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Facebook has acquired Oculus VR for 2 Billion US Dollars

M

mcrommert

Banned
BjmzocECMAAppW3.jpg:large
 
A

Admiral Woofington

Member
FStop7 said:
Oh look, something terrible from Polygon.
Click to expand...

Owen Good is from Kotaku... unless I'm not getting the joke/reference.

As to the reactions, reading more it seems like 60% are joking and the rest are using exaggeration/hating for the sake of hating. Jesus people. The Watchdogs fiasco I can see but this? The fuck.
 
F

fade_

Member
BlastProcessing said:
There was a Facebook Games guy at SXSW. (He actually went out of his way totalk up Oculus on a panel. Funny in hindsight) He talked about how Facebook is trying to transition from "the place games are" to "the place you discover and talk about games". I really don't think they are going to lock Oculus down. They want to be in on the ground floor of a new medium. I don't think they would jeopardize that to get more traffic. This isn't 2000's Microsoft that would destroy a good thing to shoehorn it into Windows.
Click to expand...

Maybe not at first but you have to be the least bit wary that they'll try to do nefarious things with it once they have a nice healthy install base.
 
C

CF_Fighter

Member
The hyperbole and FUD in this thread is at insane levels. Whatsapp and Instagram, at least from my view, have not changed one bit since they were bought by FB and I expect the same to happen with Oculus. I am required to use my Facebook account on apps and services that aren't even owned by Facebook whereas with Instagram and Whatsapp I have a choice. Interesting, isn't it GAF?

Facebook also has to do something big in the next year or 2 to stay relevant as they have lost users to other platforms, the purchases of Instagram and Whatsapp were done to help curb those losses and I think they are planning something big in conjunction with Oculus. Also, the marketing platform FB offers is such a huge boost for the Oculus guys. Yes, word of mouth can be a strong seller, but I think they can now penetrate far more markets now with the FB platform.

Finally, the Oculus guys had to approve this purchase anyway. Nobody forced them. Sure, a 2 billion USD offer is a nice incentive, but I'm pretty sure these guys had enough dignity to walk away from the sale if it wasn't to their terms and I'm sure they combed over the fine print many times. They know they are the vanguards of the VR revolution. They know their audience right now. They know how much is riding on them being successful. If Carmack drops out in the next week then we have our first hint that the purchase was not the right thing and could be turning the platform into something we are all fearing in this thread. But for now this is an announcement that should be looked at as positive rather than the doom and gloom so many on GAF seem to be speaking right now.
 
A

aTTckr

Member
To think that this started as a Kickstarter. So the backers funded the whole thing, while the people behind it had very limited risk and now walk out with a cool $2B. I know why I'd never fund something on kickstarter that has any profit opportunity.
 
C

ChiliManiac

Banned
DieH@rd said:
I see this as extremely good news.

Positives of Facebook entering into VR race:
- Oculus now has infinite budget to craft perfect hardware, software and entire VR platform for PC and portables[FACEBOOK]
- Countless more developers will become interested in VR, short byte-size games will find much larger audience on VR[FACEBOOK]
- VR promotion on Facebook.com = MILLIONS of VR adopters on day 1[FACEBOOK]
- More VR users of all kinds = more AAA games for us PC gamers[FACEBOOK]
- Immediate infusion of entertainment/documentary/travel content [FACEBOOK]
- Holy grail of VR - social networking inside minecraft-esque VR space. Just what Snow Crash depicted in its Metaverse. [FACEBOOK]
- with stylized design, VR metaverse could be run even from iOS/Android phones[FACEBOOK]
- Facebook can sell hardware with loss, providing incredibly HQ hardware for ~$99[FACEBOOK]
- Presence of strong player in VR will force Sony to become very invested in VR, [FACEBOOK]making much more compelling product and enabling 3rd parties much more streamlined path toward porting games to PS4


Negatives?
So far, none, as long PC gamers get what they were promised [and FB is willing not to interfere with that].
[FACEBOOK]


This is good news for VR. [FACEBOOK]
Click to expand...


There's a huge problem with this, I just fixed it for you.
 
G

gravitybear

Member
good for the founders, great idea that paid off for them

but

im extremely disappointed. theres no way FB wont fuck this up for gamers. dammit. not only that the consumer Oculus rift will be a privacy invading machine with uninstallable bloatware. dammit.
 
B

Billen

Banned
DieH@rd said:
I see this as extremely good news.

Positives of Facebook entering into VR race:
- Oculus now has infinite budget to craft perfect hardware, software and entire VR platform for PC and portables
- Countless more developers will become interested in VR, short byte-size games will find much larger audience on VR
- VR promotion on Facebook.com = MILLIONS of VR adopters on day 1
- More VR users of all kinds = more AAA games for us PC gamers
- Immediate infusion of entertainment/documentary/travel content
- Holy grail of VR - social networking inside minecraft-esque VR space. Just what Snow Crash depicted in its Metaverse.
- with stylized design, VR metaverse could be run even from iOS/Android phones
- Facebook can sell hardware with loss, providing incredibly HQ hardware for ~$99
- Presence of strong player in VR will force Sony to become very invested in VR, making much more compelling product and enabling 3rd parties much more streamlined path toward porting games to PS4


Negatives?
So far, none, as long PC gamers get what they were promised [and FB is willing not to interfere with that].



This is good news for VR.
Click to expand...

While good for the public reception of VR, in no way is this a positive thing for privacy or for the focus of VR technology for gamers. This is just another ad platform to them, and in the long run a way to own the augmented reality ad space.
 
R

ronito

Member
Briarios said:
I saw a very similar sort of argument being made by some people when BioWare was acquired by EA. How'd that turn out? Oculus is Facebook now - they were purchased. Over time, their culture will become the same as Facebook's -- that's how it works and how it always works. If you think there will be no changes, no realignment of priorities, you're insane.

