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>I am shattered right now. Oh come on -- this is just ridiculous. They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to ma

• pyrocat 13y ago
  Yeah... because Google has experience with this sort of project. It's in Google's wheelhouse, so to speak.
  • sehr 13y ago
    It's in Google's wheelhouse now, it wouldn't have been six or seven years ago. Give it a chance, the overreactions in this thread and in general are ridiculous.
    • socceroos 13y ago
      Nice use of words. Define overreaction. How about I be specific: most of the comments in this thread seem entirely justified to me.
      • sehr 13y ago
        What? Define it yourself, it's a google search away. And I suppose that's subjective, but claiming it is the absolute end of the world for Oculus seems just a tad premature.
  • billmalarky 13y ago
    Facebook has gotta start somewhere. I suspect they'll keep the Oculus team in charge.
• comex 13y ago
  Not like there were many positive comments about Nest and Google, IIRC.
  • Ygg2 13y ago
    I'm unsure what FB is thinking here. Do they plan to make Facebook a VR site? Do their games need more immersion to be addictive? Google acquiring Nest has obvious plan. Make Android based devices with highly usable GUI.
    • pekk 13y ago
      I'll make you a gentleman's bet that Facebook is thinking about eye tracking. Google acquiring Nest has a plan: collect data on electricity usage, presence in house and have a basis for inferring what people are doing generally all day.
      • prawn 13y ago
        Could they do eye tracking with a phone's camera easily enough?
        • 72deluxe 13y ago
          Samsung do I think, for their scrolling feature.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • jpadkins 13y ago
      > Google acquiring Nest has a plan: collect data on electricity usage, presence in house and have a basis for inferring what people are doing generally all day. OK I'll bite. What does google do with this data? I don't see anyway this helps their ad business.
      • mediocrejoker 13y ago
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
• WalterSear 13y ago
  And how many of those countless projects are going to open up new forms of experience, and how many are going to be the equivalent of shoehorning more ads into the facebook feed?
• pfraze 13y ago
  It's not ridiculous - at all. Facebook is the kind of company that wants to control their market and their platform. The Oculus Rift was an exciting piece of tech that was untied to any platform, giving an open opportunity for software developers to explore VRUI. Now, it gives Facebook the opportunity to explore VRUI. Of course, I'm afraid they're going to tie the hardware to their awful, invasive Web platform. I'd be upset if it were Google, but Facebook is about as bottom-of-the-ethical-barrel as it gets.
  • s3r3nity 13y ago
    > bottom-of-the-ethical-barrel Again, this is silly sensationalist thinking -- companies aren't people capable of "good" or "evil" choices. If they were, I'd note that Facebook was one of the only companies NOT conspiring to deflate the wages of half of the people that visit this site. (Note: I don't work for FB -- I just rail against silly hyperbolic thinking.)
    • DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
      Groups of people are capable of collectively "good" or "evil" choices, and we often regard collective decisions in moral terms. I'd argue that Facebook has made a lot of decisions that exploit users in pursuit of making more money and acquiring more personal data -- and that we don't have to be happy a technology platform with a lot of promise is now tied to a company with a record of making such decisions. I won't welcome a Facebook platform in to my life the same way I would a standalone piece of technology, precisely because of the kind of decisions made by Facebook.
    • pfraze 13y ago
      I normally agree with you, but I really believe Facebook's model - hosting people's personal life in a corporate database - is wrong, flatly wrong. It'd be wrong for anybody, but they're the most active pushers. Friend lists, personal photos, relationships, messages, even though users gave them up freely, it was wrong to take them. IT ethics means that you use your expertise to actively protect sensitive information. They don't do that, and there can be / will be / are consequences. If anybody could have pushed an effective self-hosting platform, it's them, but they haven't. They are at the bottom of the ethical barrel.
• sukuriant 13y ago
  That's because people here are less likely to actively avoid Google. We use it for our search engine, and some of us for App Engine and Google Drive, or for our phones. More people avoid Facebook for privacy reasons, etc.
  • s3r3nity 13y ago
    > More people avoid Facebook for privacy reasons, etc. The fact that you admit deep deep use of Google and trust them with all your data tells me that there's a bit of naïveté in terms of Google & privacy (as if you're getting more privacy in one vs. the other.)
