Why do we keep having knee jerk reactions?

KazeAizen

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Yes I'm making this in the wake of the Oculus Rift announcement yesterday. Still I think this needs to be talked about as this shows that gamers really do act like spoiled brats sometimes. With the announcement that Facebook bought Oculus VR for $2 billion is seems that the entire gaming community just dropped them like that. Something that many gamers, PC to be precise, had been waiting eagerly for. We were finally going to have VR with devices like that, the Omni, and Kinect combined. Suddenly Facebook buys it and it is dead to them. Even though at the time the only thing that had really happened was that the stupid thing would have a Facebook sticker on it somewhere. That was literally all that had changed. Nothing else. Yet within hours of the announcement people washed their hands of it. The videos online showed it looked promising so why drop it just because Facebook got it? The product hasn't even hit the shelves so you can't even say that it is a bad thing yet.

This has been one of the absolute worst examples of knee jerk reactions I've seen. There are times when it is warranted. Like during the Xbox ONE announcement. They told us stuff they were going to do, we didn't like it, we reacted, and they retracted. This though they haven't made any real announcements of what exactly their new plans for the Oculus Rift if there are even any new plans. If nothing else this could be a huge boon to the project. I hate to say it guys but sometimes money does actually get stuff done. Sure you can make Flappy Bird or Candy Crush on a dollar but developing a piece of hardware like the Oculus Rift? Yeah that is going to cost a pretty penny and despite their Kickstarter being incredibly successful being able to have a backer with near unlimited money can allow a little breathing room for them if something goes wrong. So I ask you why do we keep having these super knee jerk reactions to stuff? Its not healthy and often our complaints don't hold any validity because we haven't seen anything half the time when we do it. Need I remind you of basically the entire cast of Man of Steel 2? Nothing but knee jerk reactions to the cast with zero ground to stand on.
 

dyre

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eh, people like to complain; often it doesn't mean much, even to them. For example, if Man of Steel 2 turns out to be good (or rather, gets good reviews), I'm sure most of the people who were bitching about the cast will watch it anyway

I wouldn't so much say that the Facebook/Oculus Rift thing is a knee-jerk reaction rather than an overreaction. Facebook is (rightly or wrongly) perceived to be constantly trying to push shit (apps, ads, etc) in the user's face as well as possibly sell your data to corporations to the government. So it's natural to be concerned that similar policies might be applied to Oculus Rift
 

krazykidd

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dyre said:
I wouldn't so much say that the Facebook/Oculus Rift thing is a knee-jerk reaction rather than an overreaction. Facebook is (rightly or wrongly) perceived to be constantly trying to push shit (apps, ads, etc) in the user's face as well as possibly sell your data to corporations to the government. So it's natural to be concerned that similar policies might be applied to Oculus Rift
This. Whether or not it's and overreaction is yet to be seen, but i personally lost interest. I don't have facebook, i don't like facebook, i don't like social networking, i don't trust them. Whatever views i have towards facebook are now transfered to the OCCULUS, until proven otherwise.
 

Genocidicles

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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.845780-Facebook-May-Rebrand-Oculus-Rift-Import-Interface

They're bringing the Facebook interface to it as well.

So what does that mean? Will I have to have Facebook running in the background to use the Rift? Will there be a Facebook overlay over everything, like a toolbar or Steam?

They're doing more than just slapping a Facebook sticker on it. What they add might not be as terrible as everyone thinks, but it certainly isn't an improvement.
 

Jdb

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It's not a knee jerk reaction when you're familiar with both sides of the equation. This is a huge loss that will set back virtual reality for a long time.

The original Oculus Rift was open source. Open source is a big deal with a high potential for unexpected innovation and technological advancement. Facebook is a mega corporation. Mega corporations do not like open source. Therefore, Oculus Rift is going to lose the 'open source' part of its hook. Facebook is a social advertising website that acquires things to help its social advertising. Therefore, Oculus Rift is going to become a social advertising tool for Facebook and not much else.
 

Esotera

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Jdb said:
It's not a knee jerk reaction when you're familiar with both sides of the equation. This is a huge loss that will set back virtual reality for a long time.

