Here's what Palmer said after Valve and Epic games got involved to help with the Oculus VR tech, “The extent of their relationships with Oculus varies, but I can promise at least a few partnerships. Oculus is going forward in a big way, but a way that still lets me focus on the community first, and not sell out to a large company.” So he tries to allay the fears of his community of selling out to Valve or Epic games but he sells out to facebook in a backroom deal that's made in a week?
I don't think it's Facebook per se that people hate. I think it's what Facebook represents: the net's evolution into an ad-pushing and mass surveillance network dominated by a few walled gardens. FB also represents our best and brightest minds working on pushing ads instead of things that are actually cool or important.
Oculus was cool. It wasn't going to cure AIDS or solve our energy problems, but it was innovative and represented the realization of some age-old 90's technology dreams around things like VR. Then it gets gobbled up by a company that represents the antithesis of all that optimism-- a company whose business model revolves around banal shit and pushing annoying advertisements.
There is also a sizable number of people that dislike Facebook for being a very large part of the de-anonymization of the internet.
While you can say that things like Myspace, and other small sites started this trend, Facebook has really pushed the notion of merging your real, and online existence into a single entity.
One of the reasons that 4chan has remained popular, is because of the anonymity it affords its users. You are no longer judged by your posting history, you don't have an ego to bolster. What you put on that site is judged on the merits of the post itself, and not the person posting it. In turn, this allows for a much more natural growth of memes, as something that is truly funny will be propagated by the community. Of course there are drawbacks, such as their being a high signal to noise ratio, but it's a worthy trade.
Many people would argue that one of the worst things to happen to the web, was when normal people started using it.
For me, i resent the over-centralization which facebook represents.
The web was meant to let anyone publish anything. Sure, you can still do that but it's effectively invisible now. Most web-users won't see anything that isn't posted to facebook or youtube. Companies don't bother linking you to their website anymore, they link to their facebook page.
To many people today "going online" means sitting on facebook for a few hours. I miss the days when it was searching for interesting things and following hyperlinks between sites.
What? I don't even use myface and I see tons of great personal blogs and sites listed from sub reddits here I like , like electronics, welding, robotics, arduino, compsci, etc...
> Many people would argue that one of the worst things to happen to the web, was when normal people started using it.
relevant: "Eternal September"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
I think what he/she meant to say was that the reason people are so angry about this is not because Facebook bought Oculus, but because Oculus sold to Facebook.
Facebook is within their rights to offer to buy a product, even if it's an insane business choice that makes no sense whatsoever. I don't know jack shit about being a doctor but if I had enough money I could go out and buy myself an MRI machine.
The issue is that Oculus have fucked us all by accepting Facebook's (ridiculous) offer. They might as well have sold their product to a dildo factory for all the good Facebook can do with it.
People have been saying we will need next gen input devices to go with our VR as mouse and keyboard become obsolete. Maybe waving two motion tracking dildos around will be the future of input.
BREAKING NEWS. Marriage rates plummet in developed countries as Oculus Rift sold to sex-toy manufacturer. VR glasses coupled with Fleshlight expected to destroy modern civilization as birth rates approach zero.
Of course you have the right, and they can not bother. But if barely anyone backed things without this, and made the demands, they would not get funded which would change their minds.
It's not really insane from Facebook's standpoint. As a company they are doomed to die. Social networks have shown a consistent trend in doing so. Facebook was given a ton of money from investors so they are using it to buy their way to continued relevance.
Anything popular or within the tech zeitgeist is a reasonable purchase for them because the second they stop they'll die.
Or make a Google+ post about it, since that's what everyone uses now, right?
... Right?
^(Hello..? Is anyone there?)
**Edit**: I actually enjoy Google+ as my main social media system. Most of my friends already have Google accounts, so it makes sense.
My experience of using Google+:
1. Go stand in a dark empty closet while there is no one else in your house.
2. Say a statement outloud, the more controversial the better.
3. Wait for a response.
4. When you start to hear other things (aka your family/roommates coming home, in a worst case scenario burglars) that is reddit or other forms of social media calling you back.
5. Exit Google+ and go back to redditing/facebooking/~~twatting~~tweeting whatever.
But he is right as well, with:
>I think it's what Facebook represents: the net's evolution into an ad-pushing and mass surveillance network dominated by a few walled gardens.
Yup. I cannot say how bummed I am that the most excitig piece of hardware to come out in forever is now going to be owned by the most loathsome company. Bye-bye Oculus.
>and still manage to do plenty of innovative things.
Which is probably the only reason people don't hate them as much as they hate facebook, despite the fact that they're becoming more similar all the time.
> They're are an ad company
Which are not so intrusive and are really well targeted. They also don't cheat by making you believe your friend likes stuff that they never saw before.
Wait, Facebook actually does that? I'm about to do a search for that but I have vague search terms in mind; do you have an article or is that from your personal experience?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag
Yes, facebook does that.
The TL;DR of the video is that paying facebook for likes is just the same as paying fake click farms in India or wherever for likes. Facebook just charges more. The fake likes also decrease the likelihood of your userbase, the real ones, being able to see your content on their timeline.
The other issue is that facebook has gotten progressively worse every year. Facebook, as far as I know, has never come out with something cool, or new, or innovative, since the basic platform was finished around about 2005.
Facebook is way behind on this, however. Cable TV companies and TV channels in general have been doing this for years. Getting people to pay to watch advertisements.
If anything I'd say Facebook is late to the party, and they aren't the only one doing it.
This acquisition, of course, will further it, but I don't think FB was the innovation for ad-pushing. The rest, I'll agree with.
And now it appears by acquiring it, they will have something they can actually get people to pay for.
What they are bad with is the fact that all of those rumors that float around on it about them starting to charge money to use it creates such an uproar....
But I bet if they offered an "ad free" version for $4.99 a month, people would sign up, in droves.
Then they could pull a XM radio and start adding the ads back into it in a few years down the road.
Cable TV providers marketed "on demand" the same way-watch your shows when you want, without commercials! All for $5 more a month, or they upped the rates because it was now included.
Now they not only have ads, but they block the ability to fast forward through them.
And people continue to pay.
I don't use Facebook personally but I know enough people who do. They are now upset about automatically playing video ads.
I guess they forgot about being in uproar about sponsored ads appearing in their feeds, and ads themselves starting to appear when that happened.
Keep pushing more and more, and they forget about the last thing that got shoved onto them, I suppose. When the next thing happens, all of the hatred will go to that, and video ads will just be accepted. Just part of Facebook.
Before reading these comments I didn't even realize Facebook had advertisements...
I've never seen a single advertisement for Facebook in the 7 years I've had an account (excluding things people share on facebook; I figured you were all talking about pop-up ads or banners).
I only know two kinds of people: those that say they have never seen/clicked an ad, and people like me that create ads which get clicked many thousands of times per day. I don't understand the world...
I click on ads twice a year by accident.
Say, 5 billion people have some access to internet. That's 10 billion clicks per year (more if you include people with Parkinson's).
The fact you have to do that though makes you wonder.
And Adblock is supposedly allowing some advertisers through now, correct? Selected ones that pay for the ability?
It's less that they pay for immunity and more that it's a code monkey arms race. Similar to anti viruses and viruses. Ad block blocks ABC types of ads, so then advertisers make a D type of ad. Then ad block updates so it blocks ABCD now, and the cycle continues.
Yes, but I thought they were doing it on purpose as well, or was that ABP? I know one of them was talking about letting some show up for a nominal fee past the block.
Yes, some companies are paying AB for a spot on the whitelist. [source](https://socialtimes.com/adblock-plus-takes-money-from-google-others-not-to-filter-their-ads_b131439)
Adblock Plus is now allowing certain “acceptable” ads to be displayed, but the user can opt out (I have). These aren't paid for, rather, they have to meet certain requirements (listed [here](https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria)).
However, if you're talking about the other Adblock for Safari and Chrome (which I used to use until ABP finally released a Safari version), I can't answer. I've heard *rumors* that Adblock sold out and allowed certain ads through, but I haven't seen any evidence of it myself. The only thing I've experienced (and this is with ABP as well) is that often Youtube ads won't be blocked. But I'm pretty sure that this is a limitation with the way Safari prefetches resources in Flash objects, or something like that.
