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[Durante]

Funny how this has changed "VR won't take off, because girls and moms would laugh at us VR explorers!" into "VR will be a flop because girls and moms will use it on their underpowered FB machines instead of the moster rig of a TRUE VR connaisseur!" literally overnight.

It is pretty remarkable if you put it that way.

 

[Business]

In the short term, it gives Oculus manufacturing options they simply didn't have before (e.g. custom displays). In the long term, you're most likely right, but hopefully by then we'll have more competitors.

Yeah thought about that too but will they really develope and manufacture a custom display solution in the short term? If yes then I agree.

 

[yaesir]

This is the darkest timeline.

Smartphones.
Facebook
VR's future undetermined

 

[Harpuea]

This is like Chris Roberts from Cloud Imperium games working on Star Citizen coming out and said "Hey guys! MS just bought Cloud Imperium Studio for $2 Billions Dollars! But don't worry, Star Citizen will be remained unchanged!" You will definitely get your game and the game will be AAA mainstream, but it wont be the same. Probably micro transaction hell in the persistent universe.

Totally defeats the purpose of Kickstarter and why people fund independent visionaries. For only visionaries take risk that big corp would not. Oculus "poisons the well" for Kickstarter to me, in their own words nonetheless. The next indie guy on whatever project you back may just sell his project to the highest bidder again. Effectively, backers on Kickstarter and their funds acts as free R&D and free market research for big corporation. Google, Facebook, MS, or who the heck ever have enough bank will just buy all the projects that are well received. Seems hell a lot more effective than funding your own R&D and market research that may or may not be well received. Buying up Kickstarter ventures that are successful seems the safest bet.

Kickstarter just became a pool of poor suckers waiting to be fished, isn't it. . . ? Can't imagine what the original backers feelings right now.

 

[FrunkQ]

Wow – this has been a major backlash. I can see why Oculus did it and I can see the thought behind Palmer’s responses. Yes, it is nice to have over a billion in the bank. That kind of cash does open a lot of doors. Yes it is must seem good for Oculus Rift. But once the hullaballoo has died down I think there are some rather harsh realities which will come to bite them.

Backer Perception – Like it or not, this has gone from putting money behind a shared hope for the future to helping some people become billionaires. These original Dev Kit and Kickstarter backers are not just sources of seed money, but your most vocal and enthusiastic supporters willing to evangelise your product, ideas and hopes. In one fell swoop that has been killed. It is not Facebook’s problem to create this groundswell of enthusiasm. That is not easy. Notch’s backlash sums up a lot of other people’s feeling in this area. Some may say "small beans" and that it does not matter what a bunch of enthusiasts say... but these guys are all your early adopters and their word is quite powerful in any new technology endeavour. Apple is always glad it had their diehard fans on board to promote the early iPhone’s.

Indie Perception – Two key things here. Indies will be the source of the majority of the innovation, new ideas and interesting game concepts to hit VR. Most successful modern indies come from a big developers – either forced by redundancy or wanting to get out of the express their own creativity. Indies are true underdogs and the culture of the underdog is to see other underdogs be successful. It is a natural and fantastic human trait; people are willing to go out of their way to help and support their peers. Valve was an underdog once, they are perceived as peer and there is still the firm connection to the indie community as they came from the same game development roots and got lucky in digital publishing. Ultimately most indies see Valve as “one of them” with a genuine, burning enthusiasm for games and not a faceless corporate identity. Your success as an indie contributes to their success as a distributor and vice-versa. Now compare that attitude to Facebook. If I was an indie do you really want to contribute to the success of Facebook? Facebook is a company that has had a passing, sometimes derisive view of games and gamers often viewing them as revenue streams and not a creative endeavour? If I was an indie I would certainly now be thinking about publishing my VR ideas firstly in Sony’s Project Morpheus. They may be a faceless corporation but they have been through some rough times and the perception is that they understand the value of games and gamers. And perception, right or wrong, is everything in this world.

