4 ms·

They have Michael Abrash and John Carmack working at the same company. I don't see how 'games people' won't be super excited.

by iends 13y ago

JabavuAdams 13y ago
Yeah, our office full of games people just went insane.
stonemetal 13y ago
Abrash was working on VR at Valve, and was kind of my only hope for VR after Oculus went FB. Now my VR hopes are crushed. Oh well, maybe next decade.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "Abrash was working on VR at Valve, and was kind of my only hope for VR after Oculus went FB. Now my VR hopes are crushed." You think Facebook spent $2bn to stop Occulus working on VR??
  - mden 13y ago
    I think the perception here is not that FB will stop VR, but that they will ruin it. This is possible in a variety of ways including them making it into a walled garden similar to the iOS or blocking progress of competitors through patents or anti-competitive practices. Personally what I want is something that once I buy is completely free from the company that I bought it from. I.e. an open system that I can control. I don't see such a product coming from a company like FB, but I could be wrong.
    - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
      I mean, I'm much more worried it's a datagrab. Can you imagine how much Facebook would like a recording of your facial expressions while you have a private talk with your friends? Or when you look at ads?
      - crummy 13y ago
        Setting aside the fact that I don't think Oculus has any plans for getting facial expression data (can their current IR camera even get that info?), what exactly do you think Facebook would do with your facial expressions?
        DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
        Characterize relationships, track response to various types of advertising. The standard things Facebook does with their data.
      - XorNot 13y ago
        There are layers of stupid in objections to Facebook but "something something watching your cameras" is by far the dumbest. Not only does the Oculus positional tracking camera not work like that (and can't work like that since you know, you have an Oculus Rift on your face) but no one has managed to give a statement on what they think the value of that data would be.
        sliverstorm 13y ago
        How about a constant, always-running gaze map. To see which ads grab attention most effectively, perhaps.
        DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
        Uh, I can think of useful data analysis to run on that. Both to characterize the feelings associated with relationships (which is data that Facebook would like to know), and sentiment analysis for various adverts or other things. For example, Facebook could use a virtual room for people looking to interact, and then place ad objects within the room - and rate your responses to them, in order to profile you for advertisers, and figure out what kind of placements generate the least interruption or most positive association. Further, you're only talking about the current gen Oculus technology, and not anything about what Facebook might (speculatively) deveop going forward. The obvious path (seeing other virtual worlds) is to generate some method of putting realistic gestures in to the experience, which I highly doubt they'll never attempt to do. I'm much more okay with a stand-alone thing doing that, than anything tied to Facebook's environment, because I believe Facebook is a fundamentally exploitative company.
- gfodor 13y ago
  VR is going to happen, it just might not be what you wanted. This "next decade" talk is bs, this hasn't set "back" VR, it has maybe altered the path that VR ends up taking. But it definitely accelerated it, whatever that path ends up being. I'm nervous that in the long run this sets up VR to be a closed platform, but I guess we'll see. Maybe a closed platform is better than no platform at all, which might have been the outcome if someone with deep pockets never bought oculus.
  - EpicEng 13y ago
    > it just might not be what you wanted In this case "you" means "video game enthusiasts." Most non-gamers that I know are not even aware of Oculus and they're not even thinking of VR. The gamers were the people behind these projects. The gamers are the ones who don't want to be spied upon in order to be served targeted adds that they don't care to see. Perhaps, years from now, my wife will be logging onto FB, buying Farmville credits, and shopping for home decor with her Oculus Rift, but that's not what its original supporters envisioned. It's certainly not something that will be mainstream next year. I don't know, I can't say what FB intends to do with VR, but I can reason that they want to please their shareholders, that they only know one way to make money thus far, and that money is what drives them. That's fine, nothing wrong with it, it's just not (as you say) the outcome we wanted. >no platform at all, which might have been the outcome if someone with deep pockets never bought oculus That seems like a leap or, at least, an assertion made in such non-comital terms as to be rendered meaningless. I'm with you on the fear (anticipation) of a closed platform, I just don't buy the addendum. If you couldn't tell, the whole FB acquisition issue is not sitting well with me.
- freehunter 13y ago
  Why is Carmack and Abrash working together troublesome to you no matter who owns the company? Do you think they would sign on to a project that was not going to be related to gaming? Do you think they would lend their skills and names to a product that was going to flop? With the announcement of Facebook buying Oculus, I can see the concern. With this announcement though, I would take it to be a great sign that things are better for Oculus.
  - stonemetal 13y ago
    they would lend their skills and names to a product that was going to flop Sure why not, Carmack has always focused on tech for tech's sake. ID's games are almost always panned for everything but the tech. Abrash is similarly oriented. I have no doubt they will produce great VR hardware and software, but that still leaves FB in charge of the artistic direction. Throw in a couple of patents and it will be 2030 before another company can get really competitive.
    - Turing_Machine 13y ago
      Their games may have been "panned" (I don't know...I don't follow the gaming press) but clearly bazillions of people found them enjoyable enough to cough up the cash (the only "review" that really matters). I mean, Carmack was rich enough to fund his own space program.
      - keerthiko 13y ago
        Abrash worked at Valve which has pretty much exclusively made critically acclaimed titles, but that had less to do with Abrash's artistic direction. Carmack made most of his money from his tech, not from the games. Id games after Quake 3 maybe broke even or turned enough profit to give employees a modest bonus, but were never very popular. (The quickly dwindling) Id fanboys were pretty much the only people buying their games after 2005 (Doom 3). Id (and Carmack) made most of their money from engine licensing. As Abrash mentions in this post, even Valve licensed the Quake engine code -- you can imagine how that must have made them so much more money than the couple hundred thousand copies of Quake 4 sold if they had any decent licensing business model. A vast majority of capital-class game companies over a decade old that are still alive now, make/made almost all their money from anything but the games they designed/developed -- but instead from engines (Valve, Epic, Crytek, Id), sales platforms (Valve), publishing (EA, Activision), etc. Blizzard is more or less the only exception surviving almost solely on direct revenue from the games they've developed (mostly just WoW, although all their games are very well-loved). So please don't jump to the conclusion that people like Carmack make the money to launch rockets from selling Doom sequels. The game design industry is not nearly that lucrative, even if the game tech one is moderately so.

