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

[FPLOON]

Whoa! I forgot about that 3D TV Sony marketed for the PS3... (Funny how that could have been my first flatscreen... You win this time, Samsung...)

OT: I want to say that with Facebook basically funding the rest of Oculus's success, this would give it a much larger base of popularity than what it has now... but, I kinda don't feel like agreeing to that since those original backers weren't, at least, warned in advanced about the possibility of something like this happening... at least, as far as I know, since I never backed Oculus to begin with...

Sure, this is the lesser of two "most" evils in the overall industry involving investments and stuff of that manner, but I'm hoping Oculus does sometimes put their foot down, in terms of what Facebook would and would not want to do with this billion-dollar-filled "investment" on the given project at hand...

 

[Liberkhaos]

Lol. When he said it could have been worst than Facebook I'm sure most people immediately thought of EA!!!

I know I did!

 

[Moises Weintraub]

All I can think of is "Ready, Player One." Bring us the OASIS and all is forgiven.
If you don't get the reference, Ready, Player One is a fun book by Ernest Cline about a virtual reality MMO that takes center stage in human existence, and an easter egg hidden in that game.

 

[themilo504]

I agree but I do think that virtual reality is the future, unfortunately the technology simply isn?t there yet for it to have mass market appeal and probably won?t be there for quite a while.

 

[Zacam]

All that the backers were ever promised was that they would get units.

I don't recall it saying anywhere at any tier "Become an advisor for the companies financial or business decisions in a personal manner" or anything remotely close to the sort where anybody can or should have the gumption or the gall to get all offended at Oculus for securing/being secured by another company.

 

[schwitz]

Well, thank god for you Jim.

Really happy King didn't get anywhere near it, cause they would just lock down the development to 'VR Candy Crush' ahah.


All jokes aside though I'm not overly thrilled with the Facebook purchase, but I still think it will benefit OR in the long run. Reasons;
- I'm Extremely happy with the fact that EA or Ubisoft didn't get their hands on it.
- OR needed funding to continue improving, this will give them a solid financial backer to work with.
- OR can now reach a farther audience because I'm betting Facebook will want to market their new toy.
^^ (Publicity hopefully not dumbing it down for the masses)
- OR have stated that they will still be just 'OR' they won't just become a part of Facebook.
- I'm Extremely happy with the fact that EA or Ubisoft didn't get their hands on it.

Now, to put this in perspective I'm not invested in the OR (financially, emotionally or otherwise) but I am making my way into the game industry (atm just freelancing, indie, etc.)
So I guess you could say that I don't care what goes on, I just care about the consequences and the outcome.

 

[Willstown]

A cash rich company buying up a small tech firm and pumping some serious backing into the project could be great thing for the Rift. It still does seem like a niche product to blow 2 billion on.

FB not being a hardware producer already could benefit the rift. It should avoid the hardware development getting bogged down in being amalgamated into any existing hardware products as you see often in the IT industry. Could have interesting if MS had grabbed this up, combining the rift and kinect could have have led to some cool things.

My concern is that now FB own this product and it's patents it will start throwing sueballs out at other tech companies like Sony in a Samusumg vs Apple style patent war.

 

[RoonMian]

Jim, how dare you stand in the way of the raging internet mob! HOW DARE YOU!!!

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Really dont care about the oculus, but the thing about FB is how they treat people on facebook. How they own everything on that site and spy and track data. If they release these googles onto the consoles, whose to say they wont install programs that send data from your console to themselves? FB have a worse track record than EA for bullshit practices.

Though i think FB bought them before Google did.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Thanks for making me LOL at the end; "unless it didn't..."
Are they going to sell those things or is it a one-off?

 

[Petromir]

A quick note on the cyclical nature of tech (especially consumer tech), generally theres a reason they keep coming back, the going away is that they aren't ready yet. Sometimes bits of them stick in different areas. Still 3D for example is used in some sciences including geology, has been for years. Some products get nowhere, some get better each time they are tried. (Declaring 3D to be gone even in the consumer world at home is also odd, plenty of new 3D TVs coming out just the flash new feature on them is smartness or 4k so they don't bother to mention the 3D.) VR of some description may well make it at some point, will this be a big break, even just a small one getting it a comfortable niche.

Rift was always going to need a sizeable chunk of money to make it into a finished project. And to be brutally honest the amount it needed to not just be a notable fad likely meant that it needed something other than gaming to recoup money from.

The kind of thing Facebook has suggested they might use it for will push for improvements in things like unit weight, eye strain, nausea reduction, all of which are important to gaming. Hell even if the VR classroom/meeting thing does happen, and has pop up ads, the tech that helps prevent eyestrain from reading them will help with eyestrain from the UIs in games.

Valve buying rift may have been great, though they are hardly saints in the prying and social aspects departments. Most of the gaming industry would have been dreadful. Seen a ton of comments saying they sold out to a soulless corporation, then saying they were jumping ship to Sony for the morpheous.......

Whether this is a good thing time will tell. Maybe Oculous' part in the big VR hit will have been to kickstart interest in it, and to push the likes of Valve and Sony to invest in their own solutions, maybe it will be to lead the charge with facebook's money. Maybe it will all have been a flash in the pan and we'll be discussing entirely hypothetical could have beens.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Jim, I know you read the comments (though I'm not sure if you read this far down), so allow me to extend a personal "thank you" for your willingness to jump in mid-week with these special topical episodes.

