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Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

887 points by sethbannon 13y ago

cwkoss 13y ago
I don't blame him.
skore 13y ago
> "Facebook creeps me out." Whether or not you agree with his decision, having Notch pull away from talks with you creates an instant credibility "situation". It's also noteable that Notch had been meeting with the Oculus team just two weeks ago[0], was tweeting about them in rather gushing terms[1] and seemed incredibly inspired to work on VR ideas[2]. He is now the personification of the a near universal feeling of betrayal in the community. Will be interesting to see how this develops. [0] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/443541395543162880 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/443541395543162880 [1] https://twitter.com/notch/status/443461570195378177 https://twitter.com/notch/status/443461570195378177 [2] https://twitter.com/notch/status/446312677745254400 https://twitter.com/notch/status/446312677745254400
- mrschwabe 13y ago
  Indeed, nice to see Notch take a stand and provide some sliver of redemption today for the thousands of nerds (myself included) upset about the Oculus Facebook deal today. I can't imagine the Oculus team ever reaching their fundraising goal if backers knew the founders were going to sellout before ever reaching the vision they shared to get people to back it in the first place. EDIT: Notch seems to have just confirmed the postulation above in his latest blog post: "I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-...
  - lingben 13y ago
    Exactly. But this goes further and lays bare the sheer stupidity inherent in kickstarter or any other crowd-sourcing platform. Just like facebook's Frankensteinian monstrous mish-mash of consumer/content/advertiser/publisher crowd-funding in its current state is a mish-mash that ends up meaning nothing in the end. You are not an equity partner, you really have no say in how decisions are made, you are not a lender, you are and are not a client (depending on whether they actually give you the damn 'thing' or not due to a host of reasons, going bust, running out of money, fraud, etc.)
    - ycaspirant 13y ago
      The terms of funding on Kickstarter are pretty clear and straightforward. You back a project for a certain amount of money in exchange for a promised reward (this reward is never equity). When the time comes you either get your reward or you get your money back. Simple as that.
      - jessaustin 13y ago
        ...or you get your money back. Has this ever happened? I was under the impression that the funds raised through Kickstarter are spent on the kickstarted projects. If after spending the money, the project "fails", how can there be a refund?
    - sillysaurus3 13y ago
      I'm happy Oculus got my money for the original devkit, and I spent several hours enjoying it. As far as kickstarter, it's hard to fault them.
    - TaylorAlexander 13y ago
      "this ... lays bare the sheer stupidity inherent in kickstarter..." I'm sorry, but where is the stupidity? Kickstarter is a specific tool available to founders/innovators/creatives that allows us to reach a community of supporters quickly and efficiently. Like all tools, it has a specific way that it operates, and to keep such a new thing from spinning out of control, it is relatively simple and has few rules. Fortunately, we are all made aware of this going in. Backers generally pledge to receive a product. The creator benefits from early access to cash which allows them to build their product. This is what happened with Oculus, and they have already delivered vouchers to all backers which they could have redeemed for the original developer version from last year, the current developer version coming in July, or the consumer version still definitely coming towards the end of this year. I fail to see how Oculus gaining a parent company somehow "lays bare the sheer stupidity" of the system Kickstarter provides. People pledged for a high quality VR device, and Oculus promised to change the world. It seems these things will happen. One of the most compelling opportunities provided by virtual reality is not just gaming, but it's capability to put us somewhere else, including in a virtual room with our loved ones. Virtual reality enables an interaction that humans have never before been able to experience - the ability to hang out in a virtual space with another person. Facebook, whose primary goal has generally been to provide a platform for connecting humans to eachother, clearly sees the value in VR's ability to provide this new experience for us. As such, they've used their purchasing power to buy a stake in the VR game and help grow this new technology. Some day, we will be able to hang out with out loved ones, visit the doctor, or join a game with friends all in a shared virtual space. This is a future made possible by the Kickstarter model, which enabled Oculus to get the start they needed to commercialize Virtual Reality. Tell me again how that is stupid? What strikes me as stupid is the huge number of people decrying this move as some kind of perversion of the original Kickstarter promise, or some kind of bait and switch. It seems to be the logical progression of a company creating a ground-breaking new human interface device. Should they stay independent indefinitely just because they were crowd funded? I don't see how that would make any sense, or why such a modification to the Kickstarter model would be any kind of improvement.
  - baby 13y ago
    > nice to see Notch take a stand taking a stand against Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and now Oculus ? I know that Notch wants to develop games with passionate people, but he has to understand that this acquisition was the best thing that could happen to both VR and Oculus. Anyway, Notch has been infamously known for his quick rants (see the "youtuber he insulted" issue)
    - bunderbunder 13y ago
      > I know that Notch wants to develop games with passionate people, but he has to understand that this acquisition was the best thing that could happen to both VR and Oculus. The two really don't have anything to do with each other. There's no rule saying that if someone comes out winning in business deal, then everyone comes out winning in that business deal.
    - o0-0o 13y ago
      That's a rather immature argument. Instagram, Facebook, and WhatApp are not really used by the same crowd in general. Also, I'd encourage you to do a bit more scratching on the term infamous. Hitler was infamous. Look, I'm not trying to discount your point, which is that this 'was the best thing', but you really don't have that crystal ball. No one does.
    - blhack 13y ago
      The best thing? There is really no other company you could think of who would be a better partner? Like google? Or Microsoft?
      - baby 13y ago
        Google ? I don't know, they have so many products that they acquire and then shut down. Also, they have so many products that... it wouldn't have been such a big deal to acquire Oculus Microsoft ? They already have a gaming branch so why not, but for the same reason as Google, people wouldn't have noticed it much. But Facebook ? Everybody around me is going to talk about it, even non-gamers. You have no idea how huge this is for VR.
      - 13y ago
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  I'd rather think of it as an indie developer who got lucky and struck it big making a pixelated block pushing game doesn't like that a VR firm is now part of a social networking company. My thought is good for him for standing up for what he believes in, but he is going to be missing out on some possible awesome to come engineering which previously might have taken years to obtain w/o FB's involvement. It seems to be ignored but the massive pockets, infrastructure, and engineering at FB will allow Occulus to have access to much much more than they could have achieved previously.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR. Glad to see Carmack is still being Carmack. EDIT: By the way, if anyone is wondering why people are having a negative reaction to this Facebook deal, I think one way to understand it is to watch this video fullscreen and try to imagine any way that Facebook could add to the experience, or at least not detract from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s It's hard to.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    > scaling crisis for VR. That's supposing Facebook knows how to scale production of electronic items... apart from the cash, they have no relevant experience about that. If it had been Google or Microsoft there would already be people who know how to make it scale to mass production.
    - TaylorAlexander 13y ago
      Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. I don't think Google has much internal hardware production knowledge right now, aside from the knowledge they bought when they acquired Motorola. Before that, they mostly made things through hardware partners like HTC, Samsung, and LG. I think they produce the Chromecast internally, but it's not much fancier than a USB stick. I'm sure they are quickly learning, but Facebook is also already buying up hardware companies and they have been building their own custom servers for internal use for years.
      - ekianjo 13y ago
        > Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. Well I have worked in companies making physical goods (shipping millions every year), and you just don't buy a team from one day to another. It's not just about production, it's about supply chain, it's about quality management and quality assurance, regulations for sale in different countries/states, market research, product qualification to improve the design, actual customer support, vendors, distribution, etc... It's a whole new area of skills/functions you don't have, and that does not mix very well with a software-only company mentality. I think it's going to be very tough for them to make something solid with Facebook. EDIT: They would have been better prepared for scaling with a company like Apple (whose main business is already making hardware), Microsoft or Google for that matter. Many people say Valve could have been a good choice, but Valve has said several times they don't want to go into the hardware business (and won't make Steam boxes themselves).
- melling 13y ago
  Nah, it's irrelevant and will be a non-issue in a couple of years. Now that there are two strong VR players, things should progress much quicker. Consumers win. Hopefully, Notch will change his mind and embrace both platforms. Let's keep both companies in the game so the innovation doesn't stop.
- XorNot 13y ago
  It feels like Notch is being given too much credibility here. At the end of the day he's a billionaire because he had a viral hit and was ready with a monetization strategy (and had amazingly cheap running costs). None of this really speaks to his business or technical acumen, and he hasn't exactly done very much lately.
  - netcan 13y ago
    Nonsense. He has credibility because he's proven to be effectual, innovative and principled. This is not the case of a guy getting lucky in the viral lottery and then running his mouth.
    - dclowd9901 13y ago
      If he does one other thing to completion, I'll buy that.
      - jsheard 13y ago
        Even calling Minecraft finished is dubious, the official mod/plugin API has been in the works since 2010 and still isn't available. A game that's so dependent on mods for long term appeal and server management shouldn't have to rely on decompiling the .jar and patching classes by hand.
        bitJericho 13y ago
        Didn't realize continually updating a game these days is considered "never finished". Minecraft is more of a game than anything on Facebook.
        jsheard 13y ago
        It's been a few years since I played Minecraft seriously, but when I did they were mostly chasing low hanging fruit rather than working on hard or boring problems like modding, anti-cheat, RAM consumption, renderer efficiency or server administration. Full disclosure: A year of dealing with a small-population server regularly getting OOM-killed on a 512MB VPS might have made me slightly bitter.
letstryagain 13y ago
'Within the last hour EVERY friend I know was developing a rift game has canceled. That's around 11 projects just gone.' from a Reddit comment
- venomsnake 13y ago
  The backlash is phenomenal. And completely predictable.
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    And ridiculous.
    - ivanca 13y ago
      It is not; like @segphault just tweeted: "Tragic that all of the great ideas of our time get swallowed by soulless web companies that lack vision and only care about spying on us."
    - benched 13y ago
      Yes. All of us who hate this development are irrational. That's the only explanation for this groundswell. I can't think of a single reason to be cynical about Facebook or about this deal.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - Karunamon 13y ago
        Snark aside, people tend to lose all sense of perspective and objectivity anytime Facebook is mentioned. Especially the crowd around here. I really, really don't understand the pathological and irrational hate for Facebook and/or ads.
        masklinn 13y ago
cordite 13y ago
Third party mods will likely make it happen.
- GuiA 13y ago
  They already do: https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift
  - BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
    And that mod is incredible, too. Standing in the Minecraft world in VR while it's snowing is pretty gorgeous.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
elohesra 13y ago
I can't honestly blame him here. I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they do want Oculus Rift for. I assume Notch is worried about those implications. Will Facebook start demanding that every Oculus Rift game have tight Facebook integration? Will Facebook do something strange, like have Facebook wall updates appear in the game world irrespective of whether it fits into the game? If I were a game developer, this'd creep me out too.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  >>I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out' I think that's very much the issue. Seriously, "virtual reality" and "Facebook" are two things I don't want to think about in the same context. The former is an extremely promising piece of technology that can change the way people work, talk and play. The latter is a gigantic online advertising engine. Put them together and there's only one direction virtual reality can go: a new way to advertise to Facebook users (once they "bring virtual reality to everyone" of course. /eyeroll ).
  - elohesra 13y ago
    Okay, let me play devil's advocate: Perhaps Facebook are thinking "What's the one thing that could truly set us apart from all other social media sites, and place a prohibitively high barrier to entry on this otherwise very easy to enter field?", and perhaps the conclusion they've reached is to take social media to the next level, and have it simulate life in virtual reality. Perhaps Facebook are going to aim to have a FacebookVR some time in the future, where you can meet up with other avatars 'in person' in their virtual reality community? ... Or perhaps this is just a sleazy cash in where they think they can recapture the video-game-enamoured youth market by shoving Facebook into every Oculus Rift game.
    - chris_mahan 13y ago
loity9 13y ago
He has my respect. Facebook needs to be shunned by anyone with a brain, until they are a footnote in Internet history. Their privacy violations are unforgivable. Really disappointed in the Occulus Rift board right now. I guess money overrides any sort of values.
xendo 13y ago
I'm wondering, what's John Carmack take on this, he quit idSoftware to join Oculus, which was very open by that time. He always was proponent of openness... right now from a laik perspective it looks it was mistake to leave id.
- joshontheweb 13y ago
  His take is a nice slice of that 2 billion dollar pie.
  - FLUX-YOU 13y ago
    Yeah but what is Carmack going to do with more money? That's the last person I think of in tech who could be motivated by dollar signs.
    - joshontheweb 13y ago
      Armadillo Aerospace ran out of money. Seems like that could be a potential destination for more money.
      - ics 13y ago
        Link for the lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace
    - nilkn 13y ago
      It is possible to always want more money no matter how much you have.
- freyrs3 13y ago
  Wiling to bet he'll wait a few days until the buzz settles down and then announce that he's leaving to pursue other work without a mention of why.
  - bla2 13y ago
rjtavares 13y ago
You could say the Facebook aquisition... took it down a Notch! (Sorry, had to do it. I accept the inevitable downvotes as long as I make one person smile)
- cordite 13y ago
  You did.
- qdog 13y ago
  Sunglasses YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
- asdfologist 13y ago
  I'll give you some Gold... Oh wait wrong site.
- thenmar 13y ago
  Maybe that new comment system was a good idea after all.
nostromo 13y ago
Am I way off in thinking Zuck wants to make Oculus Facebook's response to Google Glass?
- Jack000 13y ago
  I don't see it, they're completely different products
  - Riesling 13y ago
    There are already developments towards blending in the real world into the VR space again. Attach stereo cameras to the front of the device detect certain important features (like other persons or mouse and keyboard) and merge them into the picture created by the VR device. In my opinion, this is much better than the Google approach because it gives you more control over the visualization. Now imagine the devices having the size of regular sunglasses. Imagine all the possibilities. I have seen a project displaying the picture from the front cameras in HDR mode. Therefore, making reality looking better that it really did. Now think of Facebook having the lead in this development… Still makes me sad if I think about it, because they are not going to use this power responsibly.
LoganCale 13y ago
It's great to see some people maintain their integrity even while others are selling out.
- a1a 13y ago
  Apples and oranges: Notch is made $100 million, just in 2012 [1]. That being said - I am truly thankful that he is taking a stand, I certainly hope others will follow. Either way, Zuckerberg will learn his lesson; you do not fuck up a crowd-funded project. [1] http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/minecrafts-notch-on-earning-101m-in-2012-its-weird-as-f/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/minecrafts-notch-on-earnin...
  - pekk 13y ago
    Notch hasn't had a shortage of offers for Minecraft. Oculus took roughly as much in VC as Notch made in 2012, and they didn't even get to the point of selling a real product before they sold to Facebook.
  - tlrobinson 13y ago
    "you do not fuck up a crowd-funded project" Oculus raised $75M after their Kickstarter. Crowd-funding was a stepping stone. And it remains to be seen whether Facebook "fucks it up" or turns it into something amazing look Google did with Android.
    - a1a 13y ago
      Google did fuck up Android (privacy wise). (1) Requirement of a Google account (i.e. forced correlation of your phone with youtube, google searches, google analytics, google ... ), (2) Ever checked those privileges on the default applications - that you can't disable or remove? Why are those closed-source by the way?, (3) Search the web for more examples. Either way, I agree that I made an assumption - but - this is kinda related: http://bgr.com/2014/03/06/facebook-android-app-permissions/ http://bgr.com/2014/03/06/facebook-android-app-permissions/ Crowd funding is not only about money. Your funders also invest emotions into the project. I am mad, I think others will be as well. To quote Notch[1]: "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." [1] http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-...