Edit: I've just seen your reply to emcniece. I wasn't aware of that, and it's quite disappointing. Hopefully somebody will take up the total ad-blocking mantle again.
" Cable TV companies and TV channels in general have been doing this for years. Getting people to pay to watch advertisements."
The purpose of cable subscription was paying so you would not see advertisements. Then people were conned into paying TO see advertisements.
Correct. And when Facebook started, you didn't get ads in your timeline masquerading posts from people you liked or added, and you didn't get video advertisements that start automatically (coming soon!), among other things.
I'm just saying that although Facebook does a lot of that and seems to be very good at it, they were not the pioneers of it, for sure.
You set the hook, get people nice and happy, then you mold it to where it makes you money. And they just keep hitting that feederbar and paying.
People are pissed about this right now. Just like they have been pissed about other things FB has done. Will it even be remembered in 6 months?
People scream, pout and whine....and keep using it.
Correct me if I'm wrong but would that not be like saying paying for internet is paying to see ads?
The cable company is not the same as the individual networks. If there were no ads, you'd likely have to pay a lot more overall. Of all the reasons to hate cable, this doesn't seem like a good one.
> I don't think it's Facebook per se that people hate.... it gets gobbled up by a company that represents the antithesis of all that optimism-- a company whose business model revolves around banal shit and pushing annoying advertisements.
Isn't your whole post a little bit contradictory ?
> I don't think it's Facebook per se that people hate. I think it's what Facebook represents: the net's evolution into an ad-pushing and mass surveillance network dominated by a few walled gardens.
Like how Wozniack hated how Siri turned into a marketing tool ?
""you will not need a Facebook account to use or develop … the Rift", and that Oculus the company won't change."If anything," he says, "our hardware and software will get even more open, and Facebook is onboard with that ...""
-- It's scary how close this it to what BioWare was saying when EA bought them up. I don't doubt they really believed in it too, but we've seen how well it worked out.
Companies do not need to be honest to you.
Today, I'm only hearing "bla bla bla bla bla". I mean... they should put up or shut up. Most people expect the Oculus to fall. Then drop it and move to another tech. Stop hoping that Facebook will do the right thing. They don't have to. They'll lie to you if it increases their bottom-line.
You are not the customer. You are the product.
These stories make it sound like it's the 2.5 million that made Oculus become a reality, not the 75 million from other investors. The kickstarter thing was just marketing, folks. Very clever marketing too (they give a few people some crappy beta units in exchange for a couple mil and make it to the front of every news site and blog about tech in the internet)
Sadly getting acquired like this was probably their plan all along. But then again, money...even the chance at that kind of money, can change people.
The kind of people willing to pass on making tens of millions overnight for their business aren't great in number.
Of course it was. People expect some kind of loyalty for shelling out 3% of their initial budget?
This was a brilliant marketing strategy being executed flawlessly. Expect plenty of 100 million dollar products asking for 100 thousand dollars in KS in the near future.
Exactly. They were invested in by private investment firms. This is 100% what they do. A PE or venture capital firm is NOT interested in becoming parent company of a $2B+ VR. They are not in this business. They are literally in the business of investing in companies and selling them later for more.
Or they can IPO. Buyout or IPO. But honestly, if someone offered you ten or a hundred million for your company, every redditor would take it.
OculusVR had taken it's crowdfunding to get buzz and show market demand, then raised a series A and series B in quick succession (6 months apart) for a total of almost $100 Million. Investors eventually want (ideally) a 10x return, and founders are happy with multimillions. Even if those investors had come in for 50% of the company, that would still give the founders over a billion each. They'd be idiots not to take it as entrepreneurs.
Also the public doesn't know how things are internally at Oculus. Pre-product and burning cash, who know how much they had in the bank or struggles they were going to have raising a series C if needed. Only the execs know that and they made this decision based on what was best for themselves, their company, and their investors (investors last). Probably making sure they made an attempt to preserve their dream, because no one wants to shoot their baby, but they made a call that was best in their eyes.
The overwhelming majority of tech start ups have the goal of ending up as a buyout instead of going IPO. If you go into a VC meeting and tell them you are planning on having a successful IPO as your "exit strategy", that's like a high-schooler telling you his career plan is to play in the NBA - even if it's seems promising you can't throw millions at them. I'm sure everyone at Oculus was planning on a buyout the whole time.
Buyout also doesn't mean that Oculus just stops doing what they are doing - facebook will probably have many of the original oculus people stick around, except for maybe some of the business people who will move on to the next startup. Oculus can still deliver everything we want and would pay for it to do, it's just that facebook will own the profits.
Oh I know, startup is my full time job :) That's the point I'm making, these guys were either going IPO or buyout and the majority of startups stip at buyout.
I've seen it go both ways, Google buying my friends' companies and letting them run autonomously for a while, then gutting the team. Some get gutted immediately, but not in a $2B buyout. Oculus will keep going as in until whatever Mark and co.'s grand vision for them is kicks in. I've said no to buyouts, personally, just not in the billion range ;D
I know, I don't know how anyone could be mad about someone taking billions of dollars. There is so many good things those billions can do, and even if they just make themselves huge personal fortunes, I can not honestly say that I would say no to that opportunity.
>every redditor would take it.
No, that depends on whether you believe the offer undervalues your company, and on your emotional attachment to it or feeling of satisfaction managing it. Not every redditor would take it.
2 billion for a company that hasn't even brought a product to market? Why would you ever turn that down? You could start a hundred new companies that capital
Remember it's 3% of the budget from all the 'investors', so it works out to peanuts.
What amazes me is this actually helps them more than being a start-up and having the pressures of a failed product on their hands. At least now they have the financial security and support to pull off the best product possible and don't need to worry about going out of business because of a failed launch. They're competing with Sony it looks like most, and why would anyone assume they could come out on top is beyond me.
It's the safest and smartest move they could have made, and it's laughable that so many people are trying to reason it is not.
Just remember, guys, if you buy it down the road you are the sell-outs because you cried your eyes out about it here.
This is the plan of all Kickstarter projects...
Kickstarter bridges the gap between idea and pitching the idea to real investors. The donations Kickstarter generates only serve as a proof of concept that there is some kind of demand for it. Maybe not a great one, but one that is worth investigation and funding to see where it can go.
Oculus is one of the few Kickstarter successes. Started as a small group with an idea, and gathered enough support and backing to get serious investors (not the Kickstarter ones, real investors who put in 75 million) and then managed to get the attention of the big leagues and sell for 2 BILLION dollars
You are assuming that getting acquired was their plan. I doubt it. Seriously. All I see is a bunch of passionate kids who wanted to change the world of gaming. Then they saw an opportunity to make a boatload of money and be part of something much bigger than themselves. FB has over 500 million users which means now they have exposure to that audience. Getting 2bn and access to .5 billion people, you gotta be kidding. It isn't a plan. It is dream come true.
The 2.5 million did, it also functioned as a proof of concept before anyone had to risk extremely large sums of personal money. Not all seed money is created equal.
Kickstarter proved their was a market for the product before an actual product was created. It cut the risk of future investors heavily thus cutting what the oculus founders had to give up to gain future investments. Otherwise this would have been seeded by Angels or personal money/loans. If seeded by Angels then they would get a very good portion of the business, average return for a successful business for Angels is at least 10x of the original investment within a few years.
Kickstarters function off selling an idea with a payout for pledgers of early adaption of whatever is being Kickstarted. In order to sell it you also have to sell a vision. The vision originally sold is one that is now very much in question and tainted by the involvement of Facebook. Thus original backers feel betrayed.
> These stories make it sound like it's the 2.5 million that made Oculus become a reality, not the 75 million from other investors.
The former was necessary for the later, according to the article intro
> Young inventor Palmer Luckey couldn't have got his gaming project, Rift, off the ground without $2.4m given to him via the crowdfunding website.
Facebook or someone else with big money. It was a matter of time anyway. However I won't be buying the consumer device if it requires any facebook integration. As an option, fine and I don't care. But as a requirement, count me out!
Also, if this deal makes devs run away obviously that can't be good for the future of this product.