They have Michael Abrash and John Carmack working at the same company. I don't see how 'games people' won't be super excited.

by iends 13y ago

They have Michael Abrash and John Carmack working at the same company. I don't see how 'games people' won't be super excited.

JabavuAdams 13y ago

Yeah, our office full of games people just went insane.

stonemetal 13y ago

Abrash was working on VR at Valve, and was kind of my only hope for VR after Oculus went FB. Now my VR hopes are crushed. Oh well, maybe next decade.

k-mcgrady 13y ago
>> "Abrash was working on VR at Valve, and was kind of my only hope for VR after Oculus went FB. Now my VR hopes are crushed." You think Facebook spent $2bn to stop Occulus working on VR??
- mden 13y ago
  I think the perception here is not that FB will stop VR, but that they will ruin it. This is possible in a variety of ways including them making it into a walled garden similar to the iOS or blocking progress of competitors through patents or anti-competitive practices. Personally what I want is something that once I buy is completely free from the company that I bought it from. I.e. an open system that I can control. I don't see such a product coming from a company like FB, but I could be wrong.
  - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
    I mean, I'm much more worried it's a datagrab. Can you imagine how much Facebook would like a recording of your facial expressions while you have a private talk with your friends? Or when you look at ads?
    - crummy 13y ago
      Setting aside the fact that I don't think Oculus has any plans for getting facial expression data (can their current IR camera even get that info?), what exactly do you think Facebook would do with your facial expressions?
      - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
        Characterize relationships, track response to various types of advertising. The standard things Facebook does with their data.
    - XorNot 13y ago
      There are layers of stupid in objections to Facebook but "something something watching your cameras" is by far the dumbest. Not only does the Oculus positional tracking camera not work like that (and can't work like that since you know, you have an Oculus Rift on your face) but no one has managed to give a statement on what they think the value of that data would be.
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        How about a constant, always-running gaze map. To see which ads grab attention most effectively, perhaps.
      - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
        Uh, I can think of useful data analysis to run on that. Both to characterize the feelings associated with relationships (which is data that Facebook would like to know), and sentiment analysis for various adverts or other things. For example, Facebook could use a virtual room for people looking to interact, and then place ad objects within the room - and rate your responses to them, in order to profile you for advertisers, and figure out what kind of placements generate the least interruption or most positive association. Further, you're only talking about the current gen Oculus technology, and not anything about what Facebook might (speculatively) deveop going forward. The obvious path (seeing other virtual worlds) is to generate some method of putting realistic gestures in to the experience, which I highly doubt they'll never attempt to do. I'm much more okay with a stand-alone thing doing that, than anything tied to Facebook's environment, because I believe Facebook is a fundamentally exploitative company.
gfodor 13y ago
VR is going to happen, it just might not be what you wanted. This "next decade" talk is bs, this hasn't set "back" VR, it has maybe altered the path that VR ends up taking. But it definitely accelerated it, whatever that path ends up being. I'm nervous that in the long run this sets up VR to be a closed platform, but I guess we'll see. Maybe a closed platform is better than no platform at all, which might have been the outcome if someone with deep pockets never bought oculus.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  > it just might not be what you wanted In this case "you" means "video game enthusiasts." Most non-gamers that I know are not even aware of Oculus and they're not even thinking of VR. The gamers were the people behind these projects. The gamers are the ones who don't want to be spied upon in order to be served targeted adds that they don't care to see. Perhaps, years from now, my wife will be logging onto FB, buying Farmville credits, and shopping for home decor with her Oculus Rift, but that's not what its original supporters envisioned. It's certainly not something that will be mainstream next year. I don't know, I can't say what FB intends to do with VR, but I can reason that they want to please their shareholders, that they only know one way to make money thus far, and that money is what drives them. That's fine, nothing wrong with it, it's just not (as you say) the outcome we wanted. >no platform at all, which might have been the outcome if someone with deep pockets never bought oculus That seems like a leap or, at least, an assertion made in such non-comital terms as to be rendered meaningless. I'm with you on the fear (anticipation) of a closed platform, I just don't buy the addendum. If you couldn't tell, the whole FB acquisition issue is not sitting well with me.
freehunter 13y ago
Why is Carmack and Abrash working together troublesome to you no matter who owns the company? Do you think they would sign on to a project that was not going to be related to gaming? Do you think they would lend their skills and names to a product that was going to flop? With the announcement of Facebook buying Oculus, I can see the concern. With this announcement though, I would take it to be a great sign that things are better for Oculus.
- stonemetal 13y ago
  they would lend their skills and names to a product that was going to flop Sure why not, Carmack has always focused on tech for tech's sake. ID's games are almost always panned for everything but the tech. Abrash is similarly oriented. I have no doubt they will produce great VR hardware and software, but that still leaves FB in charge of the artistic direction. Throw in a couple of patents and it will be 2030 before another company can get really competitive.
  - Turing_Machine 13y ago
    Their games may have been "panned" (I don't know...I don't follow the gaming press) but clearly bazillions of people found them enjoyable enough to cough up the cash (the only "review" that really matters). I mean, Carmack was rich enough to fund his own space program.
    - keerthiko 13y ago
      Abrash worked at Valve which has pretty much exclusively made critically acclaimed titles, but that had less to do with Abrash's artistic direction. Carmack made most of his money from his tech, not from the games. Id games after Quake 3 maybe broke even or turned enough profit to give employees a modest bonus, but were never very popular. (The quickly dwindling) Id fanboys were pretty much the only people buying their games after 2005 (Doom 3). Id (and Carmack) made most of their money from engine licensing. As Abrash mentions in this post, even Valve licensed the Quake engine code -- you can imagine how that must have made them so much more money than the couple hundred thousand copies of Quake 4 sold if they had any decent licensing business model. A vast majority of capital-class game companies over a decade old that are still alive now, make/made almost all their money from anything but the games they designed/developed -- but instead from engines (Valve, Epic, Crytek, Id), sales platforms (Valve), publishing (EA, Activision), etc. Blizzard is more or less the only exception surviving almost solely on direct revenue from the games they've developed (mostly just WoW, although all their games are very well-loved). So please don't jump to the conclusion that people like Carmack make the money to launch rockets from selling Doom sequels. The game design industry is not nearly that lucrative, even if the game tech one is moderately so.