ROFISH 13y ago
http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/25/5547584/facebook-buys-oculus-rift-game-developers-reaction http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/25/5547584/facebook-buys-oculu... > Mojang's Notch was more direct in a tweet. "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus," he said. "I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out." > We reached out for further comment, and he clarified his position. "Well, VR has huge potential in many fields, including social. I can see why Facebook would want to get in to this," he told Polygon. "As a game developer, however, I don't ever want to get stuck trying to target a platform not focused on games. People have made this mistake before."
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  The Android version of Minecraft is very nice. Looking forward to more and better. (My son would love more raising sheep/pugs/cattle game options--he's a rancher at heart)
  - arcatek 13y ago
    Notch sayed that console versions were almost fully reimplementations rather than portages, so some features will probably go missing for quite a long time.
    - chris_mahan 13y ago
      I know. I have normal minecraft on my PC. I like the Android version better. It's too boring to make the items in the crafting table on the PC version.
BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
I can understand shying away from any direct integration with Oculus itself from now on, but that doesn't explain why a game dev wouldn't want to still add VR support in at least a platform-agnostic way. I'm under the impression that there's an effort to create a standardized API for capturing head tracking data, anyway.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
daturkel 13y ago
"I did a midnight mind dump on the situation. I'm jetlagged and tired, so it might not make sense: http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-... " -@notch on twitter.
neop 13y ago
I'm still waiting for Jonathan Blow's take on all of this. He's another one of the "big" indie developers and he had previously stated that The Witness would work with Oculus, I wonder if the acquisition changes that. He already tweeted about the news and RT some stuff, but no word on his plans yet.
lotsofmangos 13y ago
A decent open source hardware standard and dev kit for VR/AR would be really popular about now. Are there any good ones out there?
mantrax3 13y ago
Facebook buys WhatsApp - hundreds of thousands creeped out, go to Telegram app. Facebook buys Oculus Rift, Minecraft creator cancels talks, creeped out. Feels like that Facebook brand has taken a hit or two with all the privacy violations, huh?
- ArcticCelt 13y ago
  Facebook is modern times AOL, negatively contaminating everything they buy.
- asdfologist 13y ago
  WhatsApp lost hundreds of thousands of users out of 450 million. Yeah, I bet they're losing sleep every night over that 0.1%.
  - john2x 13y ago
    Still, that's hundreds of thousands the competition didn't have.
    - asdfologist 13y ago
      Crushing. Their competitors now must have enough extra revenue to buy an expensive couch.
  - mantrax3 13y ago
    I find this particular form of cynicism entertaining. But this is not about the particular number of users lost. It's about Facebook's brand. There are many things Facebook might want to do, but it can't, because people don't trust them, and their every movie is a potential cause for outrage. No company wants to be left with the only alternative of buying their way into success, and as you see this doesn't work quite smooth, either.
- mercer 13y ago
  I'm amazed by the fact that most of my non-geeky friends are wary of Facebook. Most of them still use the platform (as do I), but a bunch of them already switched to Telegram, and a lot of them have become much more careful about how they use Facebook. These are people who don't really follow developments in the tech sector and use computers as 'iPads with a mouse and keyboard'. The ones who generally shrug at revelations of surveillance and the dangers that come with too much of it. It will be interesting to see what kind of impact this has on Facebook long-term, if any.
noonespecial 13y ago
"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." I'm guessing that pretty much sums up the reaction of everyone who backed the initial kickstarter. Sounds like a serious lapse of "dance with the one who brung ya" to me.
- Camillo 13y ago
  When I said that it was silly to simply donate money to a commercial venture without gaining any stake in it, they called me a naysayer. Who's saying nay now?
  - interpol_p 13y ago
    How is it a donation if you receive the item you backed? Most people backed Oculus to get their hands on a dev kit (I did). I don't feel like I donated — I feel like I got my money's worth.
    - zyx321 13y ago
      A lot of people backed for the "change the world" promise: "Changing the way people experience video games forever." Of course nobody should be surprised if that turns out to be a bold-faced lie, but that doesn't mean it's not disappointing.
      - interpol_p 13y ago
        Did you personally back for the "change the world" promise?
  - drcode 13y ago
    nay
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    You are quite right, of course. But kickstarter is a brand new animal in the world of products and financing. There aren't any laws or even any concrete social norms around it yet. Perhaps people should "know better' but I'm not sure that's helpful. In the absence of laws or codified rules we should expect to fall back on manners. What Oculus did feels bad because its rude. At the very least, they should recognize that they are in uncharted territory. A bunch of random strangers gave them gifts because they believed in the vision. If that vision turns into a multi-billion dollar payday, they might consider giving a few gifts back to those kind strangers. Its not like they don't have a list of them all with contact info and everything. It would be polite to do so.
politician 13y ago
> "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition."[0] I'm beginning to feel the same way about participating in Kickstarter. [0] http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-...
epenn 13y ago
I don't really understand this decision. From an experiential standpoint, the Rift seems like a pretty obvious platform to have a release of Minecraft available. Within a short time it will likely have a solid user base which makes it a good business decision as well. Now support for that platform is being pulled, not because of any technical, financial, or licensing issues, but because Notch thinks the new owner is creepy? That seems like a knee-jerk reaction drawn more from emotion than logic.
- varkson 13y ago
  He's always been childish like this, this is no different. He did provide a better explanation to one of the gaming sites, talking about how he doesn't want to put time into a platform that won't be gaming focused, but we have no indication of that happening.
benched 13y ago
I hope that this illustrates for some that the distaste over this deal is more than a few "irrational" / cynical malcontents on Hacker News. A lot of people have a serious problem with Facebook the service, the cultural shift, and the company. On another note, I was so looking forward to Minecraft on Oculus. I sincerely hope that Valve picks up the torch here.
- varkson 13y ago
  Notch is an irrational / cynical malcontent, exactly the same as the people on HN. I wouldn't be surprised if he frequents here.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  Anecdotal data point; I just informed my girlfriend of this deal. My girlfriend, who knows of Oculus as "that virtual reality thing you were talking about." She also uses FB. Her response, verbatim; "that's not good."
- ps4fanboy 13y ago
  And yet most of them still have accounts, the irony.
aaron695 13y ago
Incredibly immature. Disappointed in Notch. I guess he's just a game designer at the end of the day, not an activist, so I guess meh. Oculus is hardware, hopefully Facebooks billions will bring forward adoption, reduce hardware dev times and create some crappy software that people can chose not to use. How this can been seen as a bad thing, boggles my mind. I want VR decades ago. At least Facebooks billions might make the current timeline somewhat bearable.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  "I want VR decades ago" is not what I would call a mature response. I'd hardly call Notch immature, he has ethical issues with Facebook and it doesn't fit his worldview. Rejecting any collaboration is the most mature way forward.
  - pnut 13y ago
    I experienced VR decades ago in an SGI cave, circa 1995. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environm... Which is about the same time PC graphics were picking up, and games like Descent came into existence. So, like GP, I agree that widespread VR has been overdue for a long time. What does maturity even mean in a capitalist system? All hail the philosopher entrepreneur? Give me a break.
joyeuse6701 13y ago
Well, I was initially pretty against the idea. Then again, maybe I'll write a Facebook app called snowcrash >=) and tear it all down.
tomelders 13y ago
Does anyone have any insight into Occulus' incentive or motive to do this deal? Edit: beyond the obvious monetary incentive, which I'm not sure was that much of an incentive since hordes of people seemed ready and willing to throw money at the oculus rift. 2 billion sounds like a bargain right now.