    • sukuriant 13y ago
      It's true. Personally, I don't want yet-another-company to have my information. There's that; and there's the whole thing around how Google doesn't have a track record of forgetting your privacy settings when they do an update to their services.
• scrame 13y ago
  Thats not true, I'd be worried they would piggyback it into some crappy google glass hybrid.
• incision 13y ago
  >"Oh come on -- this is just ridiculous. They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects." Honest question, do you have anything to base this idea that of "many many more times the resources" on? Have any companies been acquired by FB and immediately gone about pushing the envelope in ways that don't strictly line up the existing business of FB? I think the concern here is entirely justified. The Rift is a breakthrough product made possible by people who believed enough to back it via Kickstarter. Once delivered the community set about creating a whole range of wild stuff and general made those creations freely available. Nobody wants to see their creativity hindered by some new corporate developer standards or restricted to distribution through something that sits behind a Facebook login. Personally, I want the Rift to let me walk on the surface of the sun not allow me the privilege of paying a Facbook/NBA partnership for artificially scarce virtual "courtside" seats to a game.
  • s3r3nity 13y ago
    I don't work for FB so I don't know the full details of all their acquisitions, but I would look to the success of a company like, say, Parse for what potential could lie here.
  • debt 13y ago
    Instagram has been allowed to go at their own pace since they've been acquired. Parse, also, has essentially gone on it's own and created things at it's own pace. It seems they're having the same attitude with Whatsapp. I assume, especially with Carmack coming over, that FB will be extremely hands-off with the base technology behind the rift. Facebook is an engineering company; in the way it's run and with what it pushes out to consumers. It's a flat organization essentially run by engineers I mean shit, the CEO built the original product. The Rift under Facebook, I guarantee you, will be the best VR product in the market in five years; which would be much faster than the decade and half it would've taken on their own. Speculation I know, but again with the way Facebook is run, it seems that this acquisition will only expedite the awesomeness-that-is-to-come.
    • hack_edu 13y ago
• yid 13y ago
  > They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects. An acquisition into a company like Facebook is not quite carte blanche to chase "countless imaginative projects". There are VPs and PMs, budgets and headcount, inter-departmental politics and of course final approval from Sheryl Sandberg, David Ebersman and Zuck. No matter what the press releases say, autonomy will be lost to a degree, progress will be slower and more considered, and your imagination will have limits.
  • s3r3nity 13y ago
    Hmmm that's not quite how Facebook works -- not everything needs final approval from the C-level suite (hell, that's their selling point to new hires.) And having some structure isn't always a bad thing - as long as it's the right kind. And I think it is in this case.
    • yid 13y ago
      > not everything needs final approval from the C-level suite (hell, that's their selling point to new hires.) Would you care to back that up with anything (not the part in parentheses)?
      • benched 13y ago
        Why does everything on this site need to be backed up? Am I supposed to take a personal interest in your epistemic state as a matter of charity?
        • droopyEyelids 13y ago
          If you said you had your wallet in your pocket no one would ask you to back it up. If you said you had invented a perpetual motion machine, people would. Claiming that the C-level executives of a company don't have final say in or control of projects and budgets falls into the second category.
• petercooper 13y ago
  but if Google was the buyer, there would be much more positive comments here. Not from me. Google has a history of acquiring stuff just for the talent and then shutting it down or (worse) letting it rot away. FB seems to have better luck with its high profile acquisitions (though not so much the smaller ones) staying alive: Instagram, Whatsapp (so far), Parse, Friendfeed.
  • arfliw 13y ago
    I agree they've done a great job with Instagram (and on that alone I don't get why people aren't willing to give them the benefit of the doubt) but Friendfeed is not a good example. They didn't extend the product at all. They didn't shut it down but it looks today like it did when they bought it. The team was moved to other things.
• higherpurpose 13y ago
  They already had almost $100 million in funding, and I'm sure they would've gotten $1 billion if they needed it later on, and with a product already on the market. This is an extremely poor decision on their part. I wonder how Carmack (truly) feels about this, because he just switched from one corporation that wouldn't let him do what he wants for another.
