Jimquisition: So, That Facebook And Oculus Rift Thing...

[Weaver]

I will say that facebook DOES have a reputation of consuming its acquisitions. It has made, excluding purely domain name related purchases, 44 acquisitions to date. About three of those have been allowed to maintain their independence in the company.

 

[Ratty]

It could have been worse. VR was probably destined to be a niche anyway. Wait and see.

Jim, your autobiography should be titled "The Audacity of Common Sense". Those points are just too logical and obvious when stated, thank God for you.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

What? No. Niche products are GOOD. I was not insulting OR. Just saying it was not "The Future" Zuckerbergs hopes it'll be.

Which is very true, it really isn't (unless the technology changes dramatically before it's released).

What is the future is Miniature Fantasy Jim Sterling IMO. No real idea why, but 300,000:1 odds it will take the world by storm.[

You are in no way wrong; I have moneys and I would Like a miniature Fantasy Jim Sterling Talking Plushie. Shut up and take my Moneys!

 

[DrOswald]

What? No. Niche products are GOOD. I was not insulting OR. Just saying it was not "The Future" Zuckerbergs hopes it'll be.

Er... well... yes, of course that's entirely true. But how's Facebook getting ownership of Oculus VR hardware the lesser of all evils?

I agree that a game company getting a hold of it would have been far, far worse. Same with Microsoft/Sony. They're not interested in catering to niche markets. But neither is Facebook.

So a product that is designed from the ground-up for a niche market that is then bought out and converted for a wider audience isn't going to be good for that niche market. No matter who buys it.

Sure, maybe there's still some hope for the OR under Facebook that doesn't exist with other companies. I mean, the PS4 has root-level Facebook integration, and people can still play games without having to link a Facebook account. I just hope that remains true for the Rift. And it's possible the hardware will remain unlocked enough to work with third-party programs. Personally, I was really looking forward to trying it out with Euro Truck Simulator 2 (about as niche as one can get).

But as a specialized, niche-market product, the Oculus system is very likely dead. Especially if other on-board developers pull out as Mojang has already done.

The thing about VR catered as a specific niche market product is that eventually it is going to go away, or at least it will never go anywhere interesting. It is the very definition of a novelty luxury good. It really only exists as a cool toy for tech heads. And this isn't really a problem, if you don't think VR tech has any real potential. If it is just a cool gadget and that is all it ever can be then appealing only to the niche market that wants that gadget is perfectly fine, and is in fact a good thing. I like niche products. I own many niche products.

However, I personally think that there is great potential for VR tech in a wide variety of fields, if we can figure it out. That really isn't going to happen unless someone big foots the bill for the R&D. The crowd funded 2.5 million for the kickstarter was neat, but that was never going to be enough to revolutionize the tech.

I am not sure I am expressing myself well here. Basically, I am saying VR is an infant tech. It is a neat novelty right now but largely inferior and useless compared to other available tech. I think VR has potential to be much better and that simply was never going to happen on the chump change crowd funding could pull together. Now that a major player has put its weight behind the tech there is at least a chance that it could be made into a tech worth giving a damn about.

And I know there were other companies doing VR tech, but that felt much more like hedging their bets. I don't think they believe in the tech in any real way, they are just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. This buyout seems more like they intend to do something with the tech, which means serious support.

This means your niche product will probably disappear for a while, and I can understand why you are mad about that. But if VR actually catches on I guarantee that a niche specific model far superior to the current Rift will be coming your way eventually.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Still, i think Facebook's core philosophies, lack of regard for users and business practices are wholly abhorrent.

Agreed. Even if things don't go crazy with FB integration, I can't find it inside myself to ever say this whole episode has been a good thing for those who put their time and money into making Oculus possible.

 

[gigastar]

Yeah, thats pretty much my veiw on the thing. Shocking for the sheer amount of money involved for something thats not even on the market proper, but i never cared about Oculus or its Rift to begin with, so i wont be losing any sleep over this.

 

[Manni]

Gonna post it here, because hey why not.

Jim, is there any way you can enlist (in credits) the titles of the games you are showing through the episodes? Some of them are recognizable, some are not, but seems interesting/odd/insane/worth further look. It's a small thing but clears things up and will save some time for your viewers to do other stuff, like building you a shrine or prepare some sacrifices. Probably both.

 

[Kuredan]

Props to Senor James for such a timely response. While I do acknowledge "It could be worse", I can't think of another company more out of touch with the gamer community than Facebook, maybe AOL. I am just afraid the Rift is now a platform that will be leveraged for social media purposes rather than gaming, or that the development for games will be left to atrophy. Why? Facebook has not demonstrated it knows anything about gaming, beyond Farmville and social media games. I'm not knocking them, but they represent a very shallow part of gaming and seems like the Rift is a waste if it's only used for such games. I think it really ties into Jim's previous video on monetization. If the Rift becomes a vessel for facebook and its profit driven practices, what's the benefit to customers? How is value added? When the Rift becomes a revenue vector rather than a peripheral, where does the indignity end? When it subtracts from the gaming experience rather than augments, why even bother? What about the 9500 people who invested in the ground floor and are now left behind? Yes, technically, it could have been worse. It also could have been so much better.

 

[rasputin0009]

Nobody likes wearing stupid shit on their face. That's the main reason behind why 3D television was a failure and why the Oculus Rift and Google Glass will also fail. It's the same reason why contact lenses were invented. Nobody likes wearing stupid shit on their face.

