6 ms·

Early Supporters of Oculus VR Denounce Facebook Buyout

43 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
not_paul_graham 13y ago
Isn't this article stating what is an obvious conclusion from a ton of other links currently on the HN homepage? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7470097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7470097 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237
bhouston 13y ago
This is a weird situation. Sometimes when a product goes ultra-mainstream as FB is likely trying to do with Oculus Rift, it doesn't matter a huge amount if it losses its first supporters. But Oculus Rift is losing the core of the gaming community here. And that is its target demographic for both early and medium term adoption, it isn't a small fringe community. (It isn't just early supporters who are mad, it is the core of the gaming community that was excited about this.) If I was in management at FB or Oculus Rift and cared about its future, I would be freaking out and trying to figure out damage control strategy (which I haven't yet seem arise, although maybe I have missed it so far.) This really open up the space for competitors to take a large bit out of what seemed to be a clear leader.
- stormcrowsx 13y ago
  I don't see why gamers would care who owns it. I'm interested in the Oculus Rift and I don't care if it was McDonald's that made it, if it works good they'll get my business.
  - Morgawr 13y ago
    Gamers are very sensitive to this type of stuff. There has been previous malcontent in the gaming scene about major corporations like EA or Activision acquiring smaller independent studios. There's a general trend of criticism towards "casual" games, especially from the core "old school" gamers, there's constant bickering between PC and Console world, and even intra-wars between various consoles and fans. It's a very active and rebellious scene and gamers enjoy direct relationships with studios like Valve, CDProjekt, Mojang, etc etc, those "big" studios who still operate independently and directly listen to their audience and target instead of trying to monetize everything to maximize income.
    - TarpitCarnivore 13y ago
      > There has been previous malcontent in the gaming scene about major corporations like EA or Activision acquiring smaller independent studios. And for every post about how EA is the devil, they continue to sell games hand over fist. I think the gaming community has a perception that they're far larger than they are. And at the end of the day if a product, or game, is good they're going to buy it.
  - noonespecial 13y ago
    It doesn't matter at all if gamers care or not. Game devlopers on the other hand... If Oculus misses out (or even arrives late) to the "Doom of VR"), they are, well, doomed.
    - stormcrowsx 13y ago
      Devs will make games for whatever platform people have the hardware for. They aren't going to care either. A lot of devs are not fans of Microsoft but I'll be damned if there isn't a shit ton of software for Windows out there.
  - shubb 13y ago
    Gamers do care about that kind of thing - they have a personal relationship with brands like Sony, Microsoft, and the major game studios. They have a history, as a group, of getting cartoonishly upset with those brands. Rift is going into competition against entrenched gaming brands like Sony. I believe that Sony is too risk averse to invent something like Oculus, but they are certainly skilled enough to clone it but better, rapidly. If Oculus is launching a second best product against companies that already own the market, they need to be percieved as David vs Goliath. Now they are not.
marknutter 13y ago
The reaction by the community is completely irrational. Facebook has largely left Parse, Instagram, and WhatsApp alone. It hasn't required people to use Facebook to log into those services nor has it shoved ads in Parse developers' faces. By all accounts, they simply seem to be buying companies with great products and potential and just giving them the resources to continue to grow and improve. It makes absolutely zero sense for Facebook to meddle with Oculus by pursuing any of the ridiculous paths people are worried about like trying to integrate the Rift into the Facebook platform or turn away from the gaming community or charge for the SDK or any other tinfoil scenarios people are assuming Facebook will pursue. The truth is, the Sony announcement was a significant shot across the bow at Oculus. From all accounts their headset is already on par with the rift, plus they have a massive built in user base. Oculus may have had the support and interest of a subset of hardcore gamers behind them but that's small potatoes compared to the console market. With Facebook, they may actually have a fighting chance to retain their position as the leader in VR. On the upside, however, everyone is canceling their DK2 orders which should allow me to get mine earlier :)
- Executor 13y ago
  The issue is that Facebook has control over this technology and gives it more monopoly power. To decentralize the market Oculus shouldn't have sold out. Facebook is an unethical company that data mines its users. Facebook's treatment of its bought companies is irrelavent since it has ownership/control. You are the one without logic.
- Riesling 13y ago