Change of Focus – With a billion in the bank surely Oculus’s motivations will change? Before there was huge pressure to get a consumer version out the door as they needed to get a product out there. Even then things have been late, very late. Delay after delay as they try and perfect their vision. With all the money behind them these “perfectionist habits” will not disappear, the opposite will happen; the financial pressure is off and the temptation will be to prefect it further. Is the influx of cash going to speed things up or in reality slow things down as they realise they can make a better product. It is big and complex problem; yes they can throw money at things now to get a solution, but that all takes time to organise and evolve. Now they have the luxury to look in 10 directions instead of being forced down one by necessity. Let’s face it Palmer and Carmack are not really known for accepting compromises or second best… or indeed delivering anything on time or budget.

Patent Trolling – Suddenly your plucky little upstart with a load of ideas and a few patents to their name has a free massive legal department. Before the idea was to be “first to market” to win, now the doors open up to spoil other people’s chances to be successful. Now you can play the lawyer game and use this to stifle other people’s ideas, innovations and so on because most other people in the VR/AR space are plucky little underdogs too and a legal letter is enough to crush companies. They can’t even begin to think about a legal battle with a massive corporation, even if they are “in the right”. Certainly Oculus won’t want this to happen, but can they stop Facebook from doing it in order to protect their investment. Their shareholders will surely demand it!

Then there are a variety of other more intangible issues that crop up. Sony’s stated desire to work with Oculus for a common good is probably interrupted. How will Valve react? Surely at the very least Facebook will look to start their own VR marketplace to monetise some of the software from Oculus. Then there is the general distrust for everything Facebook does which has caused the knee-jerk reactions from everyone in the first place.

The problem is money and power does corrupt most people. They say it won’t change them, but it will in some way.

 

[EatChildren]

While I feel concerns are valid (as with any acquisition), I'd like to bring up (if it hasn't been already) Instagram. Instagram was acquired by Facebook almost a year ago, yet does not require (please correct me if I'm wrong) a Facebook account to use. Instead it uses its own systems and services, and can in fact be linked to other non-Facebook services like Twitter and Flickr without ever making the connection to Facebook.

I don't use Instagram so can only go off my research, but it appears despite being owned by Facebook the "Facebook" part is not invasive and instead completely optional.

 

[KnockOneOff]

Is it just me or does the name mark zukenberg and facebook not seem cool now?

 

[R&D]

Yes it does. The more popular the device gets, the more demand for a range of experiences, which includes AAA games.

Yeah because that clearly happened with Wii and smart phones.
Lowest common denominator. Always.

 

[Souldestroyer Reborn]

I can't really see how this is a bad thing per se.

It gives Oculus much more freedom and options in regards to improving their tech, custom options, bigger R&D budgets etc.

Sure in the long term FB will be ramming their ads down our throats but in the here and now, and the beginning they won't be. They'll follow the same roadmap that they had when they launched FB by slowly sneaking things in over time.

 

[Polk]

I don't get the hate.
Why facebook is worse than some random VC investor? If anything it should be better for OculusVR because they have great influx of money and stable (well more stable) funding than any VC project.

Did people think their kickstarter money was enough not only to produce DK1 and to reserch, develop and produce comercial product few iterations later?

Buying Oculus by FB can mean nothing on how Oculus operates. Are people scared because all those Hannah Montana product placement at ESPN and that time when Disney releleased Pulp Fiction with Zack & Cody cast? Or when they added Mickey Mouse to Star Wars?

 

[StoppedInTracks]

Funny how this has changed "VR won't take off, because girls and moms would laugh at us VR explorers!" into "VR will be a flop because girls and moms will use it on their underpowered FB machines instead of the moster rig of a TRUE VR connaisseur!" literally overnight.

Yeah it's very telling. Shame on you who participate in this.

 

[Salvor.Hardin]

It's disheartening and downright sad seeing people react the way they are about this news.

This investment is going to help the team deliver a better product to a wider market. It's incredibly immature to sum this all up as 'facebook is evil'.

 

[SaberEdge]

Outrages don't always die out. Especially when there's competition. If Sony makes their Morpheus available for PC, people will choose a company they can trust. Especially people interested in VR. They tend to care more about that kind of stuff.

I don't trust Sony, though, any more than any company.

 

[Business]

Kickstarter just became a pool of poor suckers waiting to be fished, isn't it. . . ? Can't imagine what the original backers feelings right now.

The backers should be fine if they understood kickstarter.

 

[Dombrowski]

So, VR will actually have a chance of becoming something big.

