A lot of people here are talking about how $250,000 is 'chump change' to companies like Valve, Epic etc. The fact is, it's not. It's a quarter of a million doll

A lot of people here are talking about how $250,000 is 'chump change' to companies like Valve, Epic etc. The fact is, it's not. It's a quarter of a million dollars: rent for a satellite office for half a year, two junior dev's salaries and benefits, the art budget for a bit of DLC. Yes, it's small in the context of these companies' overall revenues, but it's a significant piece of cash. Then there's the structure of the deal with a Kickstarter. A Kickstarter campaign is emphatically not a crowd-sourced angel investment: it's a busker's hat, with basically the same responsibilities and obligations that a street musician has to her audience of sidewalk quarter-droppers. Palmer Luckey clearly wants this money with the minimum of fuss. Why would iD effectively donate 250k to a tiny hardware company? Short answer: they wouldn't. Companies spend their money only in the expectation of a return. There is absolutely no possibility of a return for any one of these companies, because the money is given in exchange for nothing. There is no equity stake, there's no debt, there's no guarantee of future exclusive rights to the headsets. It's just a gift. So let's say these firms consider investing 250,000 with Palmer to build his headset. That kind of decision is not made lightly nor is it made by any one person. All of these industry figureheads are responsible to their board of directors and their (private) shareholders. They don't have complete freedom of access to their companies' bank accounts. Such an investment would come with equity stakes and strings attached: strings which would likely not benefit Palmer, since competitors are usually unwilling to co-operate, even on something as cool as this. Then, Palmer himself may not want to sell of pieces of his fledgling company until he's in a stronger position. They (Carmack etc.) might well be tempted to make a personal angel investment with Oculus and indeed they may even have done so. Those deals will be highly secret, not least to protect Palmer's interests. All in all, the Kickstarter is a perfect way for Palmer Luckey to gain both a pile of risk-free, no-strings-attached cash and a great deal of exposure, without any of the dilution, influence or responsibilities of external investment.