Facebook Just Bought Oculus VR

no

Yeah, this. I'm so sick of hearing about "social experiences" and "connecting people." What a shame.

Well hey, deciding on the Sony unit just became a bit easier for me now!

A lot of people being super reactionary about this right out of the gate...I'm not so cynical. For VR to really take off and make a meaningful leap into mainstream acceptance, it would need to attain a certain critical mass for developing for it to be worthwhile for a broader range of companies. Facebook could potentially be a company that has the level of reach to hasten the acceptance of this tech.

Worst case scenario? Sure they fuck up something promising, or somehow lock off or hinder the ability for games to use it (why would they?). Better case scenario? A massive flood of interest in VR and potentially bringing in a whole new crowd of people trying out games for their new piece of hardware. Color me optimistic.

Well fuck. Thanks social media and "casual gamers". They all said the wii and casual gaming wouldnt fuck us hardcore fans. Well guess what.....

Oh, goddamn.

Well, if things go sour he can just buy Id Software.

Hope everyone who bought into the Oculus feels good about giving the creators a huge cash out. Seriously if you think any of the core team will still be there in 5 years you are insane. As soon as their contract from this buy out is done they are gone.

Da fuck...

You know what's not cool?

D:

Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate

Stop this madness my fragile psyche can't handle this world we live in

This is why we can't have nice things.

While at face value it's easy to be cynical about this, Zuckerberg has come out to say his intention is to help Oculus (presumably by throwing bags of money at them), not change their direction.

Quote:

"We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games. Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this.

But this is just the start. After games, we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home."

This makes me cautiously optimistic.

Early April Fools?

If someone told me last year that one day John Carmack would be working for Facebook, I would've told them to GTFO.

That said, if anyone tells me now that Facebook owning Oculus will ultimately pay-off and be the best thing that could possibly happen to VR, I would also be inclined to tell them "GTFO".

So it just goes to show that we can't predict the future. I'll wait and see, I guess?

Jesus...why? I have zero faith in Facebook to not fuck this up. Please Carmack...

These news need to stop happening on Tuesdays.

And that is the real story here.

Was Occulus ever about delivering a product to market or was it about hyping the possibility of a technology and then cashing out while the getting was good?

Five comments about Farmville in 20 minutes...This news is the fucking worst.

What kind of person do you have to be to think that people strapping on helmets to completely block out the outside world is "the most social platform ever?"

Did they accidentally leave the "anti-" off the beginning of that word?

In a sweaty, desperate big-money play to stay relevant while hemorrhaging core users, Facebook skulked up behind the fledgling VR industry and fucking knifed it in the back, UH UH UH UH UH.

"We are going to leverage our deep understanding of, uh, PHP, and uh, backend databases and sweet-ass NSA deals to make VR magical". When pressed later Mike-Z clarified, "WE ARE GOING TO PUT FARMVILLE ON THAT SHIT SON ! YEeeeah!"

For the record I believe it was 400mil real cash and 1.2 billion "worth" of facebook toilet paper.

Mother of Satan...

Carmack has almost nothing to do with the Id software of today so it's not a big deal.

I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing. My kneejerk reaction is "omg noez, big evil corporation" blah blah blah, but I mean...there has to be some upsides right? Facebook has a lot of partners and like...other business shit that can only help push the Occulus forward right?

Either way, I'm still not entirely sold on this whole "VR is the future!" idea so whatever I guess...

Soon everything in the world will be owned by Facebook, Google or Apple. That is a lot of money. I bet the people who sold are pretty happy right now. From 2 million to 2 billion in a few years, that is pretty amazing. It is pretty amazing how much money these companies have to throw around billions buying Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus.

What the fuck. There is nothing about Facebook that I want associated with Oculus. If I'm going to buy this, now I need all the assurances that I can use it without ever once seeing something Facebook related on it.

This guy has the right idea.

WTF!

@wrecks: Goddamn, the internet works fast.

Interesting. Facebook has been spending money lately trying to diversify, but this is definitely not something I would have thought they were looking at.

I guess it all comes down to the what the deal they made actually is, but Oculus now has access to a lot more resources than they did before. Hopefully they can put that to use and Facebook is serious about supporting what they are trying to do.

And just like that, all my excitement is gone

First Disney buys Marvel, now Facebook buys Oculus Rift?!?!

Hopefully the people at Oculus are the ones who call the shots

I'd like to be positive about this too from a gaming perspective. However, this doesn't seem like Facebook moving into the gaming world but rather Oculus moving out of it.

Nothing in that statement acknowledges games or even includes the word game. They use social connections, and ambiguous terms like platform for communication.

Oculus isn't a gaming platform unto itself so would Facebook then be a middleware hardware manufacturer? That seems doubtful, more likely they would sell it as some kind of multimedia device.

All wild speculation, but nothing about it seems to bode well for dedicated game production.

I... humm.. I think I need to lay down a bit.

They're going to have to rerecord the podcast news section now.

@wrecks said:

That is so funny! Made me hack up a lung I was laughing so much. XD

Well thank god valve is working on some vr stuff. Im pretty sure they arent going to sell out ot facebook

I think everyone else has summarized it pretty well...

"Wait.. What?"

I'm happy their funding is secure now, I guess.

They will make it another delivery method for Facebook. Want to escape into a virtual world? Well your cousin that won't stop posting status updates about his band is coming with you.

Or maybe you get your unit cheaper because it will be full of ads.

I am reactioning for sure bro.

This makes me really frustrated. Hopefully the guys can quell those feelings in the cast tonight... MAN THIS FUCKING SUCKS.

more odd than anything. I can't really process how facebook could facebookify the rift. Maybe it's more just for the sake of owning Rift than changing Rift into something else.

Yes, this is what I'm hopeful for. We shall see. Though I won't lie, they're now owned by a publicly held company with shareholders and no longer a private thing, and that should probably worry you. Either way, definitely didn't see this coming.

This could either go good or bad. Good in that it'll get large backing, increase quality, and faster release. Bad in that Facebook would not care for the games that we would want and be too in to the social aspect of the whole thing. Because we never seen facebook having a interest in games until recently we don't know if they really do care about it as much as Amazon or some other social systems. Hopefully they are looking into it and not making this cool system in some over done social experience. Otherwise, Project Morpheus will just sweep the VR scene.

Next week is April first. :x

Barf ! I rather see McDonalds buy up Oculus then freaking facebook.

Disgusting.