 

[call_kotaku]

I don't trust Sony, though, any more than any company.

They give your personal data to hackers instead of the NSA, though

 

[cyberheater]

In a way it could be a good thing. They now have the money to hire some folks to actually turn this into a consumer product and to manufactured in enough volume to be consumer price friendly.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

I keep saying this, but that's not what happened. You think $2 million is enough to keep a tech company like Occulus running? No, the people who supported Occulus were the investors who provided $93 million, and they're rightfully getting rewards for this sale.

Occulus was a growth company. They couldn't exist on their own without a huge injection of capital. It wasn't if they would get bought. It was when.

This. I'm not happy Facebook bought them but let's not kid ourselves, they were always going to get bought.

 

[orborborb]

This was a silly waste of money for Facebook, is there much that Oculus really is beyond the goodwill and attention of its backers/early adopters/enthusiasts? And those people all will (and should) go elsewhere now. VR will be big, but the team of geniuses that will make it big are not going to be working for Facebook or Sony.

 

[shinra-bansho]

I don't think the acquisition greatly affects whether "girls and moms" adopt VR other than that the large capital injection may help with engineering cost reduction.

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that this turns OR from being a niche product. It's no more a mainstream product than Ouya would be if Facebook bought it for $2B. It's still a niche product at this stage.

 

[rjcc]

is there much that Oculus really is beyond the goodwill and attention of its backers/early adopters/enthusiasts?

yes.

that's worth a lot less than you think.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

Is it just me or does the name mark zukenberg and facebook not seem cool now?

Facebook hasn't been "cool" for years. A lot of younger people moved to Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter etc after their parents joined FB.

 

[SaberEdge]

When Microsoft was getting into gaming and said they wanted to own the living room everyone imagined windows in a box focused more on non-gaming things than gaming things. In the end they did much better towards gamers than the pessimists expected, but as time goes on they have done more and more to prove the original pessimists right, particularly with the Xbox One.

This could very well be a similar situation.

I don't even own an Xbox console, but your comment is a gross distortion of the reality. Xbox consoles and Playstation consoles are essentially 95% the same. The pessimists have been proven flatly wrong.

 

[Garland7G]

I don't know what to think honestly and this came a quite the surprise. I'll hold off on comments until more info is released. Hopefully Facebook doesn't shift the focus away from gaming (and I don't mean toward FB games

 

[SaberEdge]

The smartest thing Sony could do now is make their camera and vr tech compatible with pc. People will buy ps4 in droves anyway, and after this news they could scoop up a lot of the pissed off oculus backers.

Nope. Most people will still buy the superior Rift. Even those upset now aren't going to want to pass up the superior experience once they realize they got their knickers in a tangle prematurely.

 

[kartu]

Nothing in that news makes any sense whatsoever to me.
(neither 19 bn acquisition of whatsapp did)

How could FB use that thing?
What makes OR, company that has yet to start producing it, "a leader"?

How can you lead non-existing market?

With Sony (openly) and Microsoft (allegedly) making their own helms, why bother with OR in the first place?

What is so "leading" about OR tech pretty please? It has gyroscopes? It has some optics in it? Oh wow, there sure aren't any companies out there who excel at that..

Isn't it a cheaper alternative to what was already developed earlier?

2 bn, seriously?

Nope. Most people will still buy the superior Rift.

From someone who actually tried it (didn't try Sony's though) what makes it "superior"?

This reminds me of the iPhone launch. People were very sceptical.

Oh give me a break.

I used iPaq PDA in early 200x-s. h5555 model.
Loved it.
It already had that archaic grid of icons interface that iPhones use, but resistive screen no multi touch nothing. (you can't really have comfortable swiping on resistive screen anyway).

When it died, I couldn't buy a replacement. There simply wasn't any.
Tech developed to a point when combining PDA and phone was natural. That's all Jobbs did. Many other companies were working on the same concept.

 

[Seanspeed]

Funny how this has changed "VR won't take off, because girls and moms would laugh at us VR explorers!" into "VR will be a flop because girls and moms will use it on their underpowered FB machines instead of the moster rig of a TRUE VR connaisseur!" literally overnight.

lol

So true.

