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Facebook has acquired Oculus VR for 2 Billion US Dollars

I used to be just as shortsighted as some of you. But I've since learned what to expect when this kind of thing happens. The naive among you are in for a big surprise.
 
amdnv said:
I used to be just as shortsighted as some of you. But I've since learned what to expect when this kind of thing happens. The naive among you are in for a big surprise.
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So you just make stuff up based on little to no information on the subject and in turn make silly predictions? Gotcha. I guess we're all just naive goofs.
 
Why don't we start a Kickstarter to buy Facebook? That'll save Oculus.
 
Guevara said:
BN-CC259_Oculus_G_20140326120050.jpg
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nokia is a great deal for Microsoft when you look at this list.
 
amdnv said:
I used to be just as shortsighted as some of you. But I've since learned what to expect when this kind of thing happens. The naive among you are in for a big surprise.
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at the rate 'naive' has been thrown around in the past day, i would estimate that 100% of the worlds population believes they are less naive than the next guy.

pretty naive if you ask me :P
 
amdnv said:
I used to be just as shortsighted as some of you. But I've since learned what to expect when this kind of thing happens. The naive among you are in for a big surprise.
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Ok, doom and gloom, facebook perversion...Can you give us a timeline?

I think this may be a distinguishing point between the two camps...I'm fine with the acquisition....I also didn't expect Oculus to be the only, or even the main, name in VR for very long. If it's successful, there would be competition. If it wasn't, it would remain niche and die.

FB buys it. This will most likely be good short term. The product is close enough to launching that not much will change. It should be of higher quality, for lower cost. It will also be able to afford better customer support. Now, let's move to gloom...in how long, when FB can sell their own, closed device, outside of a PC. 5 years? That's really as long as I expected OR to remain relevant as the company they were before getting bought.
 
Not included on that list: the $6.3 billion Microsoft paid for advertising company aQuantive, and subsequently wrote off as a loss.
 
Oh god, the righteous grandstanding from Notch. He thinks he's just being "unprofessional" and off the cuff, a "benefit (to) having no external owners."

No, Notch, you're just being a dick. Once again the guy jumps in the spotlight when he sees an opportunity, this time "cancelling" an unannounced deal that wasn't even a game yet, for no reason at all. This isn't being unprofessional, it's being a dick who likes attention. If you don't want to work with Facebook because you saw The Social Network, that's fine, cancel the deal. But publically announcing it and un-announcing it on Twitter kind of shows what your real intentions are.

Why do people like this guy?
 
ElTorro said:
Me too. The one thing I am realistically concerned about is that (a) Facebook might "do an Apple" and require applications for the OR to be distributed through a central App Store, which has benefits but also carries the risk of content restrictions and (b) that Facebook could add mandatory data aggregation functions into the device to profile your consumption of applications/content. Aggregating data for advertisement is their core business after all.
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Yea, this is pretty much exactly where I'm at. But if that comes at all it'll be way down the line.
DieH@rd said:
If anything like this even remotely happens, I can see a lot of people starting to create fake FB accounts to be used only for gaming.
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And this is what I think will be the most likely response. Pretty similar to how everyone on Youtube now "needs" a G+ account.
 
Bsigg12 said:
Well Facebook spent $1 billion on Instagram and haven't touched it. Instagram is still their own thing really
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well, not entirely, but that is a discussion for another time, my point is that this acquisition came from left-field and makes no where near as much sense as the instagram thing that something else is most definitely up
 
Seiru said:
Oh god, the righteous grandstanding from Notch. He thinks he's just being "unprofessional" and off the cuff, a "benefit (to) having no external owners."

No, Notch, you're just being a dick. Once again the guy jumps in the spotlight when he sees an opportunity, this time "cancelling" an unannounced deal that wasn't even a game yet, for no reason at all. This isn't being unprofessional, it's being a dick who likes attention. If you don't want to work with Facebook because you saw The Social Network, that's fine, cancel the deal. But publically announcing it and un-announcing it on Twitter kind of shows what your real intentions are.