 

[LordMonty]

I agree, consider me a misrable brit as well but all this VR tech seems pretty pointless, lets just keep worknig on cheap 3D light displays(hey let me dream of hard light) so we can skip the terrible glasses or headsets. Not against advancement just against the useless toss that comes inbetween the the good advencements and me.But

I sure hope was worth its two billion...

 

[K12]

Slightly off topic but what the hell was that terrible looking dog punching game?

 

[Manni]

My point exactly. Just saying .

 

[redknightalex]

I'm surprised this got a Jimquisition extra because, in all honesty, I don't see this being as big of a deal as other extra episodes have addressed. And, frankly, I agree with Jim.

Or, more like it, I don't have an opinion on it. Facebook has never been an integral part of my life, even when I was in college and it was the only social media you could be on (talking 2005 here), and VR has never piqued my interest, so the idea that FB was spending some $400 billion with the rest coming from stocks on the Rift just did not intrigue me. I see the technology being used more as a competitor to Google Glass (you know FB wanted that) than a real gaming machine.

Facebook can have it because, as Jim said, maybe they'll make something useful out of it. And not give me headaches.

 

[Ashoten]

I would like to see you talk in length about the legal missteps that are going to no doubt happen because of this whole fiasco Jim but ok lets talk about what you did say.

It is the same defense I see everyone putting up "Better to sell out then go bankrupt." or "Better to sell to Facebook then to EA." Well that is a classic fallacy the name of which I forget (sorry), but it is the structure of "Ether we Pick A or we Pick B." "Ether we drink poison or we strangle orphan puppies to death." Not a very goo choice is it? It is also not a solid argument. There are many options that they could have taken here not just a couple. Maybe go to steam as you mentioned Jim. Maybe go to Notch who would love to whore himself out for indie products I am sure. Maybe go to another gaming visionary Like good Ol'Pete molluenoxaue(I cant spell ). Or heavens forbid have a second round Kickstarter to fund the project to completion.

But this whole thing underlines why the Kickstarter system is doomed to collapse in on itself. The investors who gave of their hard earned cash willingly to get something awesome at the end are now left holding a half filled cup of promises while the developers of Occulus Rift are sitting pretty with millions. Regulations need to be enforced by the community or they will be enforced by the government and no one in the gaming community or otherwise wants to see that.

 

[JenSeven]

here is an idea: facebook connection + oculus rift + google glasses = seeing through another person's eyes

 

[weirdee]

This means your niche product will probably disappear for a while, and I can understand why you are mad about that. But if VR actually catches on I guarantee that a niche specific model far superior to the current Rift will be coming your way eventually.

That being said, it kind of destroyed the confidence that any niche company will not be bought out by a corporation at some point, so what are the chances that such a product will ever reach the market, AND be good? I don't know if anybody in crowdfunding will ever willingly invest in this kind of idea again.

On an alternate note, I'm pretty sure the people who actually put money into the product are mad for other reasons besides not getting what they thought they were getting, and don't have the luxury of just being disappointed without having any actual skin in the game.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

related only tangentially, but i'm still cringing over that Surgeon Simulator clip. my ribs are hurting from seeing that.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Glad Jim took the time to do a video on this right when it popped up. I had suspected he might.

When the news broke it was cool to totally lose your ***t, but when everyone realized that's what everyone else was doing it consequently became cool to play it down.

Like Jim I have little investment in the OR. I could have sworn a couple years back Sony copyrighted mind control or some 2099 type gibberish. Jim also brings up a good point that I (some users) probably won't want to sit around with this overweight pair of goggles on their head for extended periods of time. Remember that Nintendo Virtual thing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy]?

So overall the only thing I can really get upset about is if the devs really claimed they weren't going to sell out to their Kickstarter backers... and then did.

 

[TristanBelmont]

While I agree that a lot of people freaked WAY the duck out about this, you've said before that just because something "could be worse" doesn't mean we should be complacent in whatever happens to be going on. Still, I suppose it could be worse. Who knows, Nintendo, lord do I love them, could have bought it and turned this thing into Virtual Boy 2: Electric Boogaloo.

 

[Koltoroc]

Jim is right, that it most likely will never be a mainstream thing. But it had the chance to become an awesome niche application. That chance is now gone, because to justify this expense it must become mainstream whatever the cost to recoup the investment. That means the niche will eventually be abandoned and it will be turned into something entirely different. My bet is that the (for this purpose) usable parts will be turned into a google glass copy and the rest dropped or sold to the highest bidder.

However, the Occulus rift for games is in the mid to long term dead because of this and the dream of VR most likely set back another 1-2 decades thanks to this.

But jim you are wrong in touting instagram and whatsapp as the proof that facebook doesn't tamper with acquisitions. They haven't *yet* but will eventually turn it into facebook attachments.

However, the immediate benefit facebook got out of this acquisitions is not in the services itself, but in the user databases they got in those deals. Especially whatsapp is a goldmine for this, because they got verified phone numbers to add to their data and can generate more precise profiles to sell to advertisers. That is why they paid about 40$ per whatsapp user, that is where the real value lies, a much better more detailed user profile to sell.

And this datamining and profiling is why facebook is that devil a lot of people don't want to make deals with.

Facebook will eventually add the occulus rift in one form or another into their datamining practices, it is after all what they make their money with. And that is why this product has become toxic. I will certainly not allow facebook tampered drivers doing who knows what on my system.