 

[Polk]

When Microsoft was getting into gaming and said they wanted to own the living room everyone imagined windows in a box focused more on non-gaming things than gaming things. In the end they did much better towards gamers than the pessimists expected, but as time goes on they have done more and more to prove the original pessimists right, particularly with the Xbox One.

Funny how both PS2 and PS3 were advertised as great dvd/blu players as one of their biggest advantages against competition. You know, gamer things.

 

[spekkeh]

It's pretty cool how Oculus is suddenly plastered all over MSM. And pundits are interested in the VR future, if nothing else to think about how Facebook can make money in this future vision.

 

[BraXzy]

If they were 'selling out' wouldn't they GTFO and run all the way to the bank with their money? Rather than.. ya know.. work on a project they are passionate about, something that Palmer started in his garage because he wanted to, not because he wanted to make money.

 

[Tonidayo]

I'm positive anyone, such as myself, who have refrained from using Facebook or having recently deleted his account or even set every material to private will not be satisfactory of this news. There are multiple reasons behind the lack of trust and dislike to Facebook, and the fact is that all of us doing our best to stay away from it will also stay away from any Facebook-owned material.

 

[ekim]

That's not the kind of megaton that I want to wake up to.

 

[Catchpenny]

I keep saying this, but that's not what happened. You think $2 million is enough to keep a tech company like Occulus running? No, the people who supported Occulus were the investors who provided $93 million, and they're rightfully getting rewards for this sale.

Occulus was a growth company. They couldn't exist on their own without a huge injection of capital. It wasn't if they would get bought. It was when.

Didn't Oculus raise a lot of that $93 million as a result of publicity from the kickstarter campaign, though?

 

[hodgy100]

Funny how both PS2 and PS3 were advertised as great dvd/blu players as one of their biggest advantages against competition. You know, gamer things.

the PS2 was still mainly for games though, and the PS3 did get backlash over the lessened focus on games....

 

[Cygnus X-1]

The only reason this happened is because they were offered 2 billions $. Period. How many people do you know they would refuse such an offer?

They can write all what they want about the future of VR and how Facebook may be a good fit in their opinion. Bullshits. When you receive these kind of offers, the 99% of the people would screw up their ideals and take the money.

 

[Garland7G]

the PS2 was still mainly for games though, and the PS3 did get backlash over the lessened focus on games....

ALOT of customers were swayed by that DVD player though. Back in those days a DVD player was a lot so it was like killing two birds. Plus the PS2 had massive support

 

[Mushroomer25]

The only reason this happened is because they were offered 2 billions $. Period. How many people do you know they would refuse such an offer?

They can write all what they want about the future of VR and how Facebook may be a good fit in their opinion. Bullshits. When you receive these kind of offers, the 99% of the people would screw up their ideals and take the money.

The issue with this assumption is that most of the payout was in stock, not cash. So sure - the investors got some pretty fat checks after the sale. But they still have a vested interest in keeping up their end of the bargin - turning a profit to ensure that stock keeps rising. The fact that the core Oculus team is still staying put is testament to this fact.

 

[Jzero]

While I feel concerns are valid (as with any acquisition), I'd like to bring up (if it hasn't been already) Instagram. Instagram was acquired by Facebook almost a year ago, yet does not require (please correct me if I'm wrong) a Facebook account to use. Instead it uses its own systems and services, and can in fact be linked to other non-Facebook services like Twitter and Flickr without ever making the connection to Facebook.

I don't use Instagram so can only go off my research, but it appears despite being owned by Facebook the "Facebook" part is not invasive and instead completely optional.

Well yea besides the added advertisements. So that means Oculus + ads?

 

[spwolf]

Didn't Oculus raise a lot of that $93 million as a result of publicity from the kickstarter campaign, though?

sure, everything was due to successful kickstarter.

I dont think people mind them being bought off by major company for 2 billion.

What people mind is that Oculus was marketed as:

Designed for gamers, by gamers.

Step inside your favorite game.

We’re working with the best teams in the (gaming) industry.

(from their KS page).

It was all about gaming, hardocore PC gaming crowd.


Without any doubt, their focus will not be 100% gaming anymore. They already said in PR that there are many possible uses outside of gaming.

