Facebook Just Bought Oculus VR

Why do people insist on thinking otherwise? Just because the guy trying to get your money told you so?

I'm all for optimism but people would be a lot less disappointed if they'd just embrace a few simple truths right from jump.

The dream is dead.... long live the dream.

Let's crowd fund for millions of dollars and then SELL as soon as we get a good offer. John Carmack is full of shit. All of his, "I'm doing this for the gamer to make the technology better and evolve gaming blah blah."

It's all about money. That's all it ever was.

Mark Zuckerburg was quoted saying, "I can see this being a great platform for people to go to virtual stores and interact with advertisements". Not joking either.. Oculus Rift is dead.

I don't like how facebook integrates into everything, how it ignored common complaints that I heard from everyone I knew while it streamlined itself, how it became an increasingly marginalized use of time from it's lack of addressing what content it showed first and foremost to you and how it used your data without making it obvious.
I hope the principles of their vision are not brought in, and rather that Oculus is continually propelled to be a platform for interesting new services and games. I hope they don't impose forced content, hold questionable paywalls or guidelines and stick to making money off the hardware/licensing sides. Hopefully they'll treat their control like they suggest they will for what'sapp. But...yeah. Not good history here.

@tajasaurus said:

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I can't figure it out either, except to write it off as general backlash against the popularity of Facebook. Platforms like the OR take money to launch. Lots and lots of money. This is probably a best-case scenario for OR, in terms of developing the platform and getting it to as many people as possible. If there's a downside that's obvious, it's that this development may make things harder for open-source and indie developers, but there's no evidence of that yet, and Facebook has been making friendly gestures to that community recently, so it's possible that won't be an issue at all.

I see a lot of reference to "shock," "disgust," and "rage," and plenty of people acting as if this is the end of the OR as a videogame platform. It seems like a lot of these people have set up a paradigm in their head where there are "good" forces for technology and "bad" ones, and Facebook is "bad." Since they've bought OR, OR can no longer be one of the "good guys." Or maybe they're backers that thought the money they had given to the Kickstarter was some sort of contract that would keep the project "indie" (or maybe they simply don't understand the actual costs in this kind of venture, or that the purpose of the Kickstarter was to, well, "kickstart" the OR, not to FINISH it).

It all seems silly to me. Maybe it was a revelation to some people that Facebook mines data from their user base, but THAT HAS BEEN THEIR BUSINESS MODEL FROM DAY ONE, AND THEY HAVE NEVER TRIED TO HIDE IT. They are no more or less evil than Google - they are simply a very large company with a bottom line.

Do they have a motivation to curtail game development on the OR? No. Will they restrict it to only "social experiences" in usage? Almost certainly not. Will anybody be able to develop for it? Remains to be seen, but they haven't restricted development for Facebook. Will it lead to only Facebook-esque games being on it? I don't see why that would happen at all, since Facebook is merely a platform that other people developed cashgrab games for; Facebook hasn't encouraged that practice.

Until there's some evidence that this is a topic worthy of doomsaying, I'm going to have to ignore it. Because it sure sounds like a lot of people railing against "the man" to me, without really knowing the reasons they're doing it.

Not being able to support both, I was on the fence between OR and Cast AR. After hearing this, Rick and Jerri over at www.technicalillusions.com will be getting my undivided attention.

Welp. Guess we can now virtually #banBossy.

my exact thoughts whilst reading that lol, yeah, facebook is not someone you want in charge of designing anything...especially what could have been the next evolution in gaming.

guys, come on, Oculus will be able to get any hardware they want and hire any techs they want now which could potentially make this whole thing even greater than it otherwise would have been. Facebook has already said this is a long-term deal, they're not trying to just rush out a product.

I wanna say fine, screw it, I'll just hope Sony's Project Morpheus is good, but that doesn't make me feel much better. I don't want VR, if it works out, to be confined to consoles. It's meant for PC, it's better for PC, and there will be so many more games available for it if it's on PC than if it were on PS4.

I still hope it works out, but bringing in suits who want profits is ALWAYS a way to screw up something good. When a project is being run by the people that are passionate about the work and also don't mind making money, it's great. When the passionate people now answer to the suits who ONLY care about the profits, it's not great.

I don't think I've ever been actually angry at a piece of gaming-related news. But now I'm really, genuinely pissed off. Oculus just took a massive shit all over their backers...

EDIT: Alright... *deep breath* Alright. I've calmed down a bit, especially after reading Palmer Luckey's posts on Reddit. He seems to understand that many people are upset, but promises that Oculus will continue to work independently from Facebook. I really hope that's true and FB won't begin meddling in the development down the line. We'll just have to see. Cautiously optimistic now, I guess...

That Sony VR headset is looking better and better

EDIT: "Mobile is the platform of today......." What kind of horseshit drivel is that??? Out of touch much, Mark?

@darji: yeah but a razer vr headset could be very expensive($600 or more)

Same goes for Dark Souls II. It's sad.

April fools is next week, silly.

Congratulations kickstarters, you got a trinket and you made them super wealthy. Good job.

This has been a painful year to be a PC gamer so far.

1. Watchdogs most likely gimped down.

2.GTA5 PC where the fuck are you????

3.Oculus sells out to FB so disgusted WTF still in shock from this BS makes me so fucking sick just horrible horrible.Words can not describe the clusterfuck that has been rattling inside my head since I heard the news.

Well hopefully Morpheus is awesome and people can get it working on pc as well as PS4 as there is no way I'm going to give the money required for a VR headset to facebook.