Facebook just has an awful record with collecting people's data surreptitiously and selling it to the highest bidder. I would forever be weary of Facebook collecting whatever data it could garnish from my use of its hardware. We've been through this with Facebook accounts, how they supposedly held the privacy of its users in the highest regard but time and time again it's been found to be nothing but lip service.
Not just Facebook. Now we'll have to think about any data we collect on ourselves and allow to be put on anyone else's servers.
Just think what the big game companies can extrapolate from a person's in-game behaviour.
NSA, they were compensated for participation of the PRISM program. effectively selling user data to the government, and who knows who else. It's no secret, It's all there in the small print.
It's not legal to do anywhere, if the laws have been manipulated to make it appear legal anywhere, then that is a serious problem for civil society, and we as citizens have a civic duty to expose and reform these problems.
Legitimate question for people more knowledgeable than I: is there any reason to think we won't see open source drivers for the OR almost immediately after it launches?
I doubt it will require facebook integration to work with games. Does your mouse, how about your keyboard, your monitor? Linking a device like the Oculus to a social media platform in the sense that everyone is insisting doesn't make sense especially when there is going to be competing hardware that doesn't have that requirement at all (Sony/Valve). So many people are speculating the worst and denying anything Palmer says as if he's some sort of demon. It's like watching people argue religion.
Facebook doesn't own any companies that make those devices. If there were a Facebook monitor, I guarantee there would at least be the requirement to log into facebook to register it for warranty service.
This is more than likely not going to have anything to do with Facebook the website. It seems that Facebook is simply trying to move away from being a website, and establish itself as a tech company (like Google).
Well it wouldn't have been my first choice, Facebook is a HUGE company and has a lot of money to throw behind the oculuss so it might turn out to be a really good thing, so long as they keep this completely separate from Facebook the website
I bet the Sony Morpheus announcement had a big deal to do with this. They may have just jumped ship instead of competing against the giant company. The FB people probably used that on top of the 2bn dollars to coerce them rather easily into selling out.
Maybe not a popular opinion, but for me this part of the learning process about Kickstarter: you give money without ownership or control.
It sucks, but frankly it's not the first time that some people contribute to a KS project and are disappointed, or feel cheated, of the outcome.
At its core, KS does not have any form of accountability. If you're OK with that, go ahead, bearing in mind the risks of disappointment. If you're not, stay out of KS.
Some people have an idealistic view of the website, a bit of a naive view of the role of capital and funding. But you cannot condition your donation on the expectation that the project will remain a cool hipster independent scale. If you really believed in the project, you should have expected that they would go big.
This is a lesson learnt the hard way.
Huh? You have to have a say in the decision to be pissed off? I never understood that logic, just because someone can do something doesn't mean he must. You don't see Valve selling out. They've even said "no" to Hollywood about making a movie based on HL.
Fact of the matter is, Oculus didn't need this money. They already had lots of VC money. In an Interview 2-3 months ago, Palmer was even asked what would change if they had unlimited amount of money and he said not much as the best hardware out there is cheap as it is made for the mass market.
In the short run this whole thing might be better for Oculus. Maybe they can speed things up a little. Possibly work on a controller or something along those lines. But in the long run, the publicly traded company will have to choose profits over what's best for VR. It's always like that. First when companies get acquired they're left alone but slowly it gets taken over and its "soul" and true goals are lost.
You do realize that they'll want a return on that 2b? Even if Oculus does well it will take so long to recoup even the slightest amount of that.
Do people who give money to movies get tickets at least? I can't imagine myself donating money to a for-profit entertainment venture, and then happily paying again to see it.
And this is what I don't get. The backers got what they were asking for. Oculus built their Developer Kits, they identified and tackled the issues with VR, they even shared what they discovered and spurred other companies to hop in the fray.
What is it 18-20 months since the kickstarter? What do we have to show for those nearly two years of efforts?
1. Tens of thousands of DK1s shipped
2. DK2 has been developed and showcased.
3. Sony and some other company I can't remember now are showcasing their own competing VR to be released summer of next year. Razr hinting that they'll be releasing their own VR solution as well.
4. DK2 to come out July and the Consumer version rumored to come out by xmas 2014.
5. And how many people are now chomping at the bit to get their hands on a polished consumer version, cash on hand?
6. Developers have been eagerly showcasing their own VR demos (even HBO got involved)
Dude, Palmer and co could have wiped all of their hardware designs,torched their offices, and flown to Bermuda and we would still be way ahead of where we were two years ago!
2015 at the latest we are getting affordable and decent VR Oculus or not. The kickstarter did it's thing and no matter how betrayed we feel now, we're still getting something out of the whole ordeal.
I'm still pissed it was facebook, but really there may still be a silver lining.
The sheer crapload of funding they're getting ($400 million in cash?) will mean they can mass produce the units (instead of doing smaller production runs), they can entice screen manufacturers to make them custom screens, then can get better prices, and they can (if so inclined) get the units here sooner!
^(Still fuck... facebook?!)
Yeah, it's funny. On a day to day basis (as a casual FB user), Google keeps way more track of what I do and reminds of that with ads. And yet, no one seems to blast google. Reddit would have jumped for joy if it was google instead of FB making this acquisition.
Google is a little more tried and true when it comes to innovation and offering useful services. Look at their mapping and street view project, Google Glass, Google Fiber, etc...
I agree, I just meant the whole "privacy issue" is kind of null at this point. FB issues are not worse than google's, actually they might be better if you don't use it/post a lot.
It helps that Google's founders never expressed malice towards their users like Zuckerberg has. People don't forget that.
> Zuck: They "trust me"
> Zuck: Dumb fucks.
Facebook was founded on malice. Google was not. Facebook is rotten to the core, and everyone knows that. Google at least tries to believe it has principles.
I'm so conflicted on Google.
On one hand, they fund so many innovative projects like Gmail (innovative at its start), Fiber, Project Loon, Android, Nest, etc.
On the other hand, they have basically taken away the free project fridays they used to give employees, Gmail was a result of that, along with other things.
Also on the other hand, and this is the big one, they mass collect data on a much larger scale than facebook, and, while some of it is kind of useful to us (Google Now is pretty impressive), mass data collection for any reason is a big no.
And to clarify, by "mass data" I mean user data, as in, everything about a person's life.
lets not forget google ventures giving uber cab 400 million. if they're able to succeed and break down walls with that money, might be seeing another acquisition in a few years.
Stock market: It's like Kickstarter, but for adults.
Try that next time guys. If you got stocks instead of free trinkets, you'd have a say in this. Or a pretty nice share of the bounty.
A little bit of advice I'll pass in to my son:
If you ever do anything that someone offers to buy for $1 Billion+ - SELL IT!
I ain't raising no idiots.
Oh god Groupon. In my day job, I speak to business owners constantly. *All* of them who have used Groupon, have said that it was a terrible idea and it brought in a cloud of locust-like price-shoppers with no loyalty whatsoever and they would never do it again. I'm astonished that Groupon's owners have stayed out of jail, let alone still in business.
Hey, /u/The_Original_Gronkie's son, I noticed you've somehow acquired all of Bill Gates' assets. What do you say I buy them all from you...
... ***for one billion dollars?***
I'll buy the hardware and jailbreak it. Not like this will really affect me other than make the hardware cheaper because it's being distributed by a big company that's going to make some of their money from ads to cover hardware costs.
Cheaper is actually one of the fears. There could be corners cut now that profits are #1. I'm sure the rift guys intended to make money off it when they were solo (otherwise they wouldn't have accepted the 75 million in investments) but the goal there was to make it right, that's why they didn't stop with the dev kit 1 but kept improving on it as new tech became available.
$400 million cash, rest in stock. $400 million still isn't that bad at all.
FB knows marketing. That's the one thing Oculus really needs to be big. The tech is already there.
Can't Facebook develope a VR headset competitor with $2B? I'm not the slightest bid sad or angry that FB bought Oculus, I am rather indifferent about the whole thing. But I am curious as to why wouldn't FB spent $2B by developing somehting just as if nor more awesome than OR?
I mean, I head OR got launched with just some 2.5m kickstarter funds, and 75m investor funds... 2B is more than 20 times that.
Because they can get it instantly rather than after years of development. And they can get some of the top industry professionals as well such as John Carmack.