The original Oculus Rift was open source. Open source is a big deal with a high potential for unexpected innovation and technological advancement. Facebook is a mega corporation. Mega corporations do not like open source. Therefore, Oculus Rift is going to lose the 'open source' part of its hook. Facebook is a social advertising website that acquires things to help its social advertising. Therefore, Oculus Rift is going to become a social advertising tool for Facebook and not much else.
Facebook are actually quite good at open source, just not open platforms.

OT: the problem is that facebook are only interested in building user numbers and collecting data - that's their core business model. Also I don't think financial backing is that much of an issue considering the kickstarter & valuation that facebook gave it.
 

KazeAizen

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Genocidicles said:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.845780-Facebook-May-Rebrand-Oculus-Rift-Import-Interface

They're bringing the Facebook interface to it as well.

So what does that mean? Will I have to have Facebook running in the background to use the Rift? Will there be a Facebook overlay over everything, like a toolbar or Steam?

They're doing more than just slapping a Facebook sticker on it. What they add might not be as terrible as everyone thinks, but it certainly isn't an improvement.
God forbid we try and do something other than play games with this tech. Here is the way I'm seeing things. Right now the Oculus is still on track to be what it originally was intended to be. However now we have a company who may want to add something to it that is different than gaming. I mean Mark Zuckerburg isn't an idiot. He might see potential we as gamers don't see. If our gamer wishes come true in addition to whatever he does I say that's a win win situation. Still we don't have anything to really be too upset about. I mean if the device retains its original base functionality and has some extras then so be it. I mean that is literally all 3 consoles right now and we are now at a point where we complain when they DON'T have these extras.
 

Genocidicles

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KazeAizen said:
God forbid we try and do something other than play games with this tech. Here is the way I'm seeing things. Right now the Oculus is still on track to be what it originally was intended to be. However now we have a company who may want to add something to it that is different than gaming. I mean Mark Zuckerburg isn't an idiot. He might see potential we as gamers don't see. If our gamer wishes come true in addition to whatever he does I say that's a win win situation. Still we don't have anything to really be too upset about. I mean if the device retains its original base functionality and has some extras then so be it. I mean that is literally all 3 consoles right now and we are now at a point where we complain when they DON'T have these extras.
I just don't want any of the downsides that Facebook integration will bring, and considering the Oculus will now have a Facebook interface, it seems like Facebook integration is mandatory.

Will I have my choice of games (or my actions within a game) recorded and sold for marketing purposes? Will I have annoying messages taking me out of the game, just so Facebook can tell me I've been tagged in a photo? Will I have to sit through a bombardment of ads? All of that happens on Facebook already, so it's logical to assume it will apply to any interface of theirs.
 

Smooth Operator

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If you want to play naive then by all means have your cake and eat it.
But the reality is those two billion are not charity money, they are for devs to hand over all their work so that FB can do with Oculus what they want, and right now they are two billion short so guess where that money will be made back... Oculus Farmville eye scorching ad spam here we go.
 

michael87cn

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Rift was never going to be good anyway. Virtual reality is not about strapping a television on top of your eyeballs. Its about replacing the world you are in. This can't be done. It won't be done. It's all a fantasy.

The fact that peoples bodies reject the device physically, is further proof that this is not the way to go.

It's a shame because people get caught up in hype for these things and get excited. But really, you were deceiving yourselves if you thought this was going to truly be VR.

VR does not exist. It can't exist. It never will exist. The moment it does (which is never) people will prefer it to real life, and it would ruin humans... think, Matrix. Where would you rather exist? Attached to a machine that can give you any life you want? Or living a mundane life, sacrificing everything for almost nothing... like most people do...

I would choose VR. My life is going to be something no one remembers, and no one knows about. I am going to spend the rest of my life serving people who don't even notice I do it. I am going to continue to exist by eating, working and sleeping. But I will die one day, and it will all be a terrible waste. I could choose to make myself stand out, but that's not what I want. What I want is to be happy, and I can't get that by myself. VR could give me that happiness, but it's a fantasy.

Saying all this, the occulus rift might have been a fun gaming machine.
 

idarkphoenixi

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People don't like Facebook, a lot of people, including myself. I have no intention of using any product or social platform involved with Facebook because I have absolutely no intention of affiliating myself with that service.