I mean, you could very well wait until the usual time to address these sorts of things, and it's likely that no one would think less of you for doing so. Your willingness to jump in while the iron is hot is appreciated.

The fact that you are often a voice of reason in a sea of wailing and gnashing of teeth when it comes to these sorts of things is also appreciated.

 

[Something Amyss]

If Valve got the OR, it would come out in 2065 running last gen technology and would still be hailed as innovative because "Steam."

People panic because they had this idea that was out of line with reality. This has more integrated reality with the process. So they're freaked.

I think the best part of this whole upset is the reaction of some rather more upset denizens of the internet. If you go to certain parts of 4chan, there is real upset and fear over the idea that adverts will be made mandatory, and that their Anime porn simulators will be taken away.

Think I'm kidding?

Spoiler: I'm not

Spoiler: No really, I'm not

Spoiler: Why would I want to make something like this up?

[If the pictures are too small, just right-click and select "copy image URL". Then paste it in a new tab and you'll be able to see it full-size.]

Spoiler: Why are you even still clicking on these?

Most of those don't look serious.

 

[cyvaris]

What mech game was shown in the middle of that video? It looked fairly interesting.

 

[Lightknight]

Interesting, I agree with all of this. If it gets released and Facebook is forcing logins and connection on users through it then I'll recant but it could be the same product with a facebook brand. We'll have to wait and see.

That being said, this is a little bit different than some of the other fads. I say that because there are components of the experience that already make things worthwhile.

Namely, the Movie Theater application. Where you can watch your own movies on a big screen or at least what feels like a big screen. If for only that reason, I would be interested in the Rift. Add that to what it could do for horror and exploration titles and you've got a lot of reasons to be interested.

The Dev 2 kit has resolved a lot of the headache issues and they've added leap motion controls to track the head so that your natural head sway is also tracked in the environment. Major things that would have killed the product for me.

The things facebook mentioned like giving people a seat in a sporting event or in a classroom has a lot of ways it can go. I think in the right hands this could be incredibly viable and Facebook has enough clout to make it happen.

 

[Cerebrawl]

What mech game was shown in the middle of that video? It looked fairly interesting.

HAWKEN.

Free to play, it's on steam. http://store.steampowered.com/app/271290

I tried it in closed beta but I wasn't impressed, might be improved by now. *shrug*

 

[Ima Lemming]

Thanks a lot, I was eating a sandwich when the Surgeon Simulator clip started.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Notch said it best - he didn't invest $10,000 "to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition."

It's really a huge steaming dump on the faces of everyone who helped them get off the ground with Kickstarter. In fact, Kickstarter can be the new venture capitalism for no-integrity sell outs, because unlike actual venture capital firms, you don't owe the backers a dime when you betray their trust and sell off the company they helped make. You get to dance in all the cash yourself.

Saying "It was going to get bought" is just cynical capitalism. Private companies CAN still exist in this world. You can bring a product to market, make money from that product, and then use that money to keep your company running. You do not have to have a IPO. You do not have to sell out.

This is a disgrace to crowdfunding and is a cautionary tale that the people who claim to just need your money so they can fulfill their passion are really just angling for a billion dollar buyout and don't care about you at all.


And saying that Facebook won't touch the Rift is pretty much already confirmed to be false:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/technology/facebook-to-buy-oculus-vr-maker-of-virtual-reality-headset.html?hpw&rref=business&_r=4

According to a person involved in the deal who was not allowed to speak publicly because he was not authorized by either company, Facebook eventually plans to redesign the Oculus hardware and rebrand it with a Facebook interface and logo.

Because after all, Facebook is going to want its money back, and Zuckerberg sure as hell knows that won't be coming just through sales of the thing.

Suggesting Facebook isn't the worst to buy it because EA or Microsoft could have bought it instead is a bit odd too - EA may be crap, but at least they make video games! I don't see how it could be worse for gaming than Facebook.

It's utterly baffling too. I don't think there's any possibility of making their 2 billion back. Shareholders should not stand for Zuckerberg throwing their money away on something he thought was cool that has nothing to do with the business he's supposed to be running.

 

[Ickabod]

The big key here is that no matter what Facebook intends to do with the thing, people still have to buy the hardware first. Who is going to buy that hardware? Gamers of course.
Why are gamers going to buy it? Because the games are worth buying.

No one in the casual facebook world is going to buy a VR headset without a darn good reason.

Have faith, Facebook wants you to buy a Rift, and they will do that by putting good games on it.

Otherwise they are out 2 BILLION DOLLARS.

 

[Lightknight]

Looks like Facebook value dropped nearly $5/share yesterday after the $2 billion buyout announcement. And today it's still on the decline.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=FB+Interactive#symbol=FB;range=5d

They've been dropping for a few weeks now. Look at monday, they dropped $3 then too.

As of right now, they are in the positive.

$2 billion is a pretty damn big investment in something most people know little or nothing about. I'd expect some fluxation but it isn't going to really hurt them that much at this point.