• windsurfer 13y ago
  Resources... but at what cost?
• sirkneeland 13y ago
  "if Google was the buyer, there would be much more positive comments here." The HN reaction to Google's acquisition of Nest makes me think the comments would be equally negative. I'd be hard-pressed to think of a buyer that WOULDN'T lead to negative reactions on HN... Apple: they'll make it iDevice-only, and also it will disappear for a year if not longer until Apple feels it's good and ready Microsoft: they'll screw it up Etc...
  • interpol_p 13y ago
    I can't imagine many negative comments if Valve bought Oculus.
    • patrickk 13y ago
      Valve is a gaming company who gets VR so it would make a lot more sense for their core business. Listening to Palmer Luckey talk about how the headset won't come out before its ready makes you think they have a very specific vision they want to execute, as does reading technical stuff about their technology. God knows what will happen now with Facebook. I was unbelievably excited about what Oculus could do for the state of the art in gaming, executing their vision independently. Who knows what having a corporate owner with unclear ambitions will do. I hope Carmack and the other technical guys jump ship and execute the original vision if Facebook meddles too much.
    • lclarkmichalek 13y ago
      Working with Valve products, they are so god damn open. Api for a whole load of stuff, no serious attempts to lock down their non documented api/interfaces, games built on open technologies (all Dota network traffic is protobufs etc), and serious commitments to open source tech long term
• wwweston 13y ago
  > They (Oculus) now have many many more times the resources at their disposal than before to make countless imaginative projects. Their new owner has more resources available (minus the payout to the old owners). Whether those resources will be allocated to those working on Oculus projects is another mater, as is whether any of the goals/priorities of Oculus projects will remain the same.
• jfoster 13y ago
  It's so disappointing that the discussion is in this direction. I was hoping to come in here and find speculation about Facebook's vision, theories about their strategy, etc. Instead it's just a Facebook hate-fest.
  • EpicEng 13y ago
    Because those of us salivating over the prospect of Oculus for gaming never wanted it to be subject to Facebook's "vision." Quote from Zuck: "We're clearly not a hardware company. We're not gonna try to make a profit off of the devices long term. We view this as a software and services thing, where if we can make it so that this becomes a network where people can be communicating and buying things and virtual goods, and there might be advertising in the world, but we need to figure that out down the line." That's fine and all, that's what FB does, I just don't want them to do it to Rift.
    • jfoster 13y ago
      The problem with that thinking is that it assumes Facebook is unchanging and just wants to mash Oculus into Facebook as it currently is. Actually they've done quite a good job of sticking to their word on not messing with Instagram. Zuck also talked about VR being a piece of a new computing paradigm, and threw out that quote in response to whether the business model was selling units of hardware.
      • EpicEng 13y ago
        Well, all I can do is go off of what they have done in addition to that quote. I don't think the comparison to Instagram is a great one because Instagram's model was already very much in like with what FB already does. I hope I'm wrong.
        • Exenith 13y ago
          All you can go off is that? Palmer Luckey basically denied all of your concerns. Even that quote doesn't mean you'll be forced into Facebook's dungeon. It means they want to come up with their own software metaverse, and yes, anyone doing something like that would want to sell virtual goods and ads. It doesn't mean they stop you from doing anything else with the product -- that would be a ridiculously stupid idea.
• ENGNR 13y ago
  The problem is that before, Oculus was the product. Now they've sold to a company where you are the product. That's a backstab, the business model has done a 180 degree turn. Will developers really let Facebook own the VR platform? We all know that as soon as they're unlodgable Facebook will update the EULA and start sucking in every scrap of user data they possibly can. I bet they're salivating over the eye tracking data that will eventually come. Already Oculus includes a camera that is always looking at you. That might be OK for free apps, but it's not OK for a paid product that was until now allied with Valve who sell quality, paid content. The community is now going to fracture, half going with the momentum, half going back to the drawing board.
  • Exenith 13y ago
    There's no indication that they have changed the business model. In fact, that has been explicitly denied. The community is going to fracture, sure: crazy people who jump to conclusions on one side, and reasonable people on the other side.