- ycaspirant 13y ago
  Two billion USD.
- simlevesque 13y ago
  You mean beside money and the assurance that they will have enough funding to do anything?
- rjd 13y ago
  Sony was about to steam roll them? and Microsoft in the next year as well? The Sony morpheus system is already better than oculus feature wise, with better position tracking, and accessory tracking as well. And don't under estimate that, I've read some pretty strong "never again" comments from people using VR headsets and loosing grip of the controls and floundering and/or having to take the headset off to get the controls back into there grips again... even just moving your hand on the keyboard is apparently quite annoying. Essentially without backing they will loose all market capabilities and be relegated to experimental hardware and not a mass market device. Being brought out by other companies probably wouldn't of been a reality. MS probably have there own tech and wouldn't gain much more than branding... and xbox is a stronger brand anyway... and Valve would no doubt have chosen to partner rather than buy out... so waving $2bil in your face and the guarantee of ongoing funding and launch platform... its a no brainer.
  - neolefty 13y ago
    Excellent analysis. So many companies are promising until they get swamped by far larger competitors, and all their fans are caught off guard. Then they disappear and become "remember when" stories. Oculus surely saw the writing on the wall.
  - 13y ago
dorkrawk 13y ago
[an optimistic thought] I feel like a lot of people might be overthinking the Facebook/Oculus integration. FB is a big company with lots of money that is still figuring out how to make money. Oculus seems like a company that could make money in a way that diversifies FB's income. Maybe if they just own Oculus and let the smart people at the helm do what they do best (I feel like Zuckerberg can recognize the smart people in charge of Oculus) it will just be a good company that earns money for Facebook so Facebook can keep doing what it does. I know Zuck mentions VR and social together in his post, but maybe he just feels compelled to justify the purchase in relation to what Facebook is known for.
wudf 13y ago
Now's your chance Sony. Do to Facebook what you did to Microsoft: Nothing.
neotek 13y ago
That's a shame, because Minecrift[1] is the most astonishing Oculus experience I've had so far. Just being inside a world I had created, surrounded by peaceful ambience, floating above the treetops (fly mod, heh) - I can't express just how beautiful that experience was. [1] https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift
DigitalSea 13y ago
What company isn't creepy these days? Google, Facebook and Amazon are a few companies of many that come to mind when I think of all the user data they hold, what they know and what they could use it for. Thems the breaks unfortunately. I admire Notch standing up for what he believes in, but I just can't see how Facebook is creepier than anything else or affects the acquisition of Oculus. It's not like the gaming device is going to give Facebook any extra information it most likely doesn't already have on you. It is also a known fact that Amazon are trying to move into the gaming space, as are others and what better way to move into a space that is largely undominated than buying the Oculus? If Facebook didn't buy Oculus, someone else would have, maybe Google or Amazon. People keep iterating the statement, "But Facebook aren't a games company" which reminds me of a few years ago when people (especially Steve Balmer) were saying that Apple isn't a phone company and won't gain any market share. Facebook have the funds, talent and workforce to go into any area they choose. Look at Google, what did they know about clean energy, driver-less car tech, cloud infrastructure hosting when they started? Nothing. And now look at them, through various acquisitions and talent hires, Google have become an empire and this is what Facebook are doing: building an empire. Through previous acquisitions Facebook have proven that they leave them mostly untouched. Besides tighter integration with Facebook, what has changed in Instagram since it was acquired by Facebook? Nothing. If anything, this is great for Oculus, because it means they won't have to repeatedly seek VC capital every time they want to iterate and improve the product: we the consumer win out of this. The backlash is unwarranted and ridiculous in my opinion. People complaining over nothing.
- sillysaurus3 13y ago
  Notch didn't say Facebook acquiring Oculus was creepy. Notch said Facebook is creepy. Besides tighter integration with Facebook, what has changed in Instagram since it was acquired by Facebook? Nothing. You just pointed out exactly what changed with Instagram, and what everyone is afraid of changing with the Oculus. "Log in to your Facebook account to continue playing."
  - IE5point6 13y ago
    Hardly been owned long enough to make a judgement on that yet
cwyers 13y ago
"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." The community raised $2.5 million, which (in part) enabled Oculus to build the first round of prototypes. That's great. I'm sure that the Kickstarter money was burned through a long, long time ago. And as far as I know, Oculus has delivered on every backer reward it offered. So backers got to do two things: they got the rewards they were promised, and they got to support Oculus' growth -- as far as I know, that is exactly the premise of Kickstarter. So now Oculus has grown, and as Notch himself says: "They had fixed all the major issues, and all that remained was huge design and software implementation challenges." Huge challenges. Including scaling up from building limited quantities of developer kits to trying to mass produce consumer hardware. Oculus was helped to get to this point by Kickstarter money, but that money wasn't going to get them any further, and there's still a very large gap between where Oculus is now and where they (and their backers) want them to be. Do I trust Facebook? No. Would I trust Microsoft or Google or Amazon or Apple? Not really. But I don't need to trust; I can simply wait and see what Oculus does with the money Facebook is giving it, and see what Facebook expects of Oculus in return. It COULD be bad. Or it COULD help Oculus grow. But the feeling of betrayal by the Kickstarter backers seems to me misplaced; you paid money to help Oculus grow and succeed, and they have.
- WalterSear 13y ago
  There are literally hundreds of product design firms that could have helped them with this that you never hear about, that are well versed in bringing mass produced technology products to market. Facebook doesn't have any of that: all it has is money, which I am certain that Oculus wouldn't have any trouble raising on its own. Source: a family member works for one, and is in China right now, producing headphones for Dr. Dre.
Hominem 13y ago
Now this kinda sucks because oculus + minecraft is pretty much the metaverse.
ps4fanboy 13y ago
When will notch delete this page https://www.facebook.com/minecraft https://www.facebook.com/minecraft. Or is it more do as I say not as I do.
falconfunction 13y ago
they could have been a competitor to apple, google and facebook if they had gone it alone.
- scient 13y ago
  Exactly the opposite actually. They can be competitors with other large companies now.
jbb555 13y ago
Good for him. Not for what he did, I have no opinion on it. But for actually having some principles other than how to make more money.
- nyrina 13y ago
  Couldn't really have been on how to make more money - as it wouldn't have been minecraft itself getting VR, but a freebie version.
bayesianhorse 13y ago
Essentially the kickstarter backers feel cheated when the founders sell out? Didn't they know this could happen? That in the case of Oculus VR it was probably bound to happen?
s3r3nity 13y ago
>"Facebook creeps me out." So you lose out on an audience of 1.2Bn people for Minecraft and comment on the situation on Twitter -- a social network that does pretty much all the same things Facebook does.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  Yup. And I bet he felt good doing it, too.
- argv_empty 13y ago
  Who are these 1.2 billion? Facebook's users? Notch already has access to that audience. Plenty of them already play his game.
skrowl 13y ago
Good. I hope everyone ditches Oculus Rift for non-facebook-owned-alternatives like they ditched Instagram for (the far superior IMO) Telegram after that acquisition was announced.
- octo_t 13y ago
  things_which_did_not_happen.txt
trekky1700 13y ago
This is going to be just like how Facebook ruined Instagram and WhatsApp. Oh, wait. They didn't. I'm quite certain, based on Facebook's history, that they'll let Oculus be their own thing, and we'll enjoy the benefit of Oculus being injected with huge amounts of funds.
balladeer 13y ago
> And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition. That says a lot.
duncan_bayne 13y ago
"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." Actually, that is exactly what he did, and I'm somewhat surprised that folks didn't see this coming. If not FB, then it would have been one of the other large and evil (hi, Google!) tech companies. The thing that makes me sad is that it wasn't one of the 'old media' companies, seeking to update their offerings for a new generation of customers.
rocky1138 13y ago
Does Notch speak for Mojang? Can he say what Mojang will and will not do with Minecraft? Carl is the CEO. I suppose Notch is still majority shareholder, but this is the type of thing I expect the leader of the company to say. Imagine if Mojang decided to do differently than what Notch wanted here and ended up porting Minecraft to Oculus despite Notch's protests. What an interesting story that would be!
idleworx 13y ago
+1 for Notch once again