  > The reaction by the community is completely irrational. I think you are missing the big picture because you are not realizing the potential of this technology (Mark probably has, that's why he bought Oculus). VR will absolutely change the way we interact with each other in the future. This is not about gaming at all. This is about people wearing VR headsets (which will probably look like sunglasses) in everyday situations (augmented reality). Oculus is the leader in this area and Facebook is in control now. For many people a possible utopia has turned into a dystopia over night.
  - 13y ago
stickydink 13y ago
As a reasonably active member of the subreddit, which is (or was, it seems) reasonably rational and mature, there seems to be quite a lot of anti-fanboy sort of behavior going on here. Amongst the mountains of screams and cries, this is a good place to get Palmer's point of view on it. http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey I got a DK1 through kickstarter, and I had my DK2 on order within minutes of the reddit pre-announcement. So I'm a big fan. As many have said, I'm waiting to see if the likes of Carmack stick around -- though from his Twitter feed it seems he's fairly comfortable with the deal. I'm reasonably excited about all this, to be honest.
mathattack 13y ago
The real question is what this will do to other Kickstarter campaigns. It highlights that you are not buying a share in a company. The savvy early adopters should realize as soon as outside money comes in, the company is headed to the highest value exit no matter what.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  The message that you should be (at least somewhat) skeptical of the motivations of the project and not really expect to get anything is probably healthy for Kickstarter. People that ask themselves "Am I comfortable with this money being used in an unexpected way?" before they pay a Kickstarter are less likely to be upset when the money is used in an unexpected way (or when they don't get anything or whatever).
- ingenieros 13y ago
  There are many well funded companies taking advantage of the Kicstarter platform to run their product/market fit experiments and generating media buzz while they are it. If you think about it it's actually really smart on their part, but shady nonetheless. Reading some of their backer reactions on Kickstarter and all across the interwebz one gets the feeling that this will most certainly have a negative impact in the short term, but hopefully these same backers will start doing more research into the people unscrupulously soliciting money when in fact they don't really need it at all.
  - ubercore 13y ago
    It doesn't feel shady to me, as long as one remembers you're _buying just that particular product_. I'm really happy to have the chance to support even a major company experimenting if it provides a product more suited to me than they could have done without crowdfunding. The real tension in my eyes is that the most effective kickstarters seem to be ones that get people emotionally involved or attached some way. Joining a "revolution", or playing on nostalgia or a sense of community. It makes an effective kickstarter, but can lead to trouble in cases like Oculus where (even though they didn't and never did), people felt like they owned a small part of Oculus for kickstarting it.
thenmar 13y ago
I don't get it... how else do they think a consumer version would ever be manufactured? I imagine manufacturing thousands of consumer grade custom tiny high definition displays would approach a billion dollars alone. What did these guys expect, another kickstarter? If anything, Facebook has just created the best chance yet that their dreams will come true.
- pfraze 13y ago
  The $76MM series B, plus the pedigree gained by Carmack, seemed to suggest capital wasn't impossible to get.
  - marknutter 13y ago
    $76M is a bit short of $2B. Also, Oculus now has access to word class legal, PR, and marketing teams via Facebook. A lot of the money that would have been sunk into basic administrative expenses can now go directly toward product engineering.
    - pfraze 13y ago
      Right, but it doesn't follow that a purchase by Facebook is the right choice. You take investment, you're choosing your partners and your owners. It matters to me that Facebook was the one they chose.
- TheCraiggers 13y ago
  Just like every other consumer device? 1) Loans 2) Personal cash (last I know, Carmack was loaded) 3) Investment (Kickstarter / preorders being one form of this) Or some combination thereof. Surely you didn't think every single new device comes from a extremely large corporation.
  - thenmar 13y ago
    Loans or personal cash are orders of magnitude away from the necessary funds. The only option was investment. Oculus needed at least hundreds of millions of dollars to make a consumer version happen any time soon. Companies like Uber, Pinterest, and Spotify can raise that kind of VC money. Hardware startups banking on an uncertain revolution in video gaming and depending on unproven developer & console company support cannot.
nilkn 13y ago
I like Notch's post on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgbx1nu http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of...): You got my respect before I met you. You kept it when I met you. I understand that this happened because people with investments in the company saw big sacks of dollar bills. I understand you're probably under a big NDA and stuck in golden handcuffs, and that this might be a frustrating situation. I just hope you got your fair share. VR will live on. Thank you for being part of making it finally happen. I really wish this hadn't happened.

