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Zuckerberg buying Oculus VR

Anonymous
Not applicable
Guys, this is really huge: Facebook is buying Oculus:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion

I am really surprised by this new, since it is quite a different market (or not?).

Anyway, huge CONGRATS to the Oculus Team!
396 REPLIES 396

Ultranoob
Honored Guest
How much will fb charge for the rift?. The price for the rift is exceptional for the performance and imo one of if not the current selling point of the piece. I can see facebook charging many times what it is right now and ruining its mass appeal :lol:

Far515
Honored Guest
I am following Oculus since Day One in 2012, checking the news and the forum every one or two days. I describe myself as an enthusiast, who imagined a bright future for Oculus as an independent and successful company, when they would have reached CV2 or 3, but what is the first thing I read on my news page a few minutes ago? "Oculus VR has been bought by Facebook", my first thought after the shock was "Yay, free advertisement", but only a second after that I was disappointed, I can't describe how much and it would blow this thread if I would.

I clicked the article and read about it. Zuckerberg describes HIS "Future" of VR and HIS vision of Games etc.... I nearly vomited.

To bring this to an end. I am sad and disappointed. By Oculus, Nate, Iribe , but mainly Palmer, you always sounded like a nice guy with the best plan to bring VR back alive and make the future happen, but after that I can only say that I don't give a fuck about your ideas anymore, you obviously chose money over your ideals. 😞

The only thing I already read was, that you tried to justify it by saying "I chose the best way to bring VR to everyone", I say, that you have chosen the worst, you should have taken the hard way and reach popularity by good work and patience until CV2 or later.

Ps.: I hope time will prove me wrong, nevertheless you have lost a real and loyal supporter......
i7 4770K @4,4 GHz GTX 780 SC (EVGA) 32GB Corsair Vengeance 1866

Gzhindra
Honored Guest
If this takes even a tiny bit of freedom in the way the end user will be able to use the product: Forced Facebook apps, mandatory store to get compatible softwares or stuffs like "no porn" policy and I will be out of this for good.

I think it an overall bad move as they are now stained by Facebook and I fear it will hurt the sales of the product in its early stage.

Let's see what Sony does. I'm not holding much hope from them too though.

Edudjr
Honored Guest
"Gzhindra" wrote:
If this takes even a tiny bit of freedom in the way the end user will be able to use the product: Forced Facebook apps...

Did you have to install any facebook app to use the website?

Gzhindra
Honored Guest
"Edudjr" wrote:
"Gzhindra" wrote:
If this takes even a tiny bit of freedom in the way the end user will be able to use the product: Forced Facebook apps...

Did you have to install any facebook app to use the website?


Sorry I don't get how your remark is relevant? And I'm not being sarcastic.

Edudjr
Honored Guest
"Gzhindra" wrote:
"Edudjr" wrote:
"Gzhindra" wrote:
If this takes even a tiny bit of freedom in the way the end user will be able to use the product: Forced Facebook apps...

Did you have to install any facebook app to use the website?


Sorry I don't get how your remark is relevant? And I'm not being sarcastic.


My point is: facebook doesn't force you to install any kind of apps, it doesn't force you to share things. Why would they do this now?

Vin
Explorer
"Edudjr" wrote:
My point is: facebook doesn't force you to install any kind of apps, it doesn't force you to share things. Why would they do this now?


That's not entirely true. When you go to most sites, they will automatically load a Like button that tracks you regardless of if you have a Facebook account or not, and report your usage history to Facebook. They've been forcing their reporting structure on you as a user without your consent for years now.

Gzhindra
Honored Guest
"Edudjr" wrote:

Did you have to install any facebook app to use the website?

"Gzhindra" wrote:
Sorry I don't get how your remark is relevant? And I'm not being sarcastic.


My point is: facebook doesn't force you to install any kind of apps, it doesn't force you to share things. Why would they do this now?


Facebook doesn't own my Hardware. Nobody does.
When someone use an apple product, aren't they forced to use apple softwares? I mean without hacking and stuff.

Solstice
Honored Guest
Aaaaaalright...

For me to actually make the effort to post on such a controversial subject ist quite unuasual as i am a lazy person xD
However my passion for VR takes over my laziness here 😛

So lets all take a deep breath, take a step back and look at this situation.

The news came pretty much out of nowhere and I, as probably most people, had a bad feeling hearing about this.
However here are a few things I thought about and so came to the conclusion that this is probably a good thing after all.

First off...

I think we really need to distinguish between Facebook as a company and Facebook the social media platform.
Most complaints I read about went into the direction of: omg facebook ads popping up during every one of my games!

This, in my honest opinion, is very much unlikely. tThat would kill off any gaming platform because it would be annoying as hell.
People would be driven away from the device at the speed of light.
Yeah Facebook made some decisions that i don't agree with and some that where in my opinion really bad, but they are not stupid.

What i think would be more likely, is a social media platform, however it may look like, utalizing the oculus rift. Facebook VR Edition if you will.
Kinda second life-ish maybe or whatever, just to put a picture to my hazy wording here 😉
And yes, on this specific platform you would have a login and you would probably have ads somehow integrated in this virtual environment.
Think VR Chat - just magnitudes larger.
But that would not in any way interfere or interact with other games and software.

Second:

I think we also should distinguish between VR as a medium and Oculus.
I know it's hard because Oculus was the only player in the VR space for two years now, but Oculus is not a synonym for VR as a medium.

Let's face it...people are always rooting for the underdog. With Facebook in the game Oculus isn't an underdog anymore going up against huge companies and I can see why some people don't like this.

BUT: VR as a medium is still very much an underdog. Hell we haven't even got a finished product for it yet.
I personally am rooting for VR as medium to be a success and with the massive amount of money Facebook has, this has become waaaay more likely, much
faster than I ever thought could be possible.

My third point:

Well I make this a short one i guess: Instagram - acquired by facebook - no ads popping up in your face constantly.
An example of a company that still works independetly after being bought by Facebook.
(Yeah i know this could change in the future, but if anyone could see into the future we also would have flying cars by now right? 😄 )

On to the fourth point!

Well the obvious one - Oculus now has a lot more possibilities in terms of custom hardware, publishing deals, the list goes on and on.

So as you see, i think there are a lot of positives here. Mind you I am also still a bit sceptical about this, but i'd be damned if i wouldnt't give Oculus a chance and see how things turn out.
Things for VR are just getting started and they are going to be very intresting and developing a whole lot faster due the involvement of Facebook.

And before any more F*** you posts react to my post, as i have seen it with many ohers happen - You are free to dislike the decision by Oculus and fully entitled to your opinion.
Just please don't insult people because they think this could turn out pretty well, thank you 🙂

I hope i understandably got my point across since english is not my mouther tounge^^
Holy crap this actually turned out to be my longest post to something ever xD

owenwp
Expert Protege
"vin" wrote:
"Edudjr" wrote:
My point is: facebook doesn't force you to install any kind of apps, it doesn't force you to share things. Why would they do this now?


That's not entirely true. When you go to most sites, they will automatically load a Like button that tracks you regardless of if you have a Facebook account or not, and report your usage history to Facebook. They've been forcing their reporting structure on you as a user without your consent for years now.


No, they don't force that on anyone. The website developer has to go out of their way to put like buttons on their pages, and they do it because their users want them to. Are you planning to put like buttons in your games? Because Oculus doesn't need to be in any way involved with FB for you to do so, you could do it right now.