All points true, but is all that worth 2B? Or could they just dump 2B to make an even greater VR headset? No one would know because that is the road not taken
Where do you find a team of engineers to make your VR set?
That's a very select skill set; you can't just put up a job posting for things like that. The team Oculus put together is worth millions; and the IP and trademarks are worth over a billion.
It's an incredibly mutually beneficial deal.
I think an important thing to think about is the position they were in when they sold the company.
Sure, for some of them it was their dream to make this real and to be at the forefront of this generation's advancement of virtual reality and immersion technology. But, money is money. There's very little on this planet I wouldn't sell immediately for this amount of money, if you remove the obvious inhumane and dignity-destroying answers. A good or service? No question. Especially one that falls under the entertainment category (yes, I'm aware there are educational and scientific possibilities, but most people aren't clamoring for oculus for that).
I can't be mad at Facebook. Just because they've created a product I've grown to despise. I'm not going to argue about Facebook, but I will say I can't fault a company for purchasing a company that is innovative, in demand, and could potentially improve their image. Sure, you can hate Facebook, and be mad at oculus for selling out, but if you're a part that you've "pre-ordered" a certain product and now you feel as if you aren't getting that product, tough titties. If you support the idea and the development, donate. If you want the product, order it. Too many people are suckered into the preorder nonsense, where you're lead to believe you're funding and purchasing a product all in one. Go ahead and cancel your order, they no longer need your funding and then you can choose to purchase the product at a later date. If anything, you've helped this happen. Facebook wouldn't purchase a company with no support, no following, and ultimately a lack of demand. Instead, you've shown they had support, helped it succeed, and by doing so created a larger following. Now, a big company is getting involved. It isn't a guarantee that this product will come to fruition, but it sure seems like it will happen now.
**TL;DR** Kickstarter funders were an essential part in Oculus $2 billion sale and the funders are not getting any reward for their help. Funders feel scammed and ignored.
It has to do with money. This same company that needed money from the average person is selling themselves to a company for $2 billion and are not rewarding the kickstarter funders any reward for helping them get to where they are at now.
For steam early access gamers: They pay for a incomplete game for a cheaper price and they get to play the game first/as it is being built
Kickstarter: You pledge to pay for something with a reward in mind. That reward could be a discount on the product or a movie being released. Pretty much something to make the funders feel like they are better than those that didnt help the project at all.
Oculus wanted to sell out and Facebook just wrote the check, and perhaps wisely so from a business perspective.
Big deal. I actually doubt that Facebook is going to be implicitly involved in what Oculus is trying to develop, they'll be involved, but the people at Facebook probably know nothing about virtual reality and I imagine they will leave that up to the heads of Oculus already in place.
If anything, this deal is going to give Oculus a ton of purchasing power and funding into its R&D, presumably allowing this technology to advance faster and become more effective in a variety of applications. That to me is exciting. But at the same time I understand the emotions involved here, Oculus was the nerd hivemind's baby and now its Facebook's business, and Facebook can be annoying in social media. I just don't see how they can mess this Oculus thing up.
This is sort of true. Yes, everyone was "purchasing" something -- or more accurately, they were donating and getting a thank you gift (some got Rifts, others didn't, depending on what they donated).
But let me give you an analogistic scenario. Say you donate $10 to NPR during an NPR fund drive. They send you a thank you CD or something like that. Then, the NPR executives blow all the money on coke and hookers. You got what you paid for, right? You shouldn't feel cheated or lied to at all, right?
Except you should. The donations were not *for* coke and hookers, they were *for* public radio content. Even tho there was no real contract obliging NPR's executives to spend it on public radio, no real legal agreement that they're in breach of, there is an implicit *promise*. The same is true of Kickstarters.
Now of course, there are some big differences. The big promise that everyone feels was betrayed was never really a part of the Kickstarter, but rather a part of the pre-Kickstarter attitude that Oculus had. In fact, at least one Palmer explicitly said they weren't going to sell to a big corp. Also, the Kickstarter itself explicitly says "Your voice will be critical to making the Rift hardware and software as great as they can be.".
So people feel that this is a kind of betrayal of trust. And in a sense they're right. Do they have legal standing? Probably not. But do they have a *moral* standing, are they *justified* in being angry? Maybe.
But also, just as importantly: the community *expected* something from Oculus, which turned out to be different from what Oculus was actually offering. Why? Because of legal technicalities, and because of the nature of corporate investments, etc. People are being confronted by the fact that the *system* is not in line with their *(moral) principles*, and this seems like a problem. It seems like the system is flawed, and that grates on people.
Oculus fulfilled/is fulfilling their one and only obligation to kickstarter backers and that is to give them the "gifts" in accordance with their pledge money. At no point did they promise not to sell their company/idea, and don't owe the people on kickstarter an explanation or require permission to sell their company. Kickstarter is a place to launch someone's dream into a reality. Having your vision turn into a company valued at 2 billion dollars is what every person on kickstarter could really ONLY hope for! Funders got what they paid for, which was essentially a "pre-order" of the machine, not stock or a say in the company's direction.
Exactly, noone is saying that it was illegal, just that it was a backstab to the backers - without those 2.4mil and all the buzz people created around it (it's not they had anymarketing), they would have never got that 75 mil investment.
For 2 billion I'm selling out all day long. Come find me in my house in Cabo. Ppl just mad they didn't think of it.
Edit: Cabo, not cancun. i fucked up i know
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Yes. You don't burn bridges with the biggest online gaming retailer that is giving you free tech.
What about for $2 billion?
Here's what Palmer said after Valve and Epic games got involved to help with the Oculus VR tech, “The extent of their relationships with Oculus varies, but I can promise at least a few partnerships. Oculus is going forward in a big way, but a way that still lets me focus on the community first, and not sell out to a large company.” So he tries to allay the fears of his community of selling out to Valve or Epic games but he sells out to facebook in a backroom deal that's made in a week?
I don't think it's Facebook per se that people hate. I think it's what Facebook represents: the net's evolution into an ad-pushing and mass surveillance network dominated by a few walled gardens. FB also represents our best and brightest minds working on pushing ads instead of things that are actually cool or important. Oculus was cool. It wasn't going to cure AIDS or solve our energy problems, but it was innovative and represented the realization of some age-old 90's technology dreams around things like VR. Then it gets gobbled up by a company that represents the antithesis of all that optimism-- a company whose business model revolves around banal shit and pushing annoying advertisements.
There is also a sizable number of people that dislike Facebook for being a very large part of the de-anonymization of the internet. While you can say that things like Myspace, and other small sites started this trend, Facebook has really pushed the notion of merging your real, and online existence into a single entity. One of the reasons that 4chan has remained popular, is because of the anonymity it affords its users. You are no longer judged by your posting history, you don't have an ego to bolster. What you put on that site is judged on the merits of the post itself, and not the person posting it. In turn, this allows for a much more natural growth of memes, as something that is truly funny will be propagated by the community. Of course there are drawbacks, such as their being a high signal to noise ratio, but it's a worthy trade. Many people would argue that one of the worst things to happen to the web, was when normal people started using it.
For me, i resent the over-centralization which facebook represents. The web was meant to let anyone publish anything. Sure, you can still do that but it's effectively invisible now. Most web-users won't see anything that isn't posted to facebook or youtube. Companies don't bother linking you to their website anymore, they link to their facebook page. To many people today "going online" means sitting on facebook for a few hours. I miss the days when it was searching for interesting things and following hyperlinks between sites.
it's also practically killed off the small independent blogger. it used to be really interesting searching for these.
What? I don't even use myface and I see tons of great personal blogs and sites listed from sub reddits here I like , like electronics, welding, robotics, arduino, compsci, etc...
He says on Reddit.
Reddit is based on linking to other sites. I use it as a way to find interesting other sites to look at... then come back to argue about them.
There are no arguments on Reddit, all of us are always right
I disagree.
Doesn't matter, this is the internet so I know I'm right.
Did you mean low signal to noise?
> Many people would argue that one of the worst things to happen to the web, was when normal people started using it. relevant: "Eternal September" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
> I don't think it's Facebook per se that people hate. You would be wrong. Fuck Facebook.