• Rizz 13y ago
  They now have only one place to get funding, before they could go up to pretty much any investor and get funding. Maybe it wouldn't have lasted if the VR turns out not as good as it's hyped to be, but for now I don't see why they need the resources of Facebook. Of course they're readying for a product launch, a product that appears to become popular, so they'll need to invest in production capacity and materials, but is a takeover really necessary and the best way to achieve that?
• mcphilip 13y ago
  In theory, the oculus team will have more resources at their disposal. However, they are now apart of a publicly traded company with an emphasis on meeting investors' expectations on a quarterly basis. Also, new layers of oversight will necessarily be introduced, potentially limiting their ability to pursue industry related partnerships unless FB management can be made to see the worth of such deals. I'm withholding judgement until someone respectable like Carmack comes forward with a rationale for why this is ultimately a good thing.
  • s3r3nity 13y ago
    I don't understand this logic -- simply being a part of a successful public company reduces your opportunities or chances of making a splash? That's preposterous. Yes, there are checks and balances -- however I am hard to believe that essentially working as their own team with some layers below Zuck offsets the significant resource investment that oculus didn't have before.
  • btown 13y ago
    I think that the most promising aspect of this acquisition is the fact that with Facebook's resources, Oculus can scale like they never dreamed. Specifically, they have such a large starting cash buffer, they might even be able to sell the Oculus hardware at a loss-leading price, and therefore jumpstart the VR space.
• deveac 13y ago
  >but if Google was the buyer, there would be much more positive comments here. I don't see a fundamental difference between the two. Both have the same model of scraping your data in order to further monetize their ad space. The bummer for me here is the business model of the purchasing company. It isn't that it's Facebook per se, but it's how Facebook makes its money. It simply has a large chance of taking the product to a place I'd rather it didn't go.
• espitia 13y ago
  I think what most of us wanted is to see Oculus become something like FB, Google, Twitter, etc. The team was backed by early adopters that put their own money on this vision. Although the "more resources" statement is true, the vision, the underdog, no longer is. They will always be under FB, not the visionary entrepreneurs and team that made Oculus possible.
• robotresearcher 13y ago
  "if Google was the buyer, there would be much more positive comments here." Right. Probably because Google is a technology driven company with some amazing technical products and research. Facebook has great backend skills but the product is meh.
• NatW 13y ago
  I would think many would not want to share Oculus usage data with Facebook, but would rather keep info private.
• hugofirth 13y ago
  Because Hacker News is relentlessly pro-Google? Have we been browsing different sites for the last year?
• AlexandrB 13y ago
  The whole thing betrays a certain lack of ambition. It's like if the early Microsoft had said: "Microsoft in every home? Nah, fuck it, let's just get acquired by IBM."
  • Exenith 13y ago
    That's nonsense. Facebook is in every home. Being bought by them obviously helps Oculus to be in every home. I'm not exactly cheering over this acquisition, but if one thing's certain, it means Oculus is going to be all over the goddamn world -- assuming you guys don't ruin it with your kneejerk assumptions. This is really a branding failure. Facebook's brand conflicts with Oculus' brand. I'm surprised they didn't see that coming. Reality is complex, but perception is usually stunted. Facebook = evil corporation who only cares about selling personal data. Oculus = good guy, cares about us, cares about VR. This is a load of bullshit, but that's the branding perception. Try to change that, and you get chaos.
    • AlexandrB 13y ago
      I think you missed my point. I'm not saying that Oculus is now farther from their goal of "VR in every home" (I don't even know if that is their goal). But whatever their goal was, it is now in the hands of Facebook. Sure they now have resources, but they also have a new master who has his own agenda which may be in line with Oculus' goals now but what about tomorrow? If Facebook hits hard times do you think Facebook will continue to have a hands-off approach with Oculus? Also to address this specific point: > Facebook is in every home. Being bought by them obviously helps Oculus to be in every home. Facebook software is in every home. The Oculus Rift is not software, Facebook lacks the manufacturing/distribution/RMA/support infrastructure for consumer hardware products so that has to be built up anyways - all Facebook brings to the table (that I can see) is money and HR capacity. In many ways this makes less sense than an IBM/Microsoft merger back in the day because IBM was already selling computers with operating system and Microsoft could have naturally piggy-backed on that.