Also Oculus is a company that reached out for funding via kickstarter, so seeing it bought for billions of dollars should be an exciting prospect. Give those people the freedom to do what they need to do without having to worry about the costs or whatever. It makes no sense for Facebook to spend this money just to throw it away. This general pessimism about this deal is weird.

Difficult to see any good in this acquisition from a gamer perspective. suppose it might accelerate development and get it in the hands of more users. The kickstarter motto "designed by gamers for gamers" seems to be in jeopardy with the Evil Empire now at the helm!

Do not think it is worthy of a new thread yet but it seems like Razor is also jumping on the VR wagon.

more like the whocaresulus doesn'tmatterift

black helicopters maggle

What I want to know is what does this mean for us indie game developers making games for the oculus? Will everything change? Has this whole time been a waste?

@godmil: I somehow doubt that Carmack will stay there for much longer now. It is not like he needs this money or job^^

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle...

its all downhill from here

Ugh

This seems bad, but maybe isn't, but probably is. Oh well.

Positives:

1. Palmer Luckey is presumably now fabulously rich. Which is I'm really happy for.

2. Oculus now has a near limitless amount of backing. Remember how they kept saying they couldn't get the screens they wanted because they weren't a big player.... now they're a big player. this could greatly help the affordability and quality of the device.

Negatives:

1. Carmack now works for Facebook. It may be irrational, but that makes me cringe.

2. They may have a weird change in focus direction, but we'll have to wait and see about that.

btw The register has the best news title: "Oculus VR goggs maker VANISHES into Facebook's dystopian MAW"

Disgusting.

Maybe this won't ruin the entire thing but? Facebook is a pretty god damn fucking invasive company so i really really doubt they won't dig their tendrils deep into this products.

I will keep watching oculus development with interest but.. this worries me greatly.

Eh! I'll wait and see how it pans out.

Maybe Facebook sees the future being like the Metaverse in Snow Crash, a VR version of the Internet.

i cant wait for the movie

I was so excited and optimistic for the future of Oculus, but now I'm pretty bummed out. Especially the sentence "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever" which clearly shows to me that Mark has no idea what the Oculus is nor what should be used for.

I get the feeling they bought it only so the competition can't get their hands on it and they will smother it to death with their lack of creativity and any hardware related experience or knowledge.

The only way this has a good ending is if Facebook lets Oculus VR keep their independence and continue in their planned trajectory with the project which I seriously doubt :(

I disagree, VR is the less social experience of them all!

So.......I'm not going to jump to conclusions but this does harm my interest to some extent if only for how Facebook spoke about mobile platforms.

Well that's the end of that chapter. We had a good run guys, we had a good run...

VR is the future that is for sure. But for what use is still unknown. With a company like Facebook however I doubt it is for games in the grand picture. Right now they are saying this because they do not want bad publicity but I really doubt that this will go on like before.

Hooray, now I can update statuses almost like I'm actually there! It's like... I really have social life! Amazing!

Wow, what's app with that? They're really trying to Branch out, huh? Haha, get it? This buyout is such an insta... uhh... insta-- instagra-- inst-- uh.

Wait and see what happens before we all go crazy with anger folks, a lot of jumping to conclusions throughout the internet right now. Though the idea of Carmack working for Facebook creeps the hell out of me, though I imagine the money is to good to turn down. You lot can bitch and moan, but if someone came up to you and said "here, have 2 billion and we'll own your product" you'd say okay, there's a lot you can do with that amount. I haven't experienced the Rift, hope to one day but I'd be interested to see what happens with Facebook's noticeably different business direction to what Rift as been heading towards so far.

That said, I'm a little worried about Mark Zuckerberg comments:

"This is really a new communication platform. By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures," Zuckerberg added. - Eurogamer article

A communication device is not exactly how I'd personally describe the Rift. Anyway, wait and see folks. Chill out.

Seems like a super-risky investment. While I personally find VR-tech to be super-cool, I also think it will only take off after some lateral progress will enable new ways to experience virtual worlds, aside from screens, projections, speakers. Kinda like induced directed lucid dreams or something.

What's really great is to see a how much money is put behind VR-tech. This is being pushed now. That can only be a good thing for videogames in the long run.

Kickstarter is VERY clear on the fact you are not investing in the companies you are paying for goods. In the case of the OR you were paying for a development kit that presumably everyone got. They had no stake or say in what happens to the company.

Kickstarter backers are just customers of the company, all be it in a prepaid kind of way.

Why does this world hate John Carmack? First Bethesda destroys the company he made and now his new baby is sold to Facebook. I'm so sorry, John Carmack. You don't deserve this.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with anything related to Facebook being so close to my face.

I am an investor, that's my job. Particularly in small start ups similar in Oculus size when they initially kickstarted. I can guarantee that when Oculus started and they got $75 million from a venture capitalist firm the goal was to be bought by a major corporation. And the reason is simply the Rift would never succeed enough to allow Oculus as a company to survive long term; they either needed to be bought out and become a minor piece in a large corp as only a large corp would be able to make the Rift a big enough mass market device that AAA video games could be made for it.

To @kevin_cogneto: Vavle, if they were to be bought, would be in the $20 billion range. Valve would easily be worth $2 billion for their video game IP's alone; BioWare and Pandemic were bought for ~$800 million and the only IP's they had were Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Mercenaries, Valve has quite a few more that are far more prestigious then those and DOTA 2 is just a giant cash cow. When you include Steam and the tech behind it Valve is one of the most valuable video game corporations in the world and becauseValve is private company they would be in complete control of the negotiations.