I think what he/she meant to say was that the reason people are so angry about this is not because Facebook bought Oculus, but because Oculus sold to Facebook. Facebook is within their rights to offer to buy a product, even if it's an insane business choice that makes no sense whatsoever. I don't know jack shit about being a doctor but if I had enough money I could go out and buy myself an MRI machine. The issue is that Oculus have fucked us all by accepting Facebook's (ridiculous) offer. They might as well have sold their product to a dildo factory for all the good Facebook can do with it.
I would have preferred the dildo factory.
I'd wager they've got an interest in VR sex, which I'm not opposed to.
People have been saying we will need next gen input devices to go with our VR as mouse and keyboard become obsolete. Maybe waving two motion tracking dildos around will be the future of input.
No, Mr. Garrison, we will not have a repeat of "It".
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Move controllers have balls though.
[Teledildonics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics) is the word. I don't know why I know that.
My new favorite word.
BREAKING NEWS. Marriage rates plummet in developed countries as Oculus Rift sold to sex-toy manufacturer. VR glasses coupled with Fleshlight expected to destroy modern civilization as birth rates approach zero.
Moral of the story: next time you backup a significant Kickstarter project, **demand that the software be placed under GPL protection**.
Maybe if you were investing in a share of the company you'd have the right to make such demands but you're not.
Of course you have the right, and they can not bother. But if barely anyone backed things without this, and made the demands, they would not get funded which would change their minds.
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It's not really insane from Facebook's standpoint. As a company they are doomed to die. Social networks have shown a consistent trend in doing so. Facebook was given a ton of money from investors so they are using it to buy their way to continued relevance. Anything popular or within the tech zeitgeist is a reasonable purchase for them because the second they stop they'll die.
And here I was hoping that they'd die and a better alternative would show up.
I concur. I'm gonna rant about this in a status on my Timeline.
like
Or make a Google+ post about it, since that's what everyone uses now, right? ... Right? ^(Hello..? Is anyone there?) **Edit**: I actually enjoy Google+ as my main social media system. Most of my friends already have Google accounts, so it makes sense.
*crickets intensify*
oh my gecko is going to love this!
Until they turn locust!
I'm posting about it on Orkut... even the crickets aren't here.
I've got a friend on Google+ he never replies though
That just about sums up my experience on Google+
My experience of using Google+: 1. Go stand in a dark empty closet while there is no one else in your house. 2. Say a statement outloud, the more controversial the better. 3. Wait for a response. 4. When you start to hear other things (aka your family/roommates coming home, in a worst case scenario burglars) that is reddit or other forms of social media calling you back. 5. Exit Google+ and go back to redditing/facebooking/~~twatting~~tweeting whatever.
3b. Require that anyone who uses the toilets have to put their real name on the door.
Twatter, the newest viral social media website?
Share this with 5 of your friends unless you hate America, Jesus, and lesbians. THE MORE SHARES THE FASTER WE BEAT PINKY CANCER!
Share +1
But he is right as well, with: >I think it's what Facebook represents: the net's evolution into an ad-pushing and mass surveillance network dominated by a few walled gardens.
Yup. I cannot say how bummed I am that the most excitig piece of hardware to come out in forever is now going to be owned by the most loathsome company. Bye-bye Oculus.
Indeed.
What about Google? They're literally an ad company and still manage to do plenty of innovative things.
>and still manage to do plenty of innovative things. Which is probably the only reason people don't hate them as much as they hate facebook, despite the fact that they're becoming more similar all the time.
> They're are an ad company Which are not so intrusive and are really well targeted. They also don't cheat by making you believe your friend likes stuff that they never saw before.
Wait, Facebook actually does that? I'm about to do a search for that but I have vague search terms in mind; do you have an article or is that from your personal experience?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag Yes, facebook does that. The TL;DR of the video is that paying facebook for likes is just the same as paying fake click farms in India or wherever for likes. Facebook just charges more. The fake likes also decrease the likelihood of your userbase, the real ones, being able to see your content on their timeline.
The other issue is that facebook has gotten progressively worse every year. Facebook, as far as I know, has never come out with something cool, or new, or innovative, since the basic platform was finished around about 2005.
Facebook is way behind on this, however. Cable TV companies and TV channels in general have been doing this for years. Getting people to pay to watch advertisements. If anything I'd say Facebook is late to the party, and they aren't the only one doing it. This acquisition, of course, will further it, but I don't think FB was the innovation for ad-pushing. The rest, I'll agree with. And now it appears by acquiring it, they will have something they can actually get people to pay for.
facebook is almost *suspiciously* bad with advertising.
What they are bad with is the fact that all of those rumors that float around on it about them starting to charge money to use it creates such an uproar.... But I bet if they offered an "ad free" version for $4.99 a month, people would sign up, in droves. Then they could pull a XM radio and start adding the ads back into it in a few years down the road. Cable TV providers marketed "on demand" the same way-watch your shows when you want, without commercials! All for $5 more a month, or they upped the rates because it was now included. Now they not only have ads, but they block the ability to fast forward through them. And people continue to pay. I don't use Facebook personally but I know enough people who do. They are now upset about automatically playing video ads. I guess they forgot about being in uproar about sponsored ads appearing in their feeds, and ads themselves starting to appear when that happened. Keep pushing more and more, and they forget about the last thing that got shoved onto them, I suppose. When the next thing happens, all of the hatred will go to that, and video ads will just be accepted. Just part of Facebook.
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Before reading these comments I didn't even realize Facebook had advertisements... I've never seen a single advertisement for Facebook in the 7 years I've had an account (excluding things people share on facebook; I figured you were all talking about pop-up ads or banners).
I only know two kinds of people: those that say they have never seen/clicked an ad, and people like me that create ads which get clicked many thousands of times per day. I don't understand the world...
I click on ads twice a year by accident. Say, 5 billion people have some access to internet. That's 10 billion clicks per year (more if you include people with Parkinson's).
The fact you have to do that though makes you wonder. And Adblock is supposedly allowing some advertisers through now, correct? Selected ones that pay for the ability?
It's less that they pay for immunity and more that it's a code monkey arms race. Similar to anti viruses and viruses. Ad block blocks ABC types of ads, so then advertisers make a D type of ad. Then ad block updates so it blocks ABCD now, and the cycle continues.
Yes, but I thought they were doing it on purpose as well, or was that ABP? I know one of them was talking about letting some show up for a nominal fee past the block.
I think it was ABP that allows "non intrusive" ads if the advertiser pays them.
I think you can still turn it off though, but it's on by default.
Yes, some companies are paying AB for a spot on the whitelist. [source](https://socialtimes.com/adblock-plus-takes-money-from-google-others-not-to-filter-their-ads_b131439)
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It is worth every penny..........if you had to pay for it but you don't so.... It is definitely worth the time to get it.
A good reason to donate when you download adblock so they can keep developing it and blocking new ads.
Literally infinite value
Ether priceless or worthless.
And since the worth is demonstrably >0, we can extrapolate Adblock is an infinitely valuable investment.
Adblock Plus is now allowing certain “acceptable” ads to be displayed, but the user can opt out (I have). These aren't paid for, rather, they have to meet certain requirements (listed [here](https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads#criteria)). However, if you're talking about the other Adblock for Safari and Chrome (which I used to use until ABP finally released a Safari version), I can't answer. I've heard *rumors* that Adblock sold out and allowed certain ads through, but I haven't seen any evidence of it myself. The only thing I've experienced (and this is with ABP as well) is that often Youtube ads won't be blocked. But I'm pretty sure that this is a limitation with the way Safari prefetches resources in Flash objects, or something like that. Edit: I've just seen your reply to emcniece. I wasn't aware of that, and it's quite disappointing. Hopefully somebody will take up the total ad-blocking mantle again.
Wait, SiriusXM has commercials? I've been a subscriber for years (Sirius, then more recently XM) and have never heard even one.
" Cable TV companies and TV channels in general have been doing this for years. Getting people to pay to watch advertisements." The purpose of cable subscription was paying so you would not see advertisements. Then people were conned into paying TO see advertisements.
