Oculus VR Staff Receive Death Threats Over Facebook Deal

[Verlander]

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.

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.

I'd love to meet this peaceful magical gaming community of which you speak, but if these (and any other forums) are to be believed, there is no social entity of all encompassing ideals for "gamers".

If anyone thinks that Facebook is planning VR " Candy Crush", they're moronic. For a start, Facebook is a platform, and do not create this content themselves. Similarly, Oculus is foremost a hardware project, so the content will always have been varied. Facebook is a brand now, like Google. I wonder if people would have flipped if Google bought it out? They're a search engine that makes it's money from ads - hardly much more noble than Facebook.

If this reaction is simply passion for the project, as you say, people should chin up. The facts haven't changed - Oculus wouldn't exist without them. Everything happened as promised. If you're passionate about something, you should be happy when it gets picked up by a major company and be distributed. However death threats aren't the actions of the passionate, they're the actions of the butthurt

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

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.

 

[treeroy]

I'm still impressed that using Kickstarter has allowed them to fund a start up without having to worry about taking any loans on or reimbursing those pesky investors once the company was sold.

That is a seriously sneaky but perfectly legal move, very clever.

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.

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?

 

[Alterego-X]

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.

Kickstarter is for crowdcourcing projects, not "ideas".

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

[Alterego-X]

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.

There is no obligation to do anything for your backers on Kickstarter.

There is an obligation [https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use] to deliver the promised product to backers or provide refunds.

It's not investment, but it's not donation either, it's a financial transaction.

Oculus is in the clear of that one, because a year ago they have already delivered the devkits that they Kickstarted, so their transaction with the backers is done.

People are disappointed in the same way as they are disappointed when they "support" an indie band by buying their albums, and then they sign a publisher deal later. They are owed *something*, but that something has nothing to do with the seller's future business choices.

 

[MrFalconfly]

People who write death threats for something as petty as a gaming peripheral deserves to get slapped with their own keyboard.

 

[treeroy]

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.

There is no obligation to do anything for your backers on Kickstarter.

There is an obligation [https://www.kickstarter.com/terms-of-use] to deliver the promised product to backers or provide refunds.

It's not investment, but it's not donation either, it's a financial transaction.

Oculus is in the clear of that one, because a year ago they have already delivered the devkits that they Kickstarted, so their transaction with the backers is done.

People are disappointed in the same way as they are disappointed when they "support" an indie band by buying their albums, and then they sign a publisher deal later. They are owed *something*, but that something has nothing to do with the seller's future business choices.

Hmm.

Well, either way, they have delivered what they promised. People are owed nothing other than what they bought

 

[Ratty]

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the internet would give you death threats for putting too much (any) mayonnaise on a sandwich. Nature of the beast to a degree, the combination of emotional and physical distance and anonymity.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I would probably tell the person to come and get me. Name the place, name the time, and I'll bring the knives and we can have it out. Call their bluff and whatnot.

...probably not the smartest thing to do, I admit, but I'd just get so sick of it after a while that I'd like to see one how one of these creeps would react if I called them on it.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

trolls trolls trolls. The internet is basically one giant bridge with 99% of the community living under it. Trolling... Because they are trolls. Still what did they expect?

Step 1: kickstart an awesome idea and ask money from your average joe
step 2: use the money to create mentioned product
step 3: sell the company, funded by average joe, to... facebook. Sell an idea for virtual reality gaming to fucking facebook...
step 4: get ready to use your newly found riches to build one massive flame shield

If you did not know about or anticipate step 4 then you sir are an idiot.

Kickstarter funded the product, not the company. If you own 100% shares in that company, you're free to sell it to whoever the fuck you want. Just because some moronic kids don't understand that donating money for a "pledge reward" does not equal buying a share into the company, doesn't make it the owners fault.

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.

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.

This.

This kind of shit is perfectly legal, and there-in lies the issue: You can beg the average John. Q. Public for cash, convincing them they'll get none of the corporate BS you usually get, and then when you sell out for billions of dollars you're in the clear just because you covered the milestone rewards.

This is going to hurt Kickstarter and other sites that try to give the little guy a leg-up, because it's setting a really nasty legal precedent.