Of course, it does not mean that OR wont end up being awesome gaming product... but there is no doubt that the focus will be changed, even if only by a bit.

 

[Guess Who]

Well yea besides the added advertisements. So that means Oculus + ads?

I just opened the Instagram app and flicked around for a few minutes. Didn't see a single ad.

 

[gofreak]

If they were 'selling out' wouldn't they GTFO and run all the way to the bank with their money?

Usually when a company is bought out, key personnel sign contracts to stay with the buying company for x number of months/years, as part of the deal. So they're not free to run all the way to the bank...yet. It'll be interesting to see if the key team is intact once those contracts expire.

 

[GlamFM]

I don´t get the negativity AT ALL.

The way I see it Oculus would never have made it to the real market without a significant amount of cash from an external source.

Selling a bunch of dev kits over the internet and being on shelves in a Best Buy are two very different things..

The Oculus guys have been waving their VR glasses in front of Sony, Microsoft and Valve for 2 years now and they didn´t go for it.

Instead at least Sony and Valve decided to simply copy what Oculus have been doing.

If you are looking for a bully here it´s Sony and Valve and absolutely not Facebook.

I even think Oculus was at risk of going out of business because of Sony and Valve.

Right now NOTHING has changed - and I don´t think Facebooks vision is Candy Crush VR.

Why don´t we all just relax for a bit.

 

[fantomena]

Replace the Google glasses with the Oculus VR.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_X6EyqXa2s

 

[Garland7G]

Without any doubt, their focus will not be 100% gaming anymore. They already said in PR that there are many possible uses outside of gaming.

Of course, it does not mean that OR wont end up being awesome gaming product... but there is no doubt that the focus will be changed, even if only by a bit.

This is the part that interests me. I can't think of any benefit that FB brings. From what I understand they had plenty of resources.

 

[orochi91]

I don´t get the negativity AT ALL.

The way I see it Oculus would never have made it to the real market without a significant amount of cash from an external source.

Selling a bunch of dev kits over the internet and being on shelves in a Best Buy are two very different things..

The Oculus guys have been waving their VR glasses in front of Sony, Microsoft and Valve for 2 years now and they didn´t go for it.

Instead at least Sony and Valve decided to simply copy what Oculus have been doing.

If you are looking for a bully here it´s Sony and Valve and absolutely not Facebook.

I even think Oculus was at risk of going out of business because of Sony and Valve.

Right now NOTHING has changed - and I don´t think Facebooks vision is Candy Crush VR.

Why don´t we all just relax for a bit.

Why would Sony or Microsoft bother with OR though? Didn't OR blow off consoles
to begin with? I remember there being a fuss they raised by saying consoles are
under powered, thus not suitable for OR. Calling Sony or MS (or Valve) bullies is
silly.

 

[kartu]

I remember there being a fuss they raised by saying consoles are under powered, thus not suitable for OR.

At the same time they said they had interest in "mobile gaming". Which makes it quite a funny argument. I wonder if Microsoft is also working on VR for years, as Sony did.

 

[Corto]

I don't think the acquisition greatly affects whether "girls and moms" adopt VR other than that the large capital injection may help with engineering cost reduction.

I'm not sure where the idea comes from that this turns OR from being a niche product. It's no more a mainstream product than Ouya would be if Facebook bought it for $2B. It's still a niche product at this stage.

Well, Facebook didn't bought Ouya for a reason. Do you think Facebook is buying Occulus because it's a niche product, and it always will be, or it sees potential in this tech to become the next disruptive platform of entertainment delivery?

 

[Garland7G]

Guys I have a serious question here...do you think it would have been better if Amazon bought it? I mean they seem to be 'gearing up' right?



Edit: I don't care that they were bought out personally. This is just for discussion.

 

[Bigmac1910]

WTF? Well thats's that then, I have a feeling they will turn it into shit, with f2p games and classroom stuff lol. One of the saddest day in gaming history, please Sony, you are our last and only hope.

 

[Durante]

This is the part that interests me. I can't think of any benefit that FB brings. From what I understand they had plenty of resources.

There's a difference between having "enough" resources to build a decent product, and having enough resources to get your own display designed to your specifications and have your product advertised by Facebook.

I'm not particularly happy about this, but it's hard to deny the immediate benefits.