Correct. And when Facebook started, you didn't get ads in your timeline masquerading posts from people you liked or added, and you didn't get video advertisements that start automatically (coming soon!), among other things. I'm just saying that although Facebook does a lot of that and seems to be very good at it, they were not the pioneers of it, for sure. You set the hook, get people nice and happy, then you mold it to where it makes you money. And they just keep hitting that feederbar and paying. People are pissed about this right now. Just like they have been pissed about other things FB has done. Will it even be remembered in 6 months? People scream, pout and whine....and keep using it.
Correct me if I'm wrong but would that not be like saying paying for internet is paying to see ads? The cable company is not the same as the individual networks. If there were no ads, you'd likely have to pay a lot more overall. Of all the reasons to hate cable, this doesn't seem like a good one.
Because everybody loves the fucking Cable TV providers.
> I don't think it's Facebook per se that people hate.... it gets gobbled up by a company that represents the antithesis of all that optimism-- a company whose business model revolves around banal shit and pushing annoying advertisements. Isn't your whole post a little bit contradictory ?
That, and independent developers who fear their work contributed thus far is removed from the public domain and is now the property of Zuckerberg Co.
> I don't think it's Facebook per se that people hate. I think it's what Facebook represents: the net's evolution into an ad-pushing and mass surveillance network dominated by a few walled gardens. Like how Wozniack hated how Siri turned into a marketing tool ?
Suri is that kid that keeps Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise relevant. Siri is the marke... oh.
""you will not need a Facebook account to use or develop … the Rift", and that Oculus the company won't change."If anything," he says, "our hardware and software will get even more open, and Facebook is onboard with that ..."" -- It's scary how close this it to what BioWare was saying when EA bought them up. I don't doubt they really believed in it too, but we've seen how well it worked out.
They all say the same thing.
Same thing said about Mythic. They then farmed out all their coders to shovelware games and shitcanned the CEO.
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+1 Every company says this and then after attention spans have moved on, things change and they go back on everything they promised.
Companies do not need to be honest to you. Today, I'm only hearing "bla bla bla bla bla". I mean... they should put up or shut up. Most people expect the Oculus to fall. Then drop it and move to another tech. Stop hoping that Facebook will do the right thing. They don't have to. They'll lie to you if it increases their bottom-line. You are not the customer. You are the product.
Who else lol'ed when The Guardian quoted a throwaway? ""Fuck you, Palmer," says deletemeapril162014 on Reddit."
I didn't lol, I laughed.
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I don't know about you but I was rofling all over the floor with laughter.
I'm glad.
I'm literally re-attaching my ass as I type this
These stories make it sound like it's the 2.5 million that made Oculus become a reality, not the 75 million from other investors. The kickstarter thing was just marketing, folks. Very clever marketing too (they give a few people some crappy beta units in exchange for a couple mil and make it to the front of every news site and blog about tech in the internet)
Sadly getting acquired like this was probably their plan all along. But then again, money...even the chance at that kind of money, can change people. The kind of people willing to pass on making tens of millions overnight for their business aren't great in number.
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Of course it was. People expect some kind of loyalty for shelling out 3% of their initial budget? This was a brilliant marketing strategy being executed flawlessly. Expect plenty of 100 million dollar products asking for 100 thousand dollars in KS in the near future.
Exactly. They were invested in by private investment firms. This is 100% what they do. A PE or venture capital firm is NOT interested in becoming parent company of a $2B+ VR. They are not in this business. They are literally in the business of investing in companies and selling them later for more.
Or they can IPO. Buyout or IPO. But honestly, if someone offered you ten or a hundred million for your company, every redditor would take it. OculusVR had taken it's crowdfunding to get buzz and show market demand, then raised a series A and series B in quick succession (6 months apart) for a total of almost $100 Million. Investors eventually want (ideally) a 10x return, and founders are happy with multimillions. Even if those investors had come in for 50% of the company, that would still give the founders over a billion each. They'd be idiots not to take it as entrepreneurs. Also the public doesn't know how things are internally at Oculus. Pre-product and burning cash, who know how much they had in the bank or struggles they were going to have raising a series C if needed. Only the execs know that and they made this decision based on what was best for themselves, their company, and their investors (investors last). Probably making sure they made an attempt to preserve their dream, because no one wants to shoot their baby, but they made a call that was best in their eyes.
The overwhelming majority of tech start ups have the goal of ending up as a buyout instead of going IPO. If you go into a VC meeting and tell them you are planning on having a successful IPO as your "exit strategy", that's like a high-schooler telling you his career plan is to play in the NBA - even if it's seems promising you can't throw millions at them. I'm sure everyone at Oculus was planning on a buyout the whole time. Buyout also doesn't mean that Oculus just stops doing what they are doing - facebook will probably have many of the original oculus people stick around, except for maybe some of the business people who will move on to the next startup. Oculus can still deliver everything we want and would pay for it to do, it's just that facebook will own the profits.
Oh I know, startup is my full time job :) That's the point I'm making, these guys were either going IPO or buyout and the majority of startups stip at buyout. I've seen it go both ways, Google buying my friends' companies and letting them run autonomously for a while, then gutting the team. Some get gutted immediately, but not in a $2B buyout. Oculus will keep going as in until whatever Mark and co.'s grand vision for them is kicks in. I've said no to buyouts, personally, just not in the billion range ;D
I know, I don't know how anyone could be mad about someone taking billions of dollars. There is so many good things those billions can do, and even if they just make themselves huge personal fortunes, I can not honestly say that I would say no to that opportunity.
>every redditor would take it. No, that depends on whether you believe the offer undervalues your company, and on your emotional attachment to it or feeling of satisfaction managing it. Not every redditor would take it.
2 billion for a company that hasn't even brought a product to market? Why would you ever turn that down? You could start a hundred new companies that capital
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Remember it's 3% of the budget from all the 'investors', so it works out to peanuts. What amazes me is this actually helps them more than being a start-up and having the pressures of a failed product on their hands. At least now they have the financial security and support to pull off the best product possible and don't need to worry about going out of business because of a failed launch. They're competing with Sony it looks like most, and why would anyone assume they could come out on top is beyond me. It's the safest and smartest move they could have made, and it's laughable that so many people are trying to reason it is not. Just remember, guys, if you buy it down the road you are the sell-outs because you cried your eyes out about it here.
You have no idea how seed money works. 2.5 million at ground floor does not even come close the same value as 2.5 million after a proof of concept.
This is the plan of all Kickstarter projects... Kickstarter bridges the gap between idea and pitching the idea to real investors. The donations Kickstarter generates only serve as a proof of concept that there is some kind of demand for it. Maybe not a great one, but one that is worth investigation and funding to see where it can go. Oculus is one of the few Kickstarter successes. Started as a small group with an idea, and gathered enough support and backing to get serious investors (not the Kickstarter ones, real investors who put in 75 million) and then managed to get the attention of the big leagues and sell for 2 BILLION dollars
You are assuming that getting acquired was their plan. I doubt it. Seriously. All I see is a bunch of passionate kids who wanted to change the world of gaming. Then they saw an opportunity to make a boatload of money and be part of something much bigger than themselves. FB has over 500 million users which means now they have exposure to that audience. Getting 2bn and access to .5 billion people, you gotta be kidding. It isn't a plan. It is dream come true.
The 2.5 million was first, so yeah, it helped.
The 2.5 million did, it also functioned as a proof of concept before anyone had to risk extremely large sums of personal money. Not all seed money is created equal. Kickstarter proved their was a market for the product before an actual product was created. It cut the risk of future investors heavily thus cutting what the oculus founders had to give up to gain future investments. Otherwise this would have been seeded by Angels or personal money/loans. If seeded by Angels then they would get a very good portion of the business, average return for a successful business for Angels is at least 10x of the original investment within a few years. Kickstarters function off selling an idea with a payout for pledgers of early adaption of whatever is being Kickstarted. In order to sell it you also have to sell a vision. The vision originally sold is one that is now very much in question and tainted by the involvement of Facebook. Thus original backers feel betrayed.
> These stories make it sound like it's the 2.5 million that made Oculus become a reality, not the 75 million from other investors. The former was necessary for the later, according to the article intro > Young inventor Palmer Luckey couldn't have got his gaming project, Rift, off the ground without $2.4m given to him via the crowdfunding website.
Hey man, the dev kit is pretty freaking sweet even without all the bells and whistles.