It's not just going to be a simple logo on the side, they didn't spend $2 Billion just to use their name on the thing and leave it exactly the same, it's going to be integrated with the Facebook service and I want nothing to do with that. If I had backed the kickstarter I would have felt pretty ripped off so it's understandable a lot of people are upset about this.
 

Strain42

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People NEED something to be angry about. It doesn't matter what it is. And if nothing is going on for us to be angry about, people will MAKE something to be angry about.

Like remember that whole Chik-Fil-A thing? Where out of the blue someone just decided to ask the super christian president of the company about his thoughts on gay marriage...then people got shocked and outraged when he said he didn't personally believe in it.

People need to be angry about something all the time. We need something that is so obviously "in the wrong" that we can feel morally superior.

I'm no exception. I'm always angry about something. I just reserve that anger for drivers that don't use their turn signals.

On topic...I really don't care about this. I've never cared about the OR as a device, but because the internet is exploding with rage right now, I've somehow managed to read why he chose Facebook to sell it to rather than one of the more game central companies trying to buy it, and I get it. The news of what has happened doesn't make me care any more or any less about this thing.

SolveMedia is saying "kick back and relax" maybe some people should take that advice.
 

Evil Moo

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Feb 26, 2011
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The absolute best case scenario is that Facebook does nothing to interfere with the actual device. Even then that would mean simply by buying it you are supporting Facebook, and by supporting them, you are supporting all their shitty business practices and demonstrable disregard for end users. This is something I am not comfortable doing, so regardless of their effect on the end product, it is effectively ruined and I cannot happily purchase this technology.

As this best case is pretty unlikely given all the talk of social integration and such, I can only see this being several shades more terrible than the above.

Knee jerk reaction maybe, but I'm not seeing much to feel good about here.
 

shteev

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We don't keep having knee jerk reactions. A relatively small number of people do, and they shout loudly about it, so it seems like it's the opinion of a lot of people.
 

Weaver

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Zuck said:
We're clearly not a hardware company. We're not gonna try to make a profit off of the devices long term. We view this as a software and services thing, where if we can make it so that this becomes a network where people can be communicating and buying things and virtual goods, and there might be advertising in the world, but we need to figure that out down the line.
You can hear it yourself at 29:15
http://www.shareholder.com/visitors/event/build3/stage/stage.cfm?mediaid=63723&mediauserid=0

Something that's bothered me for awhile now is everyone thinks people are just an uninformed angry mob, flailing about. While this may be true to an extent, dozens of developers have spoken out against the acquisition. Many backers, who have already given the company money, have spoken out against the acquisition and, to be frank, I think it's rude to assume people's opinions on the matter are uninformed.

I'm a software developer, that's my job and the tech industry is the world I live in. I've been through two software acquisitions in my comparatively short career, and I've seen the privacy terror's Facebook is capable of.

Quite frankly, the reaction might seem "knee-jerk" but this is something people in the tech industry have seen happen countless times. We're jaded of the idea of every entrepreneur and enthusiastic company being snatched up and divided by one of the few technology giants. I don't want to live in that world.

tldr; maybe some people's backlash is more informed than it may seem.
 

Frezzato

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Eh, the uproar over Oculus Rift isn't that bad compared to, well everything. I'm talking about soccer hooligans [http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qARY6cyPiak/T7rMVuk-1tI/AAAAAAAAANw/WroSvnzQHvs/s1600/235.jpg], youth sports [http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/sfl-fields-of-screams-2013,0,6146799.htmlstory], death over cereal [http://www.crimelibrary.com/photogallery/killed-over-what.html?curPhoto=1]. The list goes on and on. Hell, people were upset with IKEA for dropping the Expedit bookcase [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/23/ikea-killed-off-expedit-storage].

I say let people get upset. They got their reasons. Things will calm down until yet another law enforcement spokesman blames Solitaire as the leading cause of face blindness [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia] or something like that.

Hell, I get angry all the time. Like when Extra gum discontinued their Fruit Sensations Berry Smoothie flavor [http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61bFvsGhhJL._SY300_.jpg]. Oooh I was--I was mad. I was SO ANGRY.

Yeah no. I was sad for a day, and then I found another gum flavor. But Extra is dead to me.