Edit: More on topic, though... Death threats, fucking really? I'm willing to discuss with someone the legal and moral issues of this entire thing and be proven wrong, but harassing the developer's family is not called for. At all.

 

[Riverwolf]

Everyone here has said in the past that they are against people arrested for making death threats online, but how about those that were harassing the staff and families over the phone, of which I imagine were some death threats as well? Can we arrest those ones?

I'm, personally, not against seeking legal action against those who make death threats. Those are already all kinds of illegal (at least in America). (EDIT: Okay, after double-checking this, it appears that it's only kind of illegal, if there's a clear and immediate intention to cause harm. Internet death threats don't really qualify for that. I do not retract the below, however.)

Far as I'm concerned, the kinds of adults who threaten the lives and safety of other people, serious or not (and I'm talking about whether there's an intention to carry out the death threat or it's a bluff attempt at scaring someone into doing something; I'm not talking about jokes/sarcasm/etc), regardless of the reason, can spend a few years rotting in a cell for all I care (though I do suppose therapy would be better in the long run). That kind of behavior is simply NOT okay.

 

[Grabehn]

Not sure if April Fools or hilariously stupid internet again.

Idiotic internet people sending death threats over every single thing... I wish it was all just April's fools but no, sadly no.

 

[wulfy42]

I don't think it's as simple as, the crowdfunders/backers got what they where promised so they have nothing to complain about.

It really doesn't work like that, and honestly, it's not even really true.

LEGALLY it's true, I won't debate that, but it's not what was implied, or expected.

The point, for most backers, was to eventually have a VR device that was free to use for the entire gaming community. A portal, so to speak, into a VR gaming world that many are waiting for. This was implied in the kickstarter campaign, and even though the Dev kit was all that was promised, it wasn't the eventual goal that was stated, and it wasn't where the company stopped either.

As far as getting what they paid for, remember, many paid more then the eventual price of the product, way before it was released, and could actually be used with any programs. The people that did back the project did it for a dream. I admit, they got what they where promised, but....the facebook deal probably crushed quite a few of their dreams. That can cause anger and disapointment. Death threats, in this case, are going to far (I do feel they are acceptable in some cases such as that guy that just confessed to raping his 3 year old daughter etc). I even don't blame OR for this...if someone came up to you and said, "Hi, I want to buy BLAH for 2 billion" I think it would be hard for anyone to turn them down...unless there was a VERY good reason to do so.

I blame Kickstarter actually, because it does not cover stuff like this in any way, and it probably should. Are backers investers? Should there be any restrictions or long term limits on what a company can do after it meets it's pledge goals? Should the entire backing system change in a way that is more equitable to the backers?

I mean, why are backers not given a portion of potential profits? I'm not talking about a huge amount here, but giving them more then just a few t-shirts, names in a game, and copy of the game itself..when they donate $1000 for instance...would make some sense here. Kickstarter is in the best position right now to provide such a service, but honestly someone should set that up, cause I think after things like this, less people are going to be ok with just throwing their money at companies and hoping they get what was promised (or implied).

2.5mill was invested by backers. The company just made a nice 2billion in profit..and that is not including any additional sales they made already etc. Seems to me that is a HUGE profit already...and if backers where financiers instead, then not only would they get a free OR (or highly discounted whatever), they would get a portion of the profit...proportional to the amount of money they backed it with. It's wouldn't be a 1 to 1 ratio of money spent to profit (since obviously those working on making the object etc would get a significantly larger portion, but....even just giving back 250 million (1/4 of the total profit) to the backers, would mean a 100x return (if you gave 1000, you'd get 100k back). That seems far more fair to me to be honest.

 

[Deadcyde]

Death threats?

Come. The. Fuck. On.

If them selling shit bothers you so much then make your damn own. Especially if you have the knowledge and resources just to track them down to tell them you'll kill them.

FUCK-IN DUUUUUUH.

 

[Schadrach]

Butbutbut... I thought that angry trolls didn't make death threats against anyone who set them off (or would be an amusing target), only women who dare to have opinions on the internet as a reaction to someone assaulting their patriarchal dominance. How can this be?