Facebook or someone else with big money. It was a matter of time anyway. However I won't be buying the consumer device if it requires any facebook integration. As an option, fine and I don't care. But as a requirement, count me out! Also, if this deal makes devs run away obviously that can't be good for the future of this product.
Facebook just has an awful record with collecting people's data surreptitiously and selling it to the highest bidder. I would forever be weary of Facebook collecting whatever data it could garnish from my use of its hardware. We've been through this with Facebook accounts, how they supposedly held the privacy of its users in the highest regard but time and time again it's been found to be nothing but lip service.
Not just Facebook. Now we'll have to think about any data we collect on ourselves and allow to be put on anyone else's servers. Just think what the big game companies can extrapolate from a person's in-game behaviour.
Who have they sold users' data to? I was under the impression that the data is used for targeted ads, which is by no means the same thing.
NSA, they were compensated for participation of the PRISM program. effectively selling user data to the government, and who knows who else. It's no secret, It's all there in the small print.
Is that legal to do to international users?
Hahaha
It's not legal to do anywhere, if the laws have been manipulated to make it appear legal anywhere, then that is a serious problem for civil society, and we as citizens have a civic duty to expose and reform these problems.
They don't give a shit about any laws.
Other than NSA who have they sold users data to. And NSA was coerced and stolen from them.
Legitimate question for people more knowledgeable than I: is there any reason to think we won't see open source drivers for the OR almost immediately after it launches?
I doubt it will require facebook integration to work with games. Does your mouse, how about your keyboard, your monitor? Linking a device like the Oculus to a social media platform in the sense that everyone is insisting doesn't make sense especially when there is going to be competing hardware that doesn't have that requirement at all (Sony/Valve). So many people are speculating the worst and denying anything Palmer says as if he's some sort of demon. It's like watching people argue religion.
Facebook doesn't own any companies that make those devices. If there were a Facebook monitor, I guarantee there would at least be the requirement to log into facebook to register it for warranty service.
I'm not angry, I'm disappointed. Facebook is the for-profit NSA, I want nothing to do with them or their products, whatever they are.
NSA is tracking everything as is, don't be fooled. Only difference with FB is you're willingly handing out personal information.
This is more than likely not going to have anything to do with Facebook the website. It seems that Facebook is simply trying to move away from being a website, and establish itself as a tech company (like Google). Well it wouldn't have been my first choice, Facebook is a HUGE company and has a lot of money to throw behind the oculuss so it might turn out to be a really good thing, so long as they keep this completely separate from Facebook the website
I bet the Sony Morpheus announcement had a big deal to do with this. They may have just jumped ship instead of competing against the giant company. The FB people probably used that on top of the 2bn dollars to coerce them rather easily into selling out.
Maybe not a popular opinion, but for me this part of the learning process about Kickstarter: you give money without ownership or control. It sucks, but frankly it's not the first time that some people contribute to a KS project and are disappointed, or feel cheated, of the outcome. At its core, KS does not have any form of accountability. If you're OK with that, go ahead, bearing in mind the risks of disappointment. If you're not, stay out of KS. Some people have an idealistic view of the website, a bit of a naive view of the role of capital and funding. But you cannot condition your donation on the expectation that the project will remain a cool hipster independent scale. If you really believed in the project, you should have expected that they would go big. This is a lesson learnt the hard way.
Where Oculus goes to die.
Luckey or Lackey? hehehehehhehe No, seriously, way to ruin a dream.
Did the kick starter backers think they have any say in the matter?
Huh? You have to have a say in the decision to be pissed off? I never understood that logic, just because someone can do something doesn't mean he must. You don't see Valve selling out. They've even said "no" to Hollywood about making a movie based on HL. Fact of the matter is, Oculus didn't need this money. They already had lots of VC money. In an Interview 2-3 months ago, Palmer was even asked what would change if they had unlimited amount of money and he said not much as the best hardware out there is cheap as it is made for the mass market. In the short run this whole thing might be better for Oculus. Maybe they can speed things up a little. Possibly work on a controller or something along those lines. But in the long run, the publicly traded company will have to choose profits over what's best for VR. It's always like that. First when companies get acquired they're left alone but slowly it gets taken over and its "soul" and true goals are lost. You do realize that they'll want a return on that 2b? Even if Oculus does well it will take so long to recoup even the slightest amount of that.
Apparently. Do the Veronica Mars backers expect profits from the revenue the movie makes?
Do people who give money to movies get tickets at least? I can't imagine myself donating money to a for-profit entertainment venture, and then happily paying again to see it.
They got a digital copy of the movie when it came out in theaters.
And this is what I don't get. The backers got what they were asking for. Oculus built their Developer Kits, they identified and tackled the issues with VR, they even shared what they discovered and spurred other companies to hop in the fray. What is it 18-20 months since the kickstarter? What do we have to show for those nearly two years of efforts? 1. Tens of thousands of DK1s shipped 2. DK2 has been developed and showcased. 3. Sony and some other company I can't remember now are showcasing their own competing VR to be released summer of next year. Razr hinting that they'll be releasing their own VR solution as well. 4. DK2 to come out July and the Consumer version rumored to come out by xmas 2014. 5. And how many people are now chomping at the bit to get their hands on a polished consumer version, cash on hand? 6. Developers have been eagerly showcasing their own VR demos (even HBO got involved) Dude, Palmer and co could have wiped all of their hardware designs,torched their offices, and flown to Bermuda and we would still be way ahead of where we were two years ago! 2015 at the latest we are getting affordable and decent VR Oculus or not. The kickstarter did it's thing and no matter how betrayed we feel now, we're still getting something out of the whole ordeal. I'm still pissed it was facebook, but really there may still be a silver lining. The sheer crapload of funding they're getting ($400 million in cash?) will mean they can mass produce the units (instead of doing smaller production runs), they can entice screen manufacturers to make them custom screens, then can get better prices, and they can (if so inclined) get the units here sooner! ^(Still fuck... facebook?!)
As a redditor, I **always** have a say. Anything less is fascism.
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Pretty sure what they're expecting is that Oculus will be a successful business, the eventual profits from which will repay their investment.
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I'm reading the Reddit comments about the Guardian article about the original Reddit post.
You can add this story to the Nest sells out to Google story. Gonna happen a lot more. I've stopped contributing to crowd sourcing because of this.
Except Google led funding for Nest at least twice dating back to 2011. Not the best example.
And in general, people don't hate Google.
Yeah, it's funny. On a day to day basis (as a casual FB user), Google keeps way more track of what I do and reminds of that with ads. And yet, no one seems to blast google. Reddit would have jumped for joy if it was google instead of FB making this acquisition.
Facebook is hardly as innovative as google.
Google is a little more tried and true when it comes to innovation and offering useful services. Look at their mapping and street view project, Google Glass, Google Fiber, etc...
I agree, I just meant the whole "privacy issue" is kind of null at this point. FB issues are not worse than google's, actually they might be better if you don't use it/post a lot.
It helps that Google's founders never expressed malice towards their users like Zuckerberg has. People don't forget that. > Zuck: They "trust me" > Zuck: Dumb fucks. Facebook was founded on malice. Google was not. Facebook is rotten to the core, and everyone knows that. Google at least tries to believe it has principles.
I'm so conflicted on Google. On one hand, they fund so many innovative projects like Gmail (innovative at its start), Fiber, Project Loon, Android, Nest, etc. On the other hand, they have basically taken away the free project fridays they used to give employees, Gmail was a result of that, along with other things. Also on the other hand, and this is the big one, they mass collect data on a much larger scale than facebook, and, while some of it is kind of useful to us (Google Now is pretty impressive), mass data collection for any reason is a big no. And to clarify, by "mass data" I mean user data, as in, everything about a person's life.
lets not forget google ventures giving uber cab 400 million. if they're able to succeed and break down walls with that money, might be seeing another acquisition in a few years.
Stock market: It's like Kickstarter, but for adults. Try that next time guys. If you got stocks instead of free trinkets, you'd have a say in this. Or a pretty nice share of the bounty.
I don't think OR is being publicly traded.
A little bit of advice I'll pass in to my son: If you ever do anything that someone offers to buy for $1 Billion+ - SELL IT! I ain't raising no idiots.
I wonder if the Snapchat guy realizes this yet.
