Oculus VR Staff Receive Death Threats Over Facebook Deal
- Thread starter Alex Co
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Raise your hand if you're surprised. I can see with my magic internet vision that nobody did. Because every single decision that people disagree with on the internet has been met with death threats. Things suck arse and hopefully the Oculus team (even though I am annoyed with them at the whole Facebook thing) will understand that many people on the web are cunts and rise above it, and not take it too seriously. (Yes, I know that death threats are a serious matter blah blah etc. etc., but I think we can see by now what is and what isn't something to really worry about).
It's not just over internet and electronics stuff this stuff happens on either, lately things have just been going silly.
Recently, in Australia, there was a bi-election to decide the South Australian government, (Heads up, our voting system is weird and I'll try and make it as simple as possible) The liberals won the 2-party preferred vote 52.7 to 47.3 over Labour but there are more than 2 parties so ultimately, with the votes being that close, it was up to independent MPs (members of parliment with no party affiliation) that won their respective local elections to decide which side they would choose to form the SA government - The independents picked Labour and now Labour forms the government in SA despite Liberals having a slightly higher popular vote. (This was a good thing, by the way, liberal conservatives and mining moguls are ruining this country)
Anyway, after a big whinge from a liberal SA MP the independents started receiving death threats, by phone, by mail, by email. (Only liberal cry babies would be so childish)
It's just a crazy thing to resort to... it just makes you look downright childish.
Recently, in Australia, there was a bi-election to decide the South Australian government, (Heads up, our voting system is weird and I'll try and make it as simple as possible) The liberals won the 2-party preferred vote 52.7 to 47.3 over Labour but there are more than 2 parties so ultimately, with the votes being that close, it was up to independent MPs (members of parliment with no party affiliation) that won their respective local elections to decide which side they would choose to form the SA government - The independents picked Labour and now Labour forms the government in SA despite Liberals having a slightly higher popular vote. (This was a good thing, by the way, liberal conservatives and mining moguls are ruining this country)
Anyway, after a big whinge from a liberal SA MP the independents started receiving death threats, by phone, by mail, by email. (Only liberal cry babies would be so childish)
It's just a crazy thing to resort to... it just makes you look downright childish.
Well we all knew this was coming. Seriously though people need to stop being so angry about this. Jim said it best in his Jimquisition. Facebook has a better track record dealing with the things they acquire than the actual industry that this was being developed for. Can you imagine what would've happened if say EA, Ubisoft, or Activision got it. I can tell you it probably would've turned out worse than what Facebook might have planned for it.
OK, i seriously have to ask, what is the deal with people these days and their "companies exist to make money only!!! If it's legal there's nothing wrong with it!!" attitude. Nobody, nobody, freaking nobody has called what they did illegal. They have called it many things, but not illegal.Verlander said:
What people are pissed about, is the fact that they got exploited. There money was taken, supposed to be used to fund an idea through kickstarter. The entire point of kickstarter is that it allows ideas to be crowsourced and there's none of the corporate bullshit to deal with. That goes entirely out the window with the facebook sale. It's exploitation of kickstarter at its worst. Sure legally it's fine. But we aren't all robots. We don't simply emote only because laws are broken. There's a moral side to things.
Not only do these people feel exploited, it's going to damage kickstarter greatly as a whole. This was a perfect example of crowd funding gone wrong. It's going to make people far more hesitant when funding kickstarter projects, and hurt those who are actually using kickstarter for the reason that it was intended.
Now, i didn't back the OR, but if i did, i would be major pissed off right now. People gave their money willingly to support the creators of an idea they loved, and in return those who got the money sold out before even releasing the product.
People may not have the right to a refund or anything of that sort, but they sure as hell have the right to be pissed off at the matter. Death threats are a little far, but as far as the whole scandal goes, this was expected. People were very passionate about the OR, and selling it to one of the companies most loathed by gamers(The people who funded the damn thing) is going to piss people right off.
i wish this was an april's fool joke
no matter how much you disagree with facebook buying oculus, this is just a douchebag move
no matter how much you disagree with facebook buying oculus, this is just a douchebag move
Well, it's more like 5%, about the same as real life psychopaths and sadists. It's just that there's millions of people on the internet(actually 2.4 billion), so the numbers add up and these are very vocal people.iseko said:
5% of 2.4 billion is 120 million people.
There's about 1.5 billion gamers, so about 66% of the above. So there's about 75 million gamer trolls.
About 10-12% of them are on at any given time.