Why do people like this guy?
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I don't like him, he is just a pubescent asshole.
 
I just don't understand this. The Rift is a display technology, a piece of hardware. What is Facebook's gameplan. Are they going to be able to lock down the device. Am I going to have to log-in to Facebook before I can play Star Citizen? Are software companies going to have to pay royalties to Facebook to get there software on the Rift storefront?

This is all pretty depressing.
 
I wonder how the money is split, I imagine the people who invested $100m into OVR want their piece of the cake.
 
-COOLIO- said:
at the rate 'naive' has been thrown around in the past day, i would estimate that 100% of the worlds population believes they are less naive than the next guy.

pretty naive if you ask me :P
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True. I am very naive myself in many ways of life, but concerning this particular situation I'm 99.9% sure that the product will see significant changes.

Facebook did not buy a high priced gadget expecting to make back 2 billion dollars from hardcore gamers. It bought technology. And it will shape and use this technology in ways that are in alignment with Facebook's core business.
 
Keric said:
I just don't understand this. The Rift is a display technology, a piece of hardware. What is Facebook's gameplan. Are they going to be able to lock down the device. Am I going to have to log-in to Facebook before I can play Star Citizen? Are software companies going to have to pay royalties to Facebook to get there software on the Rift storefront?

This is all pretty depressing.
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How is depressing what you can't understand?
 
Seiru said:
Oh god, the righteous grandstanding from Notch. He thinks he's just being "unprofessional" and off the cuff, a "benefit (to) having no external owners."

No, Notch, you're just being a dick. Once again the guy jumps in the spotlight when he sees an opportunity, this time "cancelling" an unannounced deal that wasn't even a game yet, for no reason at all. This isn't being unprofessional, it's being a dick who likes attention. If you don't want to work with Facebook because you saw The Social Network, that's fine, cancel the deal. But publically announcing it and un-announcing it on Twitter kind of shows what your real intentions are.

Why do people like this guy?
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and meanwhile, people continue to play Minecraft in VR on their Oculus Rift Dev Kits. So, I'm not really sure what he thinks he's achieved.
 
Nicktals said:
FB buys it. This will most likely be good short term. The product is close enough to launching that not much will change. It should be of higher quality, for lower cost. It will also be able to afford better customer support. Now, let's move to gloom...in how long, when FB can sell their own, closed device, outside of a PC. 5 years? That's really as long as I expected OR to remain relevant as the company they were before getting bought.
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The Verge reports that Facebook will be rebranding the entire interface and device before launch.

That's a much bigger task that adding a security gate to the motion API that requires a dev certificate attached to a developer account. Which then requires a developer licence where you're obliged to stay within the Facebook Platform Guidelines.

Which, just in case we forget, say that Facebook can pull anything for any reason and pictures of breastfeeding are worthy of censorship.
 
amdnv said:
True. I am very naive myself in many ways of life, but concerning this particular situation I'm 99.9% sure that the product will see significant changes.

Facebook did not buy a high priced gadget expecting to make back 2 billion dollars from hardcore gamers. It bought technology. And it will shape and use this technology in ways that are in alignment with Facebook's core business.
Click to expand...

i agree that it'll be making the money back from not just hardcore games, but also casual gamers, and non gamers. and in the end, that's better for everyone.
 
amdnv said:
True. I am very naive myself in many ways of life, but concerning this particular situation I'm 99.9% sure that the product will see significant changes.

Facebook did not buy a high priced gadget expecting to make back 2 billion dollars from hardcore gamers. It bought technology. And it will shape and use this technology in ways that are in alignment with Facebook's core business.
Click to expand...

The product won't. It will likely be leveraged into markets other than gaming, and that might happen at the cost of how that specific headset was used for gaming, but the hardware will remain the hardware, and people will still be able to develop VR games for it, should they still want to.