887 points by sethbannon 13y ago

I don't blame him.

skore 13y ago

> "Facebook creeps me out." Whether or not you agree with his decision, having Notch pull away from talks with you creates an instant credibility "situation". It's also noteable that Notch had been meeting with the Oculus team just two weeks ago[0], was tweeting about them in rather gushing terms[1] and seemed incredibly inspired to work on VR ideas[2]. He is now the personification of the a near universal feeling of betrayal in the community. Will be interesting to see how this develops. [0] https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/443541395543162880 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/443541395543162880 [1] https://twitter.com/notch/status/443461570195378177 https://twitter.com/notch/status/443461570195378177 [2] https://twitter.com/notch/status/446312677745254400 https://twitter.com/notch/status/446312677745254400

mrschwabe 13y ago
Indeed, nice to see Notch take a stand and provide some sliver of redemption today for the thousands of nerds (myself included) upset about the Oculus Facebook deal today. I can't imagine the Oculus team ever reaching their fundraising goal if backers knew the founders were going to sellout before ever reaching the vision they shared to get people to back it in the first place. EDIT: Notch seems to have just confirmed the postulation above in his latest blog post: "I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-...
- lingben 13y ago
  Exactly. But this goes further and lays bare the sheer stupidity inherent in kickstarter or any other crowd-sourcing platform. Just like facebook's Frankensteinian monstrous mish-mash of consumer/content/advertiser/publisher crowd-funding in its current state is a mish-mash that ends up meaning nothing in the end. You are not an equity partner, you really have no say in how decisions are made, you are not a lender, you are and are not a client (depending on whether they actually give you the damn 'thing' or not due to a host of reasons, going bust, running out of money, fraud, etc.)
  - ycaspirant 13y ago
    The terms of funding on Kickstarter are pretty clear and straightforward. You back a project for a certain amount of money in exchange for a promised reward (this reward is never equity). When the time comes you either get your reward or you get your money back. Simple as that.
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      ...or you get your money back. Has this ever happened? I was under the impression that the funds raised through Kickstarter are spent on the kickstarted projects. If after spending the money, the project "fails", how can there be a refund?
  - sillysaurus3 13y ago
    I'm happy Oculus got my money for the original devkit, and I spent several hours enjoying it. As far as kickstarter, it's hard to fault them.
  - TaylorAlexander 13y ago
    "this ... lays bare the sheer stupidity inherent in kickstarter..." I'm sorry, but where is the stupidity? Kickstarter is a specific tool available to founders/innovators/creatives that allows us to reach a community of supporters quickly and efficiently. Like all tools, it has a specific way that it operates, and to keep such a new thing from spinning out of control, it is relatively simple and has few rules. Fortunately, we are all made aware of this going in. Backers generally pledge to receive a product. The creator benefits from early access to cash which allows them to build their product. This is what happened with Oculus, and they have already delivered vouchers to all backers which they could have redeemed for the original developer version from last year, the current developer version coming in July, or the consumer version still definitely coming towards the end of this year. I fail to see how Oculus gaining a parent company somehow "lays bare the sheer stupidity" of the system Kickstarter provides. People pledged for a high quality VR device, and Oculus promised to change the world. It seems these things will happen. One of the most compelling opportunities provided by virtual reality is not just gaming, but it's capability to put us somewhere else, including in a virtual room with our loved ones. Virtual reality enables an interaction that humans have never before been able to experience - the ability to hang out in a virtual space with another person. Facebook, whose primary goal has generally been to provide a platform for connecting humans to eachother, clearly sees the value in VR's ability to provide this new experience for us. As such, they've used their purchasing power to buy a stake in the VR game and help grow this new technology. Some day, we will be able to hang out with out loved ones, visit the doctor, or join a game with friends all in a shared virtual space. This is a future made possible by the Kickstarter model, which enabled Oculus to get the start they needed to commercialize Virtual Reality. Tell me again how that is stupid? What strikes me as stupid is the huge number of people decrying this move as some kind of perversion of the original Kickstarter promise, or some kind of bait and switch. It seems to be the logical progression of a company creating a ground-breaking new human interface device. Should they stay independent indefinitely just because they were crowd funded? I don't see how that would make any sense, or why such a modification to the Kickstarter model would be any kind of improvement.
- baby 13y ago
  > nice to see Notch take a stand taking a stand against Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and now Oculus ? I know that Notch wants to develop games with passionate people, but he has to understand that this acquisition was the best thing that could happen to both VR and Oculus. Anyway, Notch has been infamously known for his quick rants (see the "youtuber he insulted" issue)
  - bunderbunder 13y ago
    > I know that Notch wants to develop games with passionate people, but he has to understand that this acquisition was the best thing that could happen to both VR and Oculus. The two really don't have anything to do with each other. There's no rule saying that if someone comes out winning in business deal, then everyone comes out winning in that business deal.
  - o0-0o 13y ago
    That's a rather immature argument. Instagram, Facebook, and WhatApp are not really used by the same crowd in general. Also, I'd encourage you to do a bit more scratching on the term infamous. Hitler was infamous. Look, I'm not trying to discount your point, which is that this 'was the best thing', but you really don't have that crystal ball. No one does.
  - blhack 13y ago
    The best thing? There is really no other company you could think of who would be a better partner? Like google? Or Microsoft?
    - baby 13y ago
      Google ? I don't know, they have so many products that they acquire and then shut down. Also, they have so many products that... it wouldn't have been such a big deal to acquire Oculus Microsoft ? They already have a gaming branch so why not, but for the same reason as Google, people wouldn't have noticed it much. But Facebook ? Everybody around me is going to talk about it, even non-gamers. You have no idea how huge this is for VR.
    - 13y ago
res0nat0r 13y ago
I'd rather think of it as an indie developer who got lucky and struck it big making a pixelated block pushing game doesn't like that a VR firm is now part of a social networking company. My thought is good for him for standing up for what he believes in, but he is going to be missing out on some possible awesome to come engineering which previously might have taken years to obtain w/o FB's involvement. It seems to be ignored but the massive pockets, infrastructure, and engineering at FB will allow Occulus to have access to much much more than they could have achieved previously.
sillysaurus3 13y ago
Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR. Glad to see Carmack is still being Carmack. EDIT: By the way, if anyone is wondering why people are having a negative reaction to this Facebook deal, I think one way to understand it is to watch this video fullscreen and try to imagine any way that Facebook could add to the experience, or at least not detract from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s It's hard to.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  > scaling crisis for VR. That's supposing Facebook knows how to scale production of electronic items... apart from the cash, they have no relevant experience about that. If it had been Google or Microsoft there would already be people who know how to make it scale to mass production.
  - TaylorAlexander 13y ago
    Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. I don't think Google has much internal hardware production knowledge right now, aside from the knowledge they bought when they acquired Motorola. Before that, they mostly made things through hardware partners like HTC, Samsung, and LG. I think they produce the Chromecast internally, but it's not much fancier than a USB stick. I'm sure they are quickly learning, but Facebook is also already buying up hardware companies and they have been building their own custom servers for internal use for years.
    - ekianjo 13y ago
      > Facebook has the buying power to put together a solid hardware production team. Well I have worked in companies making physical goods (shipping millions every year), and you just don't buy a team from one day to another. It's not just about production, it's about supply chain, it's about quality management and quality assurance, regulations for sale in different countries/states, market research, product qualification to improve the design, actual customer support, vendors, distribution, etc... It's a whole new area of skills/functions you don't have, and that does not mix very well with a software-only company mentality. I think it's going to be very tough for them to make something solid with Facebook. EDIT: They would have been better prepared for scaling with a company like Apple (whose main business is already making hardware), Microsoft or Google for that matter. Many people say Valve could have been a good choice, but Valve has said several times they don't want to go into the hardware business (and won't make Steam boxes themselves).
melling 13y ago
Nah, it's irrelevant and will be a non-issue in a couple of years. Now that there are two strong VR players, things should progress much quicker. Consumers win. Hopefully, Notch will change his mind and embrace both platforms. Let's keep both companies in the game so the innovation doesn't stop.
XorNot 13y ago
It feels like Notch is being given too much credibility here. At the end of the day he's a billionaire because he had a viral hit and was ready with a monetization strategy (and had amazingly cheap running costs). None of this really speaks to his business or technical acumen, and he hasn't exactly done very much lately.
- netcan 13y ago
  Nonsense. He has credibility because he's proven to be effectual, innovative and principled. This is not the case of a guy getting lucky in the viral lottery and then running his mouth.
  - dclowd9901 13y ago
    If he does one other thing to completion, I'll buy that.
    - jsheard 13y ago
      Even calling Minecraft finished is dubious, the official mod/plugin API has been in the works since 2010 and still isn't available. A game that's so dependent on mods for long term appeal and server management shouldn't have to rely on decompiling the .jar and patching classes by hand.
      - bitJericho 13y ago
        Didn't realize continually updating a game these days is considered "never finished". Minecraft is more of a game than anything on Facebook.
        jsheard 13y ago
        It's been a few years since I played Minecraft seriously, but when I did they were mostly chasing low hanging fruit rather than working on hard or boring problems like modding, anti-cheat, RAM consumption, renderer efficiency or server administration. Full disclosure: A year of dealing with a small-population server regularly getting OOM-killed on a 512MB VPS might have made me slightly bitter.