43 points by RougeFemme 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Isn't this article stating what is an obvious conclusion from a ton of other links currently on the HN homepage? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469115 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7470097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7470097 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469237

bhouston 13y ago

This is a weird situation. Sometimes when a product goes ultra-mainstream as FB is likely trying to do with Oculus Rift, it doesn't matter a huge amount if it losses its first supporters. But Oculus Rift is losing the core of the gaming community here. And that is its target demographic for both early and medium term adoption, it isn't a small fringe community. (It isn't just early supporters who are mad, it is the core of the gaming community that was excited about this.) If I was in management at FB or Oculus Rift and cared about its future, I would be freaking out and trying to figure out damage control strategy (which I haven't yet seem arise, although maybe I have missed it so far.) This really open up the space for competitors to take a large bit out of what seemed to be a clear leader.

stormcrowsx 13y ago
I don't see why gamers would care who owns it. I'm interested in the Oculus Rift and I don't care if it was McDonald's that made it, if it works good they'll get my business.
- Morgawr 13y ago
  Gamers are very sensitive to this type of stuff. There has been previous malcontent in the gaming scene about major corporations like EA or Activision acquiring smaller independent studios. There's a general trend of criticism towards "casual" games, especially from the core "old school" gamers, there's constant bickering between PC and Console world, and even intra-wars between various consoles and fans. It's a very active and rebellious scene and gamers enjoy direct relationships with studios like Valve, CDProjekt, Mojang, etc etc, those "big" studios who still operate independently and directly listen to their audience and target instead of trying to monetize everything to maximize income.
  - TarpitCarnivore 13y ago
    > There has been previous malcontent in the gaming scene about major corporations like EA or Activision acquiring smaller independent studios. And for every post about how EA is the devil, they continue to sell games hand over fist. I think the gaming community has a perception that they're far larger than they are. And at the end of the day if a product, or game, is good they're going to buy it.
- noonespecial 13y ago
  It doesn't matter at all if gamers care or not. Game devlopers on the other hand... If Oculus misses out (or even arrives late) to the "Doom of VR"), they are, well, doomed.
  - stormcrowsx 13y ago
    Devs will make games for whatever platform people have the hardware for. They aren't going to care either. A lot of devs are not fans of Microsoft but I'll be damned if there isn't a shit ton of software for Windows out there.
- shubb 13y ago
  Gamers do care about that kind of thing - they have a personal relationship with brands like Sony, Microsoft, and the major game studios. They have a history, as a group, of getting cartoonishly upset with those brands. Rift is going into competition against entrenched gaming brands like Sony. I believe that Sony is too risk averse to invent something like Oculus, but they are certainly skilled enough to clone it but better, rapidly. If Oculus is launching a second best product against companies that already own the market, they need to be percieved as David vs Goliath. Now they are not.

marknutter 13y ago

The reaction by the community is completely irrational. Facebook has largely left Parse, Instagram, and WhatsApp alone. It hasn't required people to use Facebook to log into those services nor has it shoved ads in Parse developers' faces. By all accounts, they simply seem to be buying companies with great products and potential and just giving them the resources to continue to grow and improve. It makes absolutely zero sense for Facebook to meddle with Oculus by pursuing any of the ridiculous paths people are worried about like trying to integrate the Rift into the Facebook platform or turn away from the gaming community or charge for the SDK or any other tinfoil scenarios people are assuming Facebook will pursue. The truth is, the Sony announcement was a significant shot across the bow at Oculus. From all accounts their headset is already on par with the rift, plus they have a massive built in user base. Oculus may have had the support and interest of a subset of hardcore gamers behind them but that's small potatoes compared to the console market. With Facebook, they may actually have a fighting chance to retain their position as the leader in VR. On the upside, however, everyone is canceling their DK2 orders which should allow me to get mine earlier :)