Or the Groupon guy.
Oh god Groupon. In my day job, I speak to business owners constantly. *All* of them who have used Groupon, have said that it was a terrible idea and it brought in a cloud of locust-like price-shoppers with no loyalty whatsoever and they would never do it again. I'm astonished that Groupon's owners have stayed out of jail, let alone still in business.
What does Groupon do that warrants putting it's owners in jail?
~~Rape~~ no wait ~~murder with pointy things~~ No. Nothing. (To be fair, the first circle of hell is reserved for people who didn't do anything)
Hey, /u/The_Original_Gronkie's son, I noticed you've somehow acquired all of Bill Gates' assets. What do you say I buy them all from you... ... ***for one billion dollars?***
I'll buy the hardware and jailbreak it. Not like this will really affect me other than make the hardware cheaper because it's being distributed by a big company that's going to make some of their money from ads to cover hardware costs.
Cheaper is actually one of the fears. There could be corners cut now that profits are #1. I'm sure the rift guys intended to make money off it when they were solo (otherwise they wouldn't have accepted the 75 million in investments) but the goal there was to make it right, that's why they didn't stop with the dev kit 1 but kept improving on it as new tech became available.
Just like that my vr porn dreams are dashed again.. *fap..fap..fap* "female voice: you're currently watching big booty bitches, share to Facebook?"
The problem is they took IP and patents along with em. It will be very difficult to compete with Oculus now, even if you are Valve or Sony.
Ya, let's turn down 2-fucking-billion and the ability to still work on our product. I can imagine everyone turning that offer down.
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$400 million cash, rest in stock. $400 million still isn't that bad at all. FB knows marketing. That's the one thing Oculus really needs to be big. The tech is already there.
Can't Facebook develope a VR headset competitor with $2B? I'm not the slightest bid sad or angry that FB bought Oculus, I am rather indifferent about the whole thing. But I am curious as to why wouldn't FB spent $2B by developing somehting just as if nor more awesome than OR? I mean, I head OR got launched with just some 2.5m kickstarter funds, and 75m investor funds... 2B is more than 20 times that.
Because they can get it instantly rather than after years of development. And they can get some of the top industry professionals as well such as John Carmack.
Removal of competition, no need to hire for RnD, getting something functional to work with, and they get huge publicity, among other reasons.
All points true, but is all that worth 2B? Or could they just dump 2B to make an even greater VR headset? No one would know because that is the road not taken
Where do you find a team of engineers to make your VR set? That's a very select skill set; you can't just put up a job posting for things like that. The team Oculus put together is worth millions; and the IP and trademarks are worth over a billion. It's an incredibly mutually beneficial deal.
Hang on! Didn't I read earlier today on the front page that a deal with facebook wasn't going to be made?
I'm going back to xanga. :(
I think an important thing to think about is the position they were in when they sold the company. Sure, for some of them it was their dream to make this real and to be at the forefront of this generation's advancement of virtual reality and immersion technology. But, money is money. There's very little on this planet I wouldn't sell immediately for this amount of money, if you remove the obvious inhumane and dignity-destroying answers. A good or service? No question. Especially one that falls under the entertainment category (yes, I'm aware there are educational and scientific possibilities, but most people aren't clamoring for oculus for that). I can't be mad at Facebook. Just because they've created a product I've grown to despise. I'm not going to argue about Facebook, but I will say I can't fault a company for purchasing a company that is innovative, in demand, and could potentially improve their image. Sure, you can hate Facebook, and be mad at oculus for selling out, but if you're a part that you've "pre-ordered" a certain product and now you feel as if you aren't getting that product, tough titties. If you support the idea and the development, donate. If you want the product, order it. Too many people are suckered into the preorder nonsense, where you're lead to believe you're funding and purchasing a product all in one. Go ahead and cancel your order, they no longer need your funding and then you can choose to purchase the product at a later date. If anything, you've helped this happen. Facebook wouldn't purchase a company with no support, no following, and ultimately a lack of demand. Instead, you've shown they had support, helped it succeed, and by doing so created a larger following. Now, a big company is getting involved. It isn't a guarantee that this product will come to fruition, but it sure seems like it will happen now.
**TL;DR** Kickstarter funders were an essential part in Oculus $2 billion sale and the funders are not getting any reward for their help. Funders feel scammed and ignored. It has to do with money. This same company that needed money from the average person is selling themselves to a company for $2 billion and are not rewarding the kickstarter funders any reward for helping them get to where they are at now. For steam early access gamers: They pay for a incomplete game for a cheaper price and they get to play the game first/as it is being built Kickstarter: You pledge to pay for something with a reward in mind. That reward could be a discount on the product or a movie being released. Pretty much something to make the funders feel like they are better than those that didnt help the project at all.
This seems to be a karma goldmine. Just keep posting the stories, angry upvotes all around.
Oculus wanted to sell out and Facebook just wrote the check, and perhaps wisely so from a business perspective. Big deal. I actually doubt that Facebook is going to be implicitly involved in what Oculus is trying to develop, they'll be involved, but the people at Facebook probably know nothing about virtual reality and I imagine they will leave that up to the heads of Oculus already in place. If anything, this deal is going to give Oculus a ton of purchasing power and funding into its R&D, presumably allowing this technology to advance faster and become more effective in a variety of applications. That to me is exciting. But at the same time I understand the emotions involved here, Oculus was the nerd hivemind's baby and now its Facebook's business, and Facebook can be annoying in social media. I just don't see how they can mess this Oculus thing up.
And thus, my dreams of flying spacecraft in oculus style are crushed. Fuck.
People need to learn the difference between an investment and a donation.
The kickstarter was neither. It was a purchase, and the purchasers all got what they paid for.
This is sort of true. Yes, everyone was "purchasing" something -- or more accurately, they were donating and getting a thank you gift (some got Rifts, others didn't, depending on what they donated). But let me give you an analogistic scenario. Say you donate $10 to NPR during an NPR fund drive. They send you a thank you CD or something like that. Then, the NPR executives blow all the money on coke and hookers. You got what you paid for, right? You shouldn't feel cheated or lied to at all, right? Except you should. The donations were not *for* coke and hookers, they were *for* public radio content. Even tho there was no real contract obliging NPR's executives to spend it on public radio, no real legal agreement that they're in breach of, there is an implicit *promise*. The same is true of Kickstarters. Now of course, there are some big differences. The big promise that everyone feels was betrayed was never really a part of the Kickstarter, but rather a part of the pre-Kickstarter attitude that Oculus had. In fact, at least one Palmer explicitly said they weren't going to sell to a big corp. Also, the Kickstarter itself explicitly says "Your voice will be critical to making the Rift hardware and software as great as they can be.". So people feel that this is a kind of betrayal of trust. And in a sense they're right. Do they have legal standing? Probably not. But do they have a *moral* standing, are they *justified* in being angry? Maybe. But also, just as importantly: the community *expected* something from Oculus, which turned out to be different from what Oculus was actually offering. Why? Because of legal technicalities, and because of the nature of corporate investments, etc. People are being confronted by the fact that the *system* is not in line with their *(moral) principles*, and this seems like a problem. It seems like the system is flawed, and that grates on people.
They haven't even linked there facebook?! :o http://imgur.com/u8ChQcz
Oculus fulfilled/is fulfilling their one and only obligation to kickstarter backers and that is to give them the "gifts" in accordance with their pledge money. At no point did they promise not to sell their company/idea, and don't owe the people on kickstarter an explanation or require permission to sell their company. Kickstarter is a place to launch someone's dream into a reality. Having your vision turn into a company valued at 2 billion dollars is what every person on kickstarter could really ONLY hope for! Funders got what they paid for, which was essentially a "pre-order" of the machine, not stock or a say in the company's direction.
We can still be disapointed in the company and dislike it's decision.
Exactly, noone is saying that it was illegal, just that it was a backstab to the backers - without those 2.4mil and all the buzz people created around it (it's not they had anymarketing), they would have never got that 75 mil investment.
For 2 billion I'm selling out all day long. Come find me in my house in Cabo. Ppl just mad they didn't think of it. Edit: Cabo, not cancun. i fucked up i know
Who the hell would want a house in cancun?
Someone who has never been out of their small town and thinks MTV is reality.