letstryagain 13y ago

'Within the last hour EVERY friend I know was developing a rift game has canceled. That's around 11 projects just gone.' from a Reddit comment

venomsnake 13y ago
The backlash is phenomenal. And completely predictable.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  And ridiculous.
  - ivanca 13y ago
    It is not; like @segphault just tweeted: "Tragic that all of the great ideas of our time get swallowed by soulless web companies that lack vision and only care about spying on us."
  - benched 13y ago
    Yes. All of us who hate this development are irrational. That's the only explanation for this groundswell. I can't think of a single reason to be cynical about Facebook or about this deal.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - Karunamon 13y ago
      Snark aside, people tend to lose all sense of perspective and objectivity anytime Facebook is mentioned. Especially the crowd around here. I really, really don't understand the pathological and irrational hate for Facebook and/or ads.
      - masklinn 13y ago

cordite 13y ago

Third party mods will likely make it happen.

GuiA 13y ago
They already do: https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift
- BHSPitMonkey 13y ago
  And that mod is incredible, too. Standing in the Minecraft world in VR while it's snowing is pretty gorgeous.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

elohesra 13y ago

I can't honestly blame him here. I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they do want Oculus Rift for. I assume Notch is worried about those implications. Will Facebook start demanding that every Oculus Rift game have tight Facebook integration? Will Facebook do something strange, like have Facebook wall updates appear in the game world irrespective of whether it fits into the game? If I were a game developer, this'd creep me out too.

enraged_camel 13y ago
>>I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out' I think that's very much the issue. Seriously, "virtual reality" and "Facebook" are two things I don't want to think about in the same context. The former is an extremely promising piece of technology that can change the way people work, talk and play. The latter is a gigantic online advertising engine. Put them together and there's only one direction virtual reality can go: a new way to advertise to Facebook users (once they "bring virtual reality to everyone" of course. /eyeroll ).
- elohesra 13y ago
  Okay, let me play devil's advocate: Perhaps Facebook are thinking "What's the one thing that could truly set us apart from all other social media sites, and place a prohibitively high barrier to entry on this otherwise very easy to enter field?", and perhaps the conclusion they've reached is to take social media to the next level, and have it simulate life in virtual reality. Perhaps Facebook are going to aim to have a FacebookVR some time in the future, where you can meet up with other avatars 'in person' in their virtual reality community? ... Or perhaps this is just a sleazy cash in where they think they can recapture the video-game-enamoured youth market by shoving Facebook into every Oculus Rift game.
  - chris_mahan 13y ago

loity9 13y ago

He has my respect. Facebook needs to be shunned by anyone with a brain, until they are a footnote in Internet history. Their privacy violations are unforgivable. Really disappointed in the Occulus Rift board right now. I guess money overrides any sort of values.

xendo 13y ago

I'm wondering, what's John Carmack take on this, he quit idSoftware to join Oculus, which was very open by that time. He always was proponent of openness... right now from a laik perspective it looks it was mistake to leave id.

joshontheweb 13y ago
His take is a nice slice of that 2 billion dollar pie.
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago
  Yeah but what is Carmack going to do with more money? That's the last person I think of in tech who could be motivated by dollar signs.
  - joshontheweb 13y ago
    Armadillo Aerospace ran out of money. Seems like that could be a potential destination for more money.
    - ics 13y ago
      Link for the lazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace
  - nilkn 13y ago
    It is possible to always want more money no matter how much you have.
freyrs3 13y ago
Wiling to bet he'll wait a few days until the buzz settles down and then announce that he's leaving to pursue other work without a mention of why.
- bla2 13y ago

rjtavares 13y ago

You could say the Facebook aquisition... took it down a Notch! (Sorry, had to do it. I accept the inevitable downvotes as long as I make one person smile)

cordite 13y ago
You did.
qdog 13y ago
Sunglasses YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
asdfologist 13y ago
I'll give you some Gold... Oh wait wrong site.
thenmar 13y ago
Maybe that new comment system was a good idea after all.

nostromo 13y ago

Am I way off in thinking Zuck wants to make Oculus Facebook's response to Google Glass?

Jack000 13y ago
I don't see it, they're completely different products
- Riesling 13y ago
  There are already developments towards blending in the real world into the VR space again. Attach stereo cameras to the front of the device detect certain important features (like other persons or mouse and keyboard) and merge them into the picture created by the VR device. In my opinion, this is much better than the Google approach because it gives you more control over the visualization. Now imagine the devices having the size of regular sunglasses. Imagine all the possibilities. I have seen a project displaying the picture from the front cameras in HDR mode. Therefore, making reality looking better that it really did. Now think of Facebook having the lead in this development… Still makes me sad if I think about it, because they are not going to use this power responsibly.

LoganCale 13y ago

It's great to see some people maintain their integrity even while others are selling out.

a1a 13y ago
Apples and oranges: Notch is made $100 million, just in 2012 [1]. That being said - I am truly thankful that he is taking a stand, I certainly hope others will follow. Either way, Zuckerberg will learn his lesson; you do not fuck up a crowd-funded project. [1] http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/minecrafts-notch-on-earning-101m-in-2012-its-weird-as-f/ http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/minecrafts-notch-on-earnin...
- pekk 13y ago
  Notch hasn't had a shortage of offers for Minecraft. Oculus took roughly as much in VC as Notch made in 2012, and they didn't even get to the point of selling a real product before they sold to Facebook.
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  "you do not fuck up a crowd-funded project" Oculus raised $75M after their Kickstarter. Crowd-funding was a stepping stone. And it remains to be seen whether Facebook "fucks it up" or turns it into something amazing look Google did with Android.
  - a1a 13y ago
    Google did fuck up Android (privacy wise). (1) Requirement of a Google account (i.e. forced correlation of your phone with youtube, google searches, google analytics, google ... ), (2) Ever checked those privileges on the default applications - that you can't disable or remove? Why are those closed-source by the way?, (3) Search the web for more examples. Either way, I agree that I made an assumption - but - this is kinda related: http://bgr.com/2014/03/06/facebook-android-app-permissions/ http://bgr.com/2014/03/06/facebook-android-app-permissions/ Crowd funding is not only about money. Your funders also invest emotions into the project. I am mad, I think others will be as well. To quote Notch[1]: "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." [1] http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-...