Executor 13y ago
The issue is that Facebook has control over this technology and gives it more monopoly power. To decentralize the market Oculus shouldn't have sold out. Facebook is an unethical company that data mines its users. Facebook's treatment of its bought companies is irrelavent since it has ownership/control. You are the one without logic.
Riesling 13y ago
> The reaction by the community is completely irrational. I think you are missing the big picture because you are not realizing the potential of this technology (Mark probably has, that's why he bought Oculus). VR will absolutely change the way we interact with each other in the future. This is not about gaming at all. This is about people wearing VR headsets (which will probably look like sunglasses) in everyday situations (augmented reality). Oculus is the leader in this area and Facebook is in control now. For many people a possible utopia has turned into a dystopia over night.
- 13y ago

stickydink 13y ago

As a reasonably active member of the subreddit, which is (or was, it seems) reasonably rational and mature, there seems to be quite a lot of anti-fanboy sort of behavior going on here. Amongst the mountains of screams and cries, this is a good place to get Palmer's point of view on it. http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey http://www.reddit.com/user/palmerluckey I got a DK1 through kickstarter, and I had my DK2 on order within minutes of the reddit pre-announcement. So I'm a big fan. As many have said, I'm waiting to see if the likes of Carmack stick around -- though from his Twitter feed it seems he's fairly comfortable with the deal. I'm reasonably excited about all this, to be honest.

mathattack 13y ago

The real question is what this will do to other Kickstarter campaigns. It highlights that you are not buying a share in a company. The savvy early adopters should realize as soon as outside money comes in, the company is headed to the highest value exit no matter what.

maxerickson 13y ago
The message that you should be (at least somewhat) skeptical of the motivations of the project and not really expect to get anything is probably healthy for Kickstarter. People that ask themselves "Am I comfortable with this money being used in an unexpected way?" before they pay a Kickstarter are less likely to be upset when the money is used in an unexpected way (or when they don't get anything or whatever).
ingenieros 13y ago
There are many well funded companies taking advantage of the Kicstarter platform to run their product/market fit experiments and generating media buzz while they are it. If you think about it it's actually really smart on their part, but shady nonetheless. Reading some of their backer reactions on Kickstarter and all across the interwebz one gets the feeling that this will most certainly have a negative impact in the short term, but hopefully these same backers will start doing more research into the people unscrupulously soliciting money when in fact they don't really need it at all.
- ubercore 13y ago
  It doesn't feel shady to me, as long as one remembers you're _buying just that particular product_. I'm really happy to have the chance to support even a major company experimenting if it provides a product more suited to me than they could have done without crowdfunding. The real tension in my eyes is that the most effective kickstarters seem to be ones that get people emotionally involved or attached some way. Joining a "revolution", or playing on nostalgia or a sense of community. It makes an effective kickstarter, but can lead to trouble in cases like Oculus where (even though they didn't and never did), people felt like they owned a small part of Oculus for kickstarting it.

thenmar 13y ago

I don't get it... how else do they think a consumer version would ever be manufactured? I imagine manufacturing thousands of consumer grade custom tiny high definition displays would approach a billion dollars alone. What did these guys expect, another kickstarter? If anything, Facebook has just created the best chance yet that their dreams will come true.

pfraze 13y ago
The $76MM series B, plus the pedigree gained by Carmack, seemed to suggest capital wasn't impossible to get.
- marknutter 13y ago
  $76M is a bit short of $2B. Also, Oculus now has access to word class legal, PR, and marketing teams via Facebook. A lot of the money that would have been sunk into basic administrative expenses can now go directly toward product engineering.
  - pfraze 13y ago
    Right, but it doesn't follow that a purchase by Facebook is the right choice. You take investment, you're choosing your partners and your owners. It matters to me that Facebook was the one they chose.
TheCraiggers 13y ago
Just like every other consumer device? 1) Loans 2) Personal cash (last I know, Carmack was loaded) 3) Investment (Kickstarter / preorders being one form of this) Or some combination thereof. Surely you didn't think every single new device comes from a extremely large corporation.
- thenmar 13y ago
  Loans or personal cash are orders of magnitude away from the necessary funds. The only option was investment. Oculus needed at least hundreds of millions of dollars to make a consumer version happen any time soon. Companies like Uber, Pinterest, and Spotify can raise that kind of VC money. Hardware startups banking on an uncertain revolution in video gaming and depending on unproven developer & console company support cannot.

nilkn 13y ago

I like Notch's post on reddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgbx1nu http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of...): You got my respect before I met you. You kept it when I met you. I understand that this happened because people with investments in the company saw big sacks of dollar bills. I understand you're probably under a big NDA and stuck in golden handcuffs, and that this might be a frustrating situation. I just hope you got your fair share. VR will live on. Thank you for being part of making it finally happen. I really wish this hadn't happened.