Karadalis said:
I will kill you for saying that!!! (Joking mods) I agree 100%, its becoming more common now for some reason. An ok most are not serious, just idiots online....but it only takes one that means it and plans to carry it through. Death threats and rape threats, its getting pathetic and i hope everyone who ever leaves those comments get named and shamed.
It's not about the illegality of it, it's about the entitlement these people believe they have. They bought a product. Fine. That's what they get.BooTsPs3 said:
The Kickstarter was to create and fund production of this thing, that was it. It wasn't sold as "this batch only", or "open source" - it was to create a product that investors wouldn't touch, and it worked. The people that pledged got what they spent their money on. Now the project has moved on.
I find it hard to believe that this comes from a fondness of the product - if that were the case, people would be happy that their project was getting the funding and exposure it needs to succeed. The reality is that people either wanted a cut of the facebook money or over exaggerated their own input and importance to the project. If they want a cut of money, or a say in the company, they should invest properly, not make a measly donation via Kickstarter. When you pledge via Kickstarter, it very clearly says on the side what you get for your money.
Products are there to sell, they exist to "sell out". If these pledgers don't understand that, they should abstain from spending money on a whim.
Was waiting for the internet death threat machine to kick in. I would never take a death threat seriously from the internet since most of the time it's pissy 12-20 year olds who don't have the balls to say it in real life.
No, i'm pretty sure a lot of it comes from the fact that such an awesome concept was funded by the gaming community and was going to be made for that community. It's very common to see gamers complain about ios games and facebook games. A lot of them loath them, with their adds and wait to play mechanics. Facebook is not known to offer good gaming experiences, and zuckerberg made it clear that he wouldn't simply be leaving the project to do its own thing.Verlander said:
Gamers hate the idea of forced social networking, in-game ads and the like. If facebook's past is an indicator, this isn't unlikely to happen.
People aren't buying products on kickstarter. They're funding projects. They're donating their own money for the future of a concept they like. This system was exploited by the OR, and people are rightfully pissed off. Call people greedy and money grubbing all you want, but that's not really based on anything other than your pessimism. Plenty of kickstarters have made a ton of money and the backers didn't suddenly get pissed off. This is no different. It's not the money exactly, it's the concept of selling out. In a world where AAA gaming is becoming a joke run by corporations doing little but homogenising products, successful indies are revered in the gaming community. Aside from valve, pretty much every one of the larger companies out there are not likely to choose the route which benefits consumers, but the one that exploits them.
This is like the first response to anything that happens on the internet. If anyone is intimidated by them or surprised that they are sent at this point, they need to re-evaluate their expectations.
Backers are not investors in the business sense. Yes, they are investing their money for themselves, but only in the same way that I might 'invest' my money in a charity by donation.fix-the-spade said:
There is no obligation to do anything for your backers on Kickstarter. More to the point, there was never any promise or implication that the company would be solely Kickstarter-controlled or anything. If they want to complain that Oculus isn't just relying on Kickstarter and is being controlled by other companies, why didn't they have a problem with the huge financial injections Oculus got from investors?
Kickstarter is for crowdcourcing projects, not "ideas".BooTsPs3 said:
In Oculus's case, the product in question vas the DevKit one. People paid $300, and received a HMD worth roughly $300 for it, back in 2013. That was the end of story, with the project successfully fulfilled. The only reference to long term business plans was that a consumer product is "still a ways down the road". The $2 million was spent on the devkits that got produced.
The company could have decided to close shop right after delivering the devkits, and the backers still would have received what they paid for.
Instead, they got not just the product that was promised, but also managed stable software support so far, and a possible path to greater commercial success of VR that could only be vaguely hoped for at the point when the Oculus Devkit project was backed.
Yes, bringing Facebook into it will have pitfalls, but Kickstarter users are not entitled to a pitfall-free future for the company, any more than they are entitled to a pitfall-free production of Wasteland 3 or the Ouya 2.
Good riddance. You talk about "damaging" Kickstarter, but I think the crowdfunding community would greatly benefit from ditching the people who can't tell what is the product being sold, and just assume that they get to generally dictate a direction to the backed project's creator forever.BooTsPs3 said:
The Kickstarter ToS specifically forbids pitches without a specific target goal, that's why there can be no such thing as "fund my life" or "fund my new company" projects, because a content needs to be delivered around the estimated delivery date.
Oculus fulfilled that, and the people who still treat themselves as funders of the company in general, as opposed to funders of the early devkit distribution plan, are simply misunderstanding what Kicksterter is.