ROFISH 13y ago

http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/25/5547584/facebook-buys-oculus-rift-game-developers-reaction http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/25/5547584/facebook-buys-oculu... > Mojang's Notch was more direct in a tweet. "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus," he said. "I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out." > We reached out for further comment, and he clarified his position. "Well, VR has huge potential in many fields, including social. I can see why Facebook would want to get in to this," he told Polygon. "As a game developer, however, I don't ever want to get stuck trying to target a platform not focused on games. People have made this mistake before."

chris_mahan 13y ago
The Android version of Minecraft is very nice. Looking forward to more and better. (My son would love more raising sheep/pugs/cattle game options--he's a rancher at heart)
- arcatek 13y ago
  Notch sayed that console versions were almost fully reimplementations rather than portages, so some features will probably go missing for quite a long time.
  - chris_mahan 13y ago
    I know. I have normal minecraft on my PC. I like the Android version better. It's too boring to make the items in the crafting table on the PC version.

BHSPitMonkey 13y ago

I can understand shying away from any direct integration with Oculus itself from now on, but that doesn't explain why a game dev wouldn't want to still add VR support in at least a platform-agnostic way. I'm under the impression that there's an effort to create a standardized API for capturing head tracking data, anyway.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

daturkel 13y ago

"I did a midnight mind dump on the situation. I'm jetlagged and tired, so it might not make sense: http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-... " -@notch on twitter.

neop 13y ago

I'm still waiting for Jonathan Blow's take on all of this. He's another one of the "big" indie developers and he had previously stated that The Witness would work with Oculus, I wonder if the acquisition changes that. He already tweeted about the news and RT some stuff, but no word on his plans yet.

lotsofmangos 13y ago

A decent open source hardware standard and dev kit for VR/AR would be really popular about now. Are there any good ones out there?

mantrax3 13y ago

Facebook buys WhatsApp - hundreds of thousands creeped out, go to Telegram app. Facebook buys Oculus Rift, Minecraft creator cancels talks, creeped out. Feels like that Facebook brand has taken a hit or two with all the privacy violations, huh?

ArcticCelt 13y ago
Facebook is modern times AOL, negatively contaminating everything they buy.
asdfologist 13y ago
WhatsApp lost hundreds of thousands of users out of 450 million. Yeah, I bet they're losing sleep every night over that 0.1%.
- john2x 13y ago
  Still, that's hundreds of thousands the competition didn't have.
  - asdfologist 13y ago
    Crushing. Their competitors now must have enough extra revenue to buy an expensive couch.
- mantrax3 13y ago
  I find this particular form of cynicism entertaining. But this is not about the particular number of users lost. It's about Facebook's brand. There are many things Facebook might want to do, but it can't, because people don't trust them, and their every movie is a potential cause for outrage. No company wants to be left with the only alternative of buying their way into success, and as you see this doesn't work quite smooth, either.
mercer 13y ago
I'm amazed by the fact that most of my non-geeky friends are wary of Facebook. Most of them still use the platform (as do I), but a bunch of them already switched to Telegram, and a lot of them have become much more careful about how they use Facebook. These are people who don't really follow developments in the tech sector and use computers as 'iPads with a mouse and keyboard'. The ones who generally shrug at revelations of surveillance and the dangers that come with too much of it. It will be interesting to see what kind of impact this has on Facebook long-term, if any.

noonespecial 13y ago

"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." I'm guessing that pretty much sums up the reaction of everyone who backed the initial kickstarter. Sounds like a serious lapse of "dance with the one who brung ya" to me.

Camillo 13y ago
When I said that it was silly to simply donate money to a commercial venture without gaining any stake in it, they called me a naysayer. Who's saying nay now?
- interpol_p 13y ago
  How is it a donation if you receive the item you backed? Most people backed Oculus to get their hands on a dev kit (I did). I don't feel like I donated — I feel like I got my money's worth.
  - zyx321 13y ago
    A lot of people backed for the "change the world" promise: "Changing the way people experience video games forever." Of course nobody should be surprised if that turns out to be a bold-faced lie, but that doesn't mean it's not disappointing.
    - interpol_p 13y ago
      Did you personally back for the "change the world" promise?
- drcode 13y ago
  nay
- noonespecial 13y ago
  You are quite right, of course. But kickstarter is a brand new animal in the world of products and financing. There aren't any laws or even any concrete social norms around it yet. Perhaps people should "know better' but I'm not sure that's helpful. In the absence of laws or codified rules we should expect to fall back on manners. What Oculus did feels bad because its rude. At the very least, they should recognize that they are in uncharted territory. A bunch of random strangers gave them gifts because they believed in the vision. If that vision turns into a multi-billion dollar payday, they might consider giving a few gifts back to those kind strangers. Its not like they don't have a list of them all with contact info and everything. It would be polite to do so.

politician 13y ago

> "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition."[0] I'm beginning to feel the same way about participating in Kickstarter. [0] http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/ http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-...

epenn 13y ago

I don't really understand this decision. From an experiential standpoint, the Rift seems like a pretty obvious platform to have a release of Minecraft available. Within a short time it will likely have a solid user base which makes it a good business decision as well. Now support for that platform is being pulled, not because of any technical, financial, or licensing issues, but because Notch thinks the new owner is creepy? That seems like a knee-jerk reaction drawn more from emotion than logic.

varkson 13y ago
He's always been childish like this, this is no different. He did provide a better explanation to one of the gaming sites, talking about how he doesn't want to put time into a platform that won't be gaming focused, but we have no indication of that happening.

benched 13y ago

I hope that this illustrates for some that the distaste over this deal is more than a few "irrational" / cynical malcontents on Hacker News. A lot of people have a serious problem with Facebook the service, the cultural shift, and the company. On another note, I was so looking forward to Minecraft on Oculus. I sincerely hope that Valve picks up the torch here.

varkson 13y ago
Notch is an irrational / cynical malcontent, exactly the same as the people on HN. I wouldn't be surprised if he frequents here.
EpicEng 13y ago
Anecdotal data point; I just informed my girlfriend of this deal. My girlfriend, who knows of Oculus as "that virtual reality thing you were talking about." She also uses FB. Her response, verbatim; "that's not good."
ps4fanboy 13y ago
And yet most of them still have accounts, the irony.

aaron695 13y ago

Incredibly immature. Disappointed in Notch. I guess he's just a game designer at the end of the day, not an activist, so I guess meh. Oculus is hardware, hopefully Facebooks billions will bring forward adoption, reduce hardware dev times and create some crappy software that people can chose not to use. How this can been seen as a bad thing, boggles my mind. I want VR decades ago. At least Facebooks billions might make the current timeline somewhat bearable.

chris_wot 13y ago
"I want VR decades ago" is not what I would call a mature response. I'd hardly call Notch immature, he has ethical issues with Facebook and it doesn't fit his worldview. Rejecting any collaboration is the most mature way forward.
- pnut 13y ago
  I experienced VR decades ago in an SGI cave, circa 1995. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environm... Which is about the same time PC graphics were picking up, and games like Descent came into existence. So, like GP, I agree that widespread VR has been overdue for a long time. What does maturity even mean in a capitalist system? All hail the philosopher entrepreneur? Give me a break.

joyeuse6701 13y ago

Well, I was initially pretty against the idea. Then again, maybe I'll write a Facebook app called snowcrash >=) and tear it all down.

tomelders 13y ago

Does anyone have any insight into Occulus' incentive or motive to do this deal? Edit: beyond the obvious monetary incentive, which I'm not sure was that much of an incentive since hordes of people seemed ready and willing to throw money at the oculus rift. 2 billion sounds like a bargain right now.