This is from the Forbes article:

That includes $400 million in cash and 23.1 million shares of Facebook stock. There’s also an additional $300 million potential earn-out in cash and stock based on “the achievement of certain milestones.”

Who do you think set those milestones? Facebook! They're already driving the direction of the company from day 1. This is now the FB show. Get used to it.
Click to expand...

Now this is a down to earth view. It's silly to think that Facebook will be like "Oh we paid $2 Billion for you, but you go ahead and just finish whatever you're doing. It'll be fine. No, no, don't worry about us."

Hell no. It'll be like that for a few months. But Facebook is going to say, "You work on what we want now." That's why companies buy other companies.

Sure it's probably great for the Oculus team, but I honestly doubt that their game centric approach will survive.
 
O

orioto

Good Art™
So.. From what i understood there, this is what's happening at best...

facebook will let Oculus guys have fun with their lil pc games (fb doesn't give a shit), while they will help them making the tech future worthy, so they can sell virtual media (sport streams, videoconfs, touristic vists...) to people at some point.

Am i right ?
 
A

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
This is so awesome for the Oculus guys!

... and terrible for gamers. This kills any chance we see for real VR video games.
 
S

Seanspeed

Banned
Mindwipe said:
Why would comments from the Oculus team matter shit?

They're employees now. If Facebook decide that they're going to run whitelisted apps to avoid bad PR from the first Rift porn and the staff don't like it, then their options will be acquiesce or learn where the door is.
Click to expand...
Because they're passionate about what they do and wouldn't sign away everything they've worked for if they weren't confident of being able to continue what they want to do?

They didn't pay $2,000,000,000 if they didn't think this tech was gonna be a huge deal.
 
A

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
This is just a straight up scary acquisition.

You can see all the ways it could go wonderfully, but you can also imagine all the ways it could crash and burn.

I'm staying hopeful. Having near unlimited funds sounds pretty beneficial.

Still hyped and hopeful, but ready for the worst.
 
K

Kaldea

Member
As someone who has never used Facebook and couldn't care less about the company, I don't know how to feel about this yet. Sure feel a lot less excited though.
 
F

Ferrio

Banned
stutte said:
When was gaming some sort of underground hipster thing? I've been around for almost 40 years and it's always been mainstream.
Click to expand...

Uh no. It didn't start taking off "mainstream" until at most the xbox days.

Even so it's still looked down upon by many.
 
A

Admiral Woofington

Member
CF_Fighter said:
The hyperbole and FUD in this thread is at insane levels. Whatsapp and Instagram, at least from my view, have not changed one bit since they were bought by FB and I expect the same to happen with Oculus. I am required to use my Facebook account on apps and services that aren't even owned by Facebook whereas with Instagram and Whatsapp I have a choice. Interesting, isn't it GAF?

Facebook also has to do something big in the next year or 2 to stay relevant as they have lost users to other platforms, the purchases of Instagram and Whatsapp were done to help curb those losses and I think they are planning something big in conjunction with Oculus. Also, the marketing platform FB offers is such a huge boost for the Oculus guys. Yes, word of mouth can be a strong seller, but I think they can now penetrate far more markets now with the FB platform.

Finally, the Oculus guys had to approve this purchase anyway. Nobody forced them. Sure, a 2 billion USD offer is a nice incentive, but I'm pretty sure these guys had enough dignity to walk away from the sale if it wasn't to their terms and I'm sure they combed over the fine print many times. They know they are the vanguards of the VR revolution. They know their audience right now. They know how much is riding on them being successful. If Carmack drops out in the next week then we have our first hint that the purchase was not the right thing and could be turning the platform into something we are all fearing in this thread. But for now this is an announcement that should be looked at as positive rather than the doom and gloom so many on GAF seem to be speaking right now.
Click to expand...

Honestly don't bother. The thread has devolved (from the evidence in the last few pages) to hyperbole and funny images/gifs. NeoGAF at its finest.
 
F

fasTRapid

Banned
Facebook has a massive image problem.

Basically their users are like hostages with Stockholm syndrome. They get tortured by every little update that only ever worsens the usability while adding new ad value/space but for comforts sake and because they're lazy they'll accept it.

If you talk facebook it's mostly always in a negative way though so they're absolutely not in any position to push any new crazy tech onto the masses. It's quite the opposite now because of facebook's bad image!
 
M

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
TAJ said:
Yes, but it still leaves a bad taste.
It's like handing a homeless guy a ten and then seeing him the next day after his $300 million lotto win and him just saying, "Did you hear? I'm rich, biaaaatch."
It's bad enough that the people you donate to aren't obligated to deliver.
Click to expand...
Not really man, it's more like paying a homeless guy for some doodad he made that you really wanted to own...then he gets rich. What's the problem?
 
G

Granadier

Is currently on Stage 1: Denial regarding the service game future
We’ll see you in the Metaverse!
Click to expand...

I think this is the most important part that OR said on their blog.

They aren't changing their personal vision, they are just working with a wallet that's thousands of times larger then the one they had yesterday.
 
U

upandaway

Member
orioto said:
So.. From what i understood there, this is what's happening at best...

facebook will let Oculus guys have fun with their lil pc games (fb doesn't give a shit), while they will help them making the tech future worthy, so they can sell virtual media (sport streams, videoconfs, touristic vists...) to people at some point.

Am i right ?
Click to expand...
I... I don't know, I think that's a bit naive. This is a lot of money they've put in there. Naturally I think they expect to get that money back.
 
H

hwy_61

Banned
I seriously went from being very excited for Oculus Rift, to not giving a shit. Not because Facebook owns it, but because Oculus doesn't own it.
 
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