out with. I don't understand how people can think that's good for VR.
indigo-cyclops
Member
mrchampipi
Member
Can't call you wrong, since the community (including myself) do is confused and/or angered by this news, and that of course is never a good thing. I just think the conseqences are pretty irrelevant and very temporary.
The discussion has change, but that's because people are now talking about FB rather than about VR.
Mr. Waffle
Member
and if it sounds too good then it probably is too good to be true...
Although they have 2 billion reasons to not give a flying F.
Chromecast. You should look up how Google is forcing Amazon to lower it's costs on server space. Larry Page is trying to change the world, whatever you want to take from that phrase, so he's forcing others hands by driving the market. You can see this in Google Fiber. It's in Google's best interest that internet is free or as close to it as possible, to maximize their potential profit.
Facebook is doing the same with the Rift. By being at the front of the VR wave, they get to always be the example of VR done right, and detractors suggesting they rip apart the Rift for short gains are saying Zucky would willingly devalue his whole brand.
Majukun
Member
Don't really see the problem here.if they are sincere,we will have a better oculus than ever,if they are lying,they will do whatever they can to make VR a part of everyone's home...that means tons of content,that will bring new competitors,and some of them are bound to target the same audience the rift was targeting.So,maybe it will come later,but one way or another,we will have a VR future.Actually this development might actually be the best for the future of VR
Based on what? It's not suddenly illegal to lie just because you're an employee of a public company. Consciously misleading investors is one thing, but then it has to be proven that it was intentional and intentionally deceptive. For instance this gen Microsoft has run around lying at the top of their lungs about the capabilities of the cloud. For instance claiming that its dedicated servers suddenly make the XBone 400% stronger. That's obviously a blatant lie but their defense would be that they're simply adding the local compute power of an average cloud server along with the local compute of the XBone and yeah.. somehow apparently that's a reasonable thing to do. Apparently my PC turns into a super computer each night when I SSH on over to the compute server to sync my work. Wish I knew that before!
So long as there's plausible deniability or it's at least 'creatively' based on the truth, companies can lie all they want in public. And in the end if they get sued guess who wins? The company with billions and entire dedicated legal teams at their disposal or the consumer seeking a single lawyer on the cheap?
POWERSPHERE
Banned
I want to understand his avenue for investment return. We know its advertising, but how does that work into an open platform without being hard coded through the hardware or controlling its access to devices by having to log into a Facebook account. I can't see it.
ChrisMahoney
Banned
People are so paranoid. The consumer Oculus Rift will be great. It'll be open for developers. And everyone will forgive Palmer Luckey and Facebook.
There's no need to be elitist about it.
Ready Player One obviously has its inspirations, but it's an apt comparison considering the topic at hand. I agree though, Snow Crash and Neuromancer are infinitely better novels.
Having said that, considering Facebook's entrance into this, I think a comparison to something like Strange Days may be appropriate as well.
It's because Facebook (and other companies) expect VR to be the next major computing growth market. Facebook missed mobile, as Google and Apple were software gatekeepers into their respective platforms (30%? cut from each app sale). Facebook wants to be a major gatekeeper for VR software. Instead of buying stuff through the App Store, you buy it through the Rift Store.
Investment return comes from this software revenue, and I imagine their own original software like a Second Life alternative. But again, this won't happen for years, as the consumer VR market for Oculus will be delegated to high-end PCs for the next 5 years.
True, anyone with any sense will:
- Hire the visionary behind the tech
- Allow him to pass his knowledge on to your employees
- Fire him once you start to compromise his vision and he starts acting up
See: Any board that has pulled a company out from under its founder ever
Giraffe Keighley
Member
the thing is they probably won't though.
civilstrife
Member
Facebook wants to BE the internet.
Oculus presents the first real possibility for something like the metaverse/Oasis/Secondlifebutgood to exist.
Imagine how much money a company could make if they held the keys to such a creation.
Haha perfect.
Seriously. The naysayers are deluding themselves with silly conspiracy theories.
VR is going to become mainstream, but Oculus can't do that on its own, and will only succeed with hardcore gamers and tech enthusiasts, thanks to the cost barrier. Facebook has games, but it's not a gaming company. It doesn't sell consoles, phones, tablets or set-top boxes, either, so it's not a hardware company. Zuck and co. won't shoehorn VR into their short-term strategies, or make the Rift exclusive to their platform. That's why Facebook is better for Oculus than Apple, Google, MS, Nintendo or Sony. I think that they will simply bankroll Oculus to become a VR gaming giant that can work independently on making their vision of the future of VR viable (mainly by making the Rift dirt cheap).
I would have personally liked for Oculus to remain totally independent until after they release the Rift, then take the next big step to making VR mainstream after that, but maybe they were afraid of the competition (Sony). Facebook's recent track record shows that they can take a hands off approach, at least at first, without slapping their network and logos on everything.
Monty Mole
Member
What actually happened:
"blah blah blah custom silicon blah"
"no"
"blah blah blah blah components blah blah"
"no"
"$2 billion dollars"
"where do I sign?!"
And really, who can blame him.
"blah blah blah custom silicon blah"
"no"
"blah blah blah blah components blah blah"
"no"
"$2 billion dollars"
"where do I sign?!"
And really, who can blame him.
Sword Of Doom
Member
Sounds like it doesn't it?
Let's use Valve as an example. Let's say years ago they were acquired by a company like Facebook. Would Steam be what it is today?
Independent companies don't always need to be acquired to be successful.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
If Oculus were to truly stay open as before, not withholding progress from the developers community in order for Facebook to get ahead competitively, etc... How could Facebook hold the key to this creation gas you put it? They would just be the ones that manufacture it, how could they be sure they would be the ones actually creating THE revolutionary product built on top of Oculus Rift?
The math does not quite add up yet, but it is fine as Facebook is not required to play its cards out in public.
Because "Facebook Smartphone" was such a success:
http://www.designboom.com/technology/facebook-smartphone-by-htc/
http://www.designboom.com/technology/facebook-smartphone-by-htc/
Cygnus X-1
Member
Words are cheap. Facts are everything. We'll see.
OR dude makes it sound as if it wasn't about money. Which is rather hard to believe.
I missed the part mentioning why it is a good thing for VR gaming.
I missed the part mentioning why it is a good thing for VR gaming.