ycaspirant 13y ago
Two billion USD.
simlevesque 13y ago
You mean beside money and the assurance that they will have enough funding to do anything?
rjd 13y ago
Sony was about to steam roll them? and Microsoft in the next year as well? The Sony morpheus system is already better than oculus feature wise, with better position tracking, and accessory tracking as well. And don't under estimate that, I've read some pretty strong "never again" comments from people using VR headsets and loosing grip of the controls and floundering and/or having to take the headset off to get the controls back into there grips again... even just moving your hand on the keyboard is apparently quite annoying. Essentially without backing they will loose all market capabilities and be relegated to experimental hardware and not a mass market device. Being brought out by other companies probably wouldn't of been a reality. MS probably have there own tech and wouldn't gain much more than branding... and xbox is a stronger brand anyway... and Valve would no doubt have chosen to partner rather than buy out... so waving $2bil in your face and the guarantee of ongoing funding and launch platform... its a no brainer.
- neolefty 13y ago
  Excellent analysis. So many companies are promising until they get swamped by far larger competitors, and all their fans are caught off guard. Then they disappear and become "remember when" stories. Oculus surely saw the writing on the wall.
- 13y ago

dorkrawk 13y ago

[an optimistic thought] I feel like a lot of people might be overthinking the Facebook/Oculus integration. FB is a big company with lots of money that is still figuring out how to make money. Oculus seems like a company that could make money in a way that diversifies FB's income. Maybe if they just own Oculus and let the smart people at the helm do what they do best (I feel like Zuckerberg can recognize the smart people in charge of Oculus) it will just be a good company that earns money for Facebook so Facebook can keep doing what it does. I know Zuck mentions VR and social together in his post, but maybe he just feels compelled to justify the purchase in relation to what Facebook is known for.

wudf 13y ago

Now's your chance Sony. Do to Facebook what you did to Microsoft: Nothing.

neotek 13y ago

That's a shame, because Minecrift[1] is the most astonishing Oculus experience I've had so far. Just being inside a world I had created, surrounded by peaceful ambience, floating above the treetops (fly mod, heh) - I can't express just how beautiful that experience was. [1] https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift

DigitalSea 13y ago

What company isn't creepy these days? Google, Facebook and Amazon are a few companies of many that come to mind when I think of all the user data they hold, what they know and what they could use it for. Thems the breaks unfortunately. I admire Notch standing up for what he believes in, but I just can't see how Facebook is creepier than anything else or affects the acquisition of Oculus. It's not like the gaming device is going to give Facebook any extra information it most likely doesn't already have on you. It is also a known fact that Amazon are trying to move into the gaming space, as are others and what better way to move into a space that is largely undominated than buying the Oculus? If Facebook didn't buy Oculus, someone else would have, maybe Google or Amazon. People keep iterating the statement, "But Facebook aren't a games company" which reminds me of a few years ago when people (especially Steve Balmer) were saying that Apple isn't a phone company and won't gain any market share. Facebook have the funds, talent and workforce to go into any area they choose. Look at Google, what did they know about clean energy, driver-less car tech, cloud infrastructure hosting when they started? Nothing. And now look at them, through various acquisitions and talent hires, Google have become an empire and this is what Facebook are doing: building an empire. Through previous acquisitions Facebook have proven that they leave them mostly untouched. Besides tighter integration with Facebook, what has changed in Instagram since it was acquired by Facebook? Nothing. If anything, this is great for Oculus, because it means they won't have to repeatedly seek VC capital every time they want to iterate and improve the product: we the consumer win out of this. The backlash is unwarranted and ridiculous in my opinion. People complaining over nothing.

sillysaurus3 13y ago
Notch didn't say Facebook acquiring Oculus was creepy. Notch said Facebook is creepy. Besides tighter integration with Facebook, what has changed in Instagram since it was acquired by Facebook? Nothing. You just pointed out exactly what changed with Instagram, and what everyone is afraid of changing with the Oculus. "Log in to your Facebook account to continue playing."
- IE5point6 13y ago
  Hardly been owned long enough to make a judgement on that yet

cwyers 13y ago

"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." The community raised $2.5 million, which (in part) enabled Oculus to build the first round of prototypes. That's great. I'm sure that the Kickstarter money was burned through a long, long time ago. And as far as I know, Oculus has delivered on every backer reward it offered. So backers got to do two things: they got the rewards they were promised, and they got to support Oculus' growth -- as far as I know, that is exactly the premise of Kickstarter. So now Oculus has grown, and as Notch himself says: "They had fixed all the major issues, and all that remained was huge design and software implementation challenges." Huge challenges. Including scaling up from building limited quantities of developer kits to trying to mass produce consumer hardware. Oculus was helped to get to this point by Kickstarter money, but that money wasn't going to get them any further, and there's still a very large gap between where Oculus is now and where they (and their backers) want them to be. Do I trust Facebook? No. Would I trust Microsoft or Google or Amazon or Apple? Not really. But I don't need to trust; I can simply wait and see what Oculus does with the money Facebook is giving it, and see what Facebook expects of Oculus in return. It COULD be bad. Or it COULD help Oculus grow. But the feeling of betrayal by the Kickstarter backers seems to me misplaced; you paid money to help Oculus grow and succeed, and they have.

WalterSear 13y ago
There are literally hundreds of product design firms that could have helped them with this that you never hear about, that are well versed in bringing mass produced technology products to market. Facebook doesn't have any of that: all it has is money, which I am certain that Oculus wouldn't have any trouble raising on its own. Source: a family member works for one, and is in China right now, producing headphones for Dr. Dre.

Hominem 13y ago

Now this kinda sucks because oculus + minecraft is pretty much the metaverse.

ps4fanboy 13y ago

When will notch delete this page https://www.facebook.com/minecraft https://www.facebook.com/minecraft. Or is it more do as I say not as I do.

falconfunction 13y ago

they could have been a competitor to apple, google and facebook if they had gone it alone.

scient 13y ago
Exactly the opposite actually. They can be competitors with other large companies now.

jbb555 13y ago

Good for him. Not for what he did, I have no opinion on it. But for actually having some principles other than how to make more money.

nyrina 13y ago
Couldn't really have been on how to make more money - as it wouldn't have been minecraft itself getting VR, but a freebie version.

bayesianhorse 13y ago

Essentially the kickstarter backers feel cheated when the founders sell out? Didn't they know this could happen? That in the case of Oculus VR it was probably bound to happen?

s3r3nity 13y ago

>"Facebook creeps me out." So you lose out on an audience of 1.2Bn people for Minecraft and comment on the situation on Twitter -- a social network that does pretty much all the same things Facebook does.

chris_wot 13y ago
Yup. And I bet he felt good doing it, too.
argv_empty 13y ago
Who are these 1.2 billion? Facebook's users? Notch already has access to that audience. Plenty of them already play his game.

skrowl 13y ago

Good. I hope everyone ditches Oculus Rift for non-facebook-owned-alternatives like they ditched Instagram for (the far superior IMO) Telegram after that acquisition was announced.

octo_t 13y ago
things_which_did_not_happen.txt

trekky1700 13y ago

This is going to be just like how Facebook ruined Instagram and WhatsApp. Oh, wait. They didn't. I'm quite certain, based on Facebook's history, that they'll let Oculus be their own thing, and we'll enjoy the benefit of Oculus being injected with huge amounts of funds.

balladeer 13y ago

> And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition. That says a lot.

duncan_bayne 13y ago

"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." Actually, that is exactly what he did, and I'm somewhat surprised that folks didn't see this coming. If not FB, then it would have been one of the other large and evil (hi, Google!) tech companies. The thing that makes me sad is that it wasn't one of the 'old media' companies, seeking to update their offerings for a new generation of customers.

rocky1138 13y ago

Does Notch speak for Mojang? Can he say what Mojang will and will not do with Minecraft? Carl is the CEO. I suppose Notch is still majority shareholder, but this is the type of thing I expect the leader of the company to say. Imagine if Mojang decided to do differently than what Notch wanted here and ended up porting Minecraft to Oculus despite Notch's protests. What an interesting story that would be!

idleworx 13y ago

+1 for Notch once again