Wait, it's exactly the other way around, and angry trolls fire off death threats at the drop of a hat, because GIFT? Huh, you learn something every day (or pay any attention to teh interwebz over the past 2 decades).

There is no obligation to do anything for your backers on Kickstarter.

Not true -- there is a stated obligation to provide whatever was listed as a pledge reward for all pledges in the TOS. That is, however, where the obligation starts and ends. Enforcement is poor at best, as well.

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.

Of course, Kickstarter will make glaring exceptions to it's own rules if PR commands, like the "Send a 9yr girl to game development camp so her millionaire mother doesn't have to pay for it, because boys are mean and icky and FEMINISM!!1!one!" kickstarter (interestingly, once the initial media wave passed the entire pitch was rewritten to change the underlying narrative, which apparently is also OK if it's good PR).

People who write death threats for something as petty as a gaming peripheral deserves to get slapped with their own keyboard.

People have written me death threats for writing a post on the Blizzard forums about class balance that basically argued that an existing problem was a problem but it needed to be left in place until another problem was resolved because the first problem was the sole reason a certain spec was invited to raid at all (back in late Wrath).

Another person in this thread mentioned death threats for saying that they didn't like cats.

GIFT is a thing, and everyone gets death threats on the internet if they say something that offends, or if they look like they will be an amusing target.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the internet would give you death threats for putting too much (any) mayonnaise on a sandwich. Nature of the beast to a degree, the combination of emotional and physical distance and anonymity.

Actually a concept that has been the target of psychological research, known as the online disinhibition effect or GIFT (a reference to a Penny Arcade comic naming the effect in question the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory", but the acronym occasionally pops up in actual studies).

 

[samaugsch]

"Person in media gets death threats over buy out from facebook" is about standard as "Person in media gets death threats for donating money to help children in Africa"

I would find it REALLY depressing if that happened. Also, i really want to see the death threats that oculus rift got for shits and giggles.

 

[MrFalconfly]

Spoiler

Butbutbut... I thought that angry trolls didn't make death threats against anyone who set them off (or would be an amusing target), only women who dare to have opinions on the internet as a reaction to someone assaulting their patriarchal dominance. How can this be?

Wait, it's exactly the other way around, and angry trolls fire off death threats at the drop of a hat, because GIFT? Huh, you learn something every day (or pay any attention to teh interwebz over the past 2 decades).

There is no obligation to do anything for your backers on Kickstarter.

Not true -- there is a stated obligation to provide whatever was listed as a pledge reward for all pledges in the TOS. That is, however, where the obligation starts and ends. Enforcement is poor at best, as well.

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.

Of course, Kickstarter will make glaring exceptions to it's own rules if PR commands, like the "Send a 9yr girl to game development camp so her millionaire mother doesn't have to pay for it, because boys are mean and icky and FEMINISM!!1!one!" kickstarter (interestingly, once the initial media wave passed the entire pitch was rewritten to change the underlying narrative, which apparently is also OK if it's good PR).

People who write death threats for something as petty as a gaming peripheral deserves to get slapped with their own keyboard.

People have written me death threats for writing a post on the Blizzard forums about class balance that basically argued that an existing problem was a problem but it needed to be left in place until another problem was resolved because the first problem was the sole reason a certain spec was invited to raid at all (back in late Wrath).

Another person in this thread mentioned death threats for saying that they didn't like cats.

GIFT is a thing, and everyone gets death threats on the internet if they say something that offends, or if they look like they will be an amusing target.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure the internet would give you death threats for putting too much (any) mayonnaise on a sandwich. Nature of the beast to a degree, the combination of emotional and physical distance and anonymity.

Actually a concept that has been the target of psychological research, known as the online disinhibition effect or GIFT (a reference to a Penny Arcade comic naming the effect in question the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory", but the acronym occasionally pops up in actual studies).

GIFT might be a thing. But like so many other things it isn't an excuse.

People just shouldn't plain do it (and I stand by my earlier comment. People who send deaththreats over petty shit like gaming peripherals or even patches deserves a slap in the face with their own keyboard).