If Oculus leaves that space, another company will come in with their own headset to fill that gap in the market, because in a few years time, it's going to be a financially lucrative one.
 
Keric said:
I just don't understand this. The Rift is a display technology, a piece of hardware. What is Facebook's gameplan. Are they going to be able to lock down the device. Am I going to have to log-in to Facebook before I can play Star Citizen? Are software companies going to have to pay royalties to Facebook to get there software on the Rift storefront?

This is all pretty depressing.
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I think you are confusing Facebook the website with Facebook the company. Of course they could end up integrating it heavily with their website which would be horrible, but it is much more likely that they are just diversifying their business, just like their purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.
 
plagiarize said:
If Oculus leaves that space, another company will come in with their own headset to fill that gap in the market, because in a few years time, it's going to be a financially lucrative one.
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Mobile is a financially lucrative market, but one that has major gateway provider rent seekers and more censorship than any other technical movement in human history.
 
Dion Blaster said:
What an overreaction. This is infinitely better than Sony/MS/Nintendo buying it. This way Occulus gets a lot more capitol to work with and not be exclusive to one game console. It's hilarious that people are turning to Morpheus to "save" VR gaming when in fact there is nothing to suggest it will be as open as OR.
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Unlike Sony, the only way Facebook can generate revenue is selling the data it collects and restricting content then selling bypasses to those restrictions. Facebook's standard operating procedure is monetization of every smelly orifice possible because it needs to justify growth.

Nothing Facebook as ever done in the past suggests that the Facebook OR will be as open as Sony's Morpheus. I'd rather have it be exclusive to a game console, then be exclusive to Facebook.

All Facebook did was kill the business model of Kickstarter. The days of giving someone more the $20 without any equity in return is over.

20% of their pre-series B venture funding is crowd sourced. They raised an addition $75 million during series B, which surely helped then sell off to Facebook.

In terms of real world numbers, That $2.4 million in crowd sourced investment is now worth $53 million. 99% of the people who donated money did not intend for them to sellout to a immoral cesspool like Facebook.

But that's cool, keep believing that Facebook will be good for OR. Odds are it will just be marketed to baby boomers who want to wallow in their own world while wondering if their "shitty" children will ever call them. Perhaps if they quit being passive aggressive fucks and pick up the phone once in a while...
 
plagiarize said:
but the hardware will remain the hardware, and people will still be able to develop VR games for it, should they still want to.
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If the hardware is not continually supported, with drivers, support and hardware upgrades, games will not (continue to) be developed.

It's possible that the product launches with specifications similar to what Oculus VR intended. But even if that's the case, I expect Facebook to eventually drop this specific product because it wants to steer the technology in another direction.
 
Sethista said:
Guys, guys... holy shit guys...


Facebook May Rebrand and Redesign Oculus Rift
http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/26/facebook-may-rebrand-and-redesign-oculus-rift

196w0q319cfm6gif.gif
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Holyshit herwego.gif

Worth split thread?


Also, maybe I'm late to express my disappointment but this move by OR really changes the way I look at Kickstarter. I know I'm not entitled to dictating how the KS project progress but I have my own expectation and when my expectation is not met I have every right to be disappointed. If I back a company, I want them to be successful on their on feet, not sold-out to a corporate like FB.
 
Sinecat said:
Many people know Facebook and don't like what they do. I have no problems with people supporting them, why do people have problems with those who do not want to support them?
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Huh? I was talking about people being worried because they don't know what this means for Oculus.

Anyways, if you're excited about VR but hate Facebook so much that you'd refuse to buy a Rift because of it, then fair enough. My take would be that its not worth limiting your enjoyment of a revolutionary new entertainment medium because of a petty grievance with a social networking site, but hey, that's just me. You are free to do as you please.

Devilgunman said:
Holyshit herwego.gif

Worth split thread?
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Its the same exact rumor floating around we've heard already(and had two threads about).
 
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