8 ms·

Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook

135 points by Golddisk 13y ago

mikeash 13y ago
They're not actually that dumb, right? "According to Mitchell, the company’s current goal is to educate people about the merge and why it is a good thing. He thinks this is working since the negativity is finally starting to cool down." I assume this "gee, we had no idea there would be this reaction" thing is a subtle part of that education campaign.
- jonlucc 13y ago
  Interesting that they think the public is becoming more alright with the acquisition because the anger is slowing. It's like they don't understand that after all bad news, the stories and comments about it will wane over time.
  - baby 13y ago
    The anger slowed in a matter of hours though, it was pretty fast.
    - LoganCale 13y ago
      Not really. Pretty much everyone who was angry is still angry. They just stopped posting about it constantly, because what's the point?
      - deletes 13y ago
        You don't know that, they might as well changed their opinion and are now too embarrassed to speak about it. I think a lot of people were acting with pure emotion. Once the surprise subsides the logical reasoning kicks in and you get the bigger picture.
        sillysaurus3 13y ago
        they might as well changed their opinion and are now too embarrassed to speak about it. Do people do this? It seems like people who change their opinion are also vocal about it.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        deletes 13y ago
        Note the phrase might as well. The example was a stab at how you can't make such assumptions.
    - bane 13y ago
      Probably because, like me, we've all just written off the OVR and are looking elsewhere. $2b means this is a non-reversible path that fighting against will go nowhere. As exciting as Carmack and Abrash appear, neither of them have been at the forefront of 3D work in the last decade or so and have a monopoly on good 3d tech.
      - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
        I'm not even angry. I'm just not going to buy a VR device with a Facebook connection, Facebook being involved in platform management, etc. I might consider it if it were an unlocked piece of hardware, but I suspect that's so unlikely, I don't actually need to make up my mind about that possibility. I've also had a couple friends cancel projects they were planning for the Oculus platform, because they're no longer sure that the hardware will remain free, and are looking to avoid Facebook lock-in. So there goes the reason I was going to buy one in the first place. Oh well.
        grkvlt 13y ago
        > I've also had a couple friends cancel projects they were planning for the Oculus platform This sort of reaction is such an embarrassing load of nonsense. People have cancelled some nebulous 'projects' that they might have carried out? To be honest, the whole 'anger' thing seems like a bunch of gamers and similar people are just upset that all the 'normal' people might get to experience VR technology at the same time as them, and they won't get to be elitist 'early adopters' with the latest kit. Upset because the arcane knowledge that they possess is no longer the passport to an elite club; membership is now open to anyone who wants to use the latest tools and toys. Isn't that what we want? To democratise technology, so that anyone and everyone can have the benefits. No more requirements to understand programming languages, 3D APIs and mathematics, or to study obscure topics to get access to this hardware. If Facebook can deliver VR hardware to the man in the street, brilliant! They managed to do it for interacting on a computer already.
        mikeash 13y ago
        Good lord, speaking of nonsense.... There's no need for a bizarre conspiracy theory in which people are elitist assholes. It's simple: a lot of people think that the Facebook acquisition means that the product is dead, because it will either be transformed into something terrible (VR Farmville!) or the project will be mismanaged until it dies. You don't have to agree with that assessment, but that is the fear, not some ridiculous idea that people are upset because they don't want "normal" people to have access to cool tech.
- pasbesoin 13y ago
  Evidence that the "Facebook effect" is already kicking in: "Spin, spin, SPIN!"
- loceng 13y ago
  Admitting fault or that you were expecting a different reaction can displace people's blame and make them a bit softer and more open. I still think it'd be wise to remember regardless that they are still part of Facebook.
awestley 13y ago
Keep an open mind. No need to get angry (yet).
- brubaker 13y ago
  "No need to get angry" The people angry have no right to get angry.
higherpurpose 13y ago
First off, they should've expected that reaction if they sold to anyone, because: #1 it was too early, and they still had a lot of investment money #2 they've implied many times that they wouldn't sell. I don't remember if they said it directly, but they certainly made it seem that way #3 they basically decided to sell the company "overnight". That took everyone by surprise, and it made the move extremely suspicious (personally, I still think Mark Andreessen forced the decision, and Oculus was more like "ok, well I guess that could work", rather than enthusiastically try to sell the company themselves, prior to that) #4 Facebook seems like one of the worst companies that could've bought Oculus, and no one would've even dreamed that would ever happen, from the community. A lot of people were like "WTF? Is this a joke?" when they heard it. And it's one of the worst, not just because people hated it for being so privacy-intrusive, but also because there's no connection between Oculus and Facebook, and usually when the cultures and visions are very different, the acquisition fails. I don't believe them when they say they really din't expect the reaction to Facebook buying them. If they didn't maybe they aren't paying much attention to what's happening in the tech community lately. I think Oculus could've only done worse than Facebook if they would've been bought by Oracle.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  They are in a bad position overall however. Sony Morpheous looks like it has taken all the good ideas from Oculus. And with Oculus selling out to Facebook, the "indie" community may not be as supportive of the platform.
  - Golddisk 13y ago
    I think that other companies announcing their plans for VR is one of the reasons Oculus sold to FB, especially so quickly. They see themselves needing the backing of a big tech company if they want to be able to compete with companies like Sony or Microsoft.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    Sony bastion of not corporatism is the funniest thing that keeps getting repeated all over about this. Yeah, Sony, of memory stick, mini-disc etc. fame won't create a locked in platform. Really?
dragontamer 13y ago
Strangely, they understand why people would be angry about selling out to Microsoft or Sony (which frankly, are far more legitimate platforms than Facebook. IE: Oculus on XBox or Oculus on PS4 would be great). However, selling out to a large company is almost always going to be seen as a negative when you bill yourself as an "indie company". Facebook on the other hand, is facing a huge amount of negativity as well. Their stock price dropped by 15% this past week, as investors don't understand the purchase at all.
MarkHarmon 13y ago
Many people view Facebook policies as creepy and unethical, that is probably driving this negative response. We don't know where mainstream VR will take us in ten years, but we do know that there have been many assaults to our privacy and we don't want to create another keyhole into our private lives.
jader201 13y ago
> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. > If you actually understand [Facebook’s] vision of letting us be who we’re going to be, just like they wanted to let Instagram be who they are. The reason people don't get this -- or at least, why I don't get it -- and thus responded negatively, is because VR should have nothing to do with Facebook's vision, and Facebook -- or social gaming in general -- should have nothing to do with Oculus' vision. Gamers cared about Oculus and Rift because they felt Oculus was innovating in the interest of gaming as a whole. But being bought out by Facebook makes it seem that Oculus is "selling out" to someone that is historically more interested in monopolizing innovation than they are in gaming, or at least the type of gaming that Oculus was originally innovating towards. It's hard for many to see anything under the umbrella of Facebook doing a service to gaming -- look at the direction social gaming has taken us. This is how I see it, in my admittedly limited view, anyway. And since the views of those "beyond their core community" are likely similarly limited, it makes sense that others may have a similar reaction. So I'm baffled how Oculus is surprised by the reaction.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Case in point: Facebook games are Mafia Wars and Farmville... games that represent raking in tons of money by offering very poor (but addicting) gameplay. The core gamer audience is pissed off at Facebook as it is, and that is the audience Oculus Rift is aimed towards. If Oculus sold out to Valve, Sony, Microsoft... hell... maybe even EA or Activision... they wouldn't have nearly as bad of a reaction as with Facebook. Because as bad as EA or Activision is... they have demonstrated an understanding of the core "hardcore" gamer audience that appreciates greater depth and vision in gameplay. Facebook however, does NOT.
  - threeseed 13y ago
    See this is why I like that Facebook acquired Oculus. VR shouldn't be the exclusive domain of hardcore gamers. I want the equivalent of Playstation Home in VR. And nobody can pull that off except Facebook.
    - 13y ago
officemonkey 13y ago
I think it's because nobody understands what FB is going to do with it. Instagram definitely has location and social graph data to exploit. But Oculus? What is FB going to do with that? I think most people still think of FB as the site and advertising sales for the site. But if you see FB as a conglomerate like Google, Apple, and Sony then it makes more sense. FB is diversifying, buying up promising technology with the hopes of leveraging new markets out of it. Maybe they want to make the Gameboy of wearable gaming? They have had success in working with gaming companies (Zynga and King might have peaked, but FB still made money.) And they certainly have a enough power to make things happen.
- jdavis703 13y ago
  Right on, Facebook's goal is to connect the world. That's why they've acquired companies that range from cloud hosting (Parse) to Internet-delivering drones (Ascenta/Internet.org).
  - oafitupa 13y ago
    I thought their goal was to make money, go figure.
    - threeseed 13y ago
      Successful companies do not think like you. They focus on making the very best products/services they can and have the money be a secondary consideration.
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  I pretty sure that they want to create something like a successful second life - i.e. a VR social network, where users have their own virtual property that they can customize and virtual spaces where they can meet. Basically something like the metaverse in Snowcrash. And I can completely see the high ups in Occulus thinking that this is a brilliant match of visions.
  - 13y ago
lawl 13y ago
Yeah well, I don't buy this. However, I think Oculus could easily kill any doubts over that aquisition by promising to release an open source driver. Because that would mean that even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttions, there's still the option to build an alternative open source universe using the open source driver. Personally I think that would restore my faith in the Rift.
- danabramov 13y ago
  >even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttons Why do a lot of people keep repeating this? Does Google create self-driving cars to show ads on the windshields? I just don't get it. What on the earth makes you think Facebook bought Oculus to show ads and like buttons inside your games? If, if VR becomes the Next Big Thing, will the like buttons “from the old Facebook“ matter as much, or will the social need to be re-imagined anyway?
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    Because Zuckeberg is in charge. I just don't think he could thing of anything interesting. FB was just a landgrab. The product has a/ stagnated b/ gone worse depending on why you ask.
    - danabramov 13y ago
      Have you seen Paper?
      - fizzbar 13y ago
        aka Flipboard by Facebook?
        danabramov 13y ago
        Execution is king.
neona 13y ago
At least to me, the issue is more that Facebook is not who I want developing these technologies. I think facebook is going to eventually use this to create a modern connected virtual world. Which is something I dearly want. I just don't want it controlled by facebook. In the short term I don't think facebook will screw Oculus up, however.
themodelplumber 13y ago
Facebook is right in the middle of pissing off just about everyone with a FB page, and Oculus is all excited about advancing VR by pairing with Facebook. Seriously, a simple geek campaign like "let's call it the Facebook Oculus from now on" would probably have a good chance at destroying the project. It's not that I personally have anything against either FB or Oculus, but it seems like a huge business risk to everyone involved. The one point that sticks out as a plus is the "this will advance VR no matter what" point. You can safely bet (probably) that this will contribute to the future of VR.
- Dylan16807 13y ago
  I don't follow your point about a campaign. As apprehensive as I am about this buyout, "Facebook Oculus" has only neutral connotations to me.
LarryMade2 13y ago
I guess for me: A) Doesn't seem to make sense whats Facebook going to do with such a device? They don't do gaming, manufacturing, or design. B) I for one am not happy with Facebook presently, they've morphed their great community/communication platform into a frustrating ad-pushing machine that will only let you interact with your community/friends at a an increasing price. C) Given those two, I can only shudder at what Oculus Facebook will become.
petercooper 13y ago
I don't think Mozilla expected the backlash this week either. Hundreds of thousands of people with very rapid ways to share opinions (Hacker News, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) equals a very different scene to that of even 10 years ago.
kmfrk 13y ago
Two words: Google Glass. Maybe they are the kinds of people who are excited about something like Google Glass, and who just don't see what bothers people about Facebook?
daenz 13y ago
I've been thinking about this Facebook acquisition for a little while, and in my mind, the only play that makes sense for Facebook is to become the login gateway to Oculus games. For many Windows games, there's Windows Live...a social-ish, login service that you literally have to register and sign in with in order to play the game. You cannot opt out. If Facebook became this... "Sign in with Facebook"... for all commercial Oculus games, they would have a guaranteed mindshare on the future younger generations of gamers. And becoming just the gatekeepers would more or less let them be hands-off with the actual Oculus direction as a company, which is in line with what's been said so far.
- nilved 13y ago
  If you needed a Facebook account to use the Rift, I would avoid it like I do every other service that requires a Facebook account.
- danabramov 13y ago
  This doesn't make sense at all. Imagine the new generation goes purely VR and doesn't use the “old web” for entertainment. What would be the point of “Login with Facebook“ if those kids don't use the web anyway? This is a very narrow vision.
  - daenz 13y ago
    You sound like you've never used a mandatory social login for a game. I never go to https://login.live.com https://login.live.com but I have an account...one I had to create to play a game. I receive in-game messages and friend requests during game sessions. Take a look at the Games for Windows - LIVE feature set and tell me that isn't a social network that Facebook would want a part of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_Live#Games_for_Windows_.E2.80.93_Live_features http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_Liv... I'm not limiting the vision of Oculus...the sky is the limit. But I think the play for Facebook's immediate involvement will be similar to Games for Windows. Social gaming data is actionable to the Facebook business.
brubaker 13y ago
The target market is geeks that generally have a gigantic entitlement complex. What they need to do is ignore those people and move on.
vermontdevil 13y ago
If they sold to Valve, the reaction would have been different. But it's all initial impression. We'll see long term how it shakes out. I do admit it seemed odd to me that Facebook would be the buyer. I just don't see the connection.
MPSimmons 13y ago
Darn. This means they're not as smart as I thought.
doesnt_know 13y ago
Kickstarter is all about directly funding unique concepts and products by independent entities. The whole point is to avoid the "traditional" investment model. Or I suppose more accurately, fund what the "traditional model" wants nothing to do with. If I was a backer, I would probably want the Oculus to fail now, just out of spite.
- XorNot 13y ago
  There's a certain irony to this statement. Community funding and all that, but if they don't do what I say then by golly I'll be mad I can't crush them like the corporations I'm protesting against!
rch 13y ago
I don't use Facebook and I don't play games, but I'm curious to see if the acquisition will have a positive effect on pure VR; meaning the kind of VR Jaron Lanier talks about. It seems like FB could actually bridge between VR, AR, and everyone else more easily than most. I can imagine attending the next presidential inauguration (virtually) because of this deal, and that wouldn't have been the case with Valve, for example.
- stan_rogers 13y ago
  I'm pretty much of the same mind here. A huge part of the backlash (and a large number of the comments here) seems to revolve around gaming (hardcore or otherwise). Valve, for instance, would have been okay, but EA, Sony and even Microsoft have been mentioned as better/more suitable. And I firmly believe that, while I get the appeal of gaming VR, it rather misses the larger picture. I no more want to see this sort of tech tied to gaming, even philosophically, than I want to see it become a dongle for Autodesk software (which, by the way, would be a much more meaningful application than gaming). I want holonovels and walkthroughs and avatar space for those whose meatspace experience isn't great. Many of the dreams we dreamed when ubiquitous computing meant that you got a punchcard with your bill and a handful of people owned something like a TRS-80 or an Apple ][ are on the verge of becoming very real (and not in quite the same way that strong AI has always been "almost here"). FB has an intrinsic interest in the avatar space part of that, but they're also as good a bet as anyone to diversify into the other realms.
ianstallings 13y ago
Maybe if you replace "Facebook" with "Walmart" the comparison will be easier. Because that's what FB is, the Walmart of the Internet. It sucks and it could be so much better, but it's packed with "content" and everyone still goes there reluctantly. When you have high hopes for a new player in the game the last thing you want is them buddying up to a company whos whole strategy can be summed up as "find the lowest common denominator". Is this judgement a fair assessment? Of course not. Facebook is just our whipping boy.
dragontamer 13y ago
http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1257 http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1257 Relevant comic on the issue
uptown 13y ago
I don't think Facebook's acquisition of Oculus has much to do with gaming. I think what it does is give Facebook access to a part of our minds that few others may have. What we look at ... whether in a real world or a virtual one ... reveals what we covet. Perhaps it's something we'd never search for in a search-engine - but it is able to be leveraged to enhance the profile of a person in order to more-perfectly market to them. I suspect that what we look at, and for how long, will convert far better than anything we ever type into a Google search box. It's why Google is building Glass ... and why Facebook bought Oculus.
hockeybias 13y ago
Face F*ckbook. Boo.
data-cat 13y ago
I don't get why everyone is hating. The fact of the matter is Facebook is about to put a lot of funding in to Oculus. With a lot of other big companies getting in to VR right now, like Sony and apparently Microsoft, Oculus will need that to stay relevant. When I first found out about the buyout I thought of the same thing this article points out; Facebook also purchased Instagram and it seems to be doing just fine. If Facebook truly lets Oculus "be who they are going to be", I'm sure they will do just fine.
arrc 13y ago
Guys Facebook is no Microsoft or Google who only buy to soft kill the competitor. FB is different just look at their past acquisitions like Instagram and others, they all survived and are still in active development and rolling out new features. If it were MS/Google acquiring Oculus, negative reactions would have been justified.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  All of FB's past acquisitions before Oculus (just Instagram and WhatsApp) were social media platforms, precisely what FB specialized in and knows how to work with. They don't need to do any radical shift with them, they already serve as private data and analytics incubators. Oculus is a completely unrelated avenue for them, and one can only wonder what their intentions are. Zuckerberg already made a PR statement that the company intends on turning Oculus into a social platform of some sort, so this does raise some eyebrows. As much as I have ethical quandaries with Google, I'd be more content if they had acquired Oculus.
  - threeseed 13y ago
    But what makes Facebook different to what Google was a few years ago ? Google has been a long time advertising player that only recently got into hardware.
    - logicallee 13y ago
      >But what makes Facebook different to what Google was a few years ago ? Mark Zuckerberg.
beshrkayali 13y ago
> “We assumed that the reaction would be negative, especially from our core community. Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. I don’t think we expected it to be so negative.” So basically *k the core community? What Oculus founders don't understand is that without this core community they wouldn't have existed in the way they are right now, probably not even approached by Facebook or anyone else. Sure, it could be good to the future of Oculus, what do I know, but it's a big FU to the core community, specially that we've been disregarded like this.
pnathan 13y ago
In the final analysis, deeds define you and your company, not words. Oculus sold to Facebook. Fine. Oculus doesn't have to fundraise anymore, and has a theoretically unlimited R&D budget. Facebook has the cloud expertise to handle virtual worlds at scale. These are valid reasons to be acquired. But more fundamentally, there are a variety of large corporations with big pockets that could have done the merger. Facebook's interest will be in jamming the virtual world full of ads and mining the smallest action to increase ad sales. And everyone understands this and knows this. Google's interest would have been similar, but perhaps skewed towards AR and Glass integration. Microsoft would have likely skewed towards selling corporate VR solutions (these exist(ed) already, but have not gotten press or wide adoption). MSNBC or other media corp would have wanted more to sell talking heads and ads. Etc. I don't much care about the gamer community here, but I really wouldn't want the VR world to be a 3d representation of Facebook (something I fled years ago).
venomsnake 13y ago
One thing I don't get is why did it have to be acquisition. If FB had just acquired 10-30% of the company at 2G$ valuation and left control to the other people they would have had once again first class access to the technology but the backlash would have been smaller. Acquiring stake validates the technology. Buy outs - they mean you try to lock the other away from it.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
SixSigma 13y ago
Facebook have lost 7% share value since the announcement, that's $10bn off the market cap. http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/facebook-share-price-continues-to-fall/0130265 http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/facebook-share-price-continue...
- SixSigma 13y ago
  One should ignore that speculation. I got caught up in the hyperbole. I should know what X caused change in price Y is one of the fallacies of market reporting.
skywhopper 13y ago
A few billion dollars can lead you to believe most anything.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
tl;dr: People who react negatively are dumb and ignorant, and need to be "eductated". Suddenly I understand much clearer how Facebook and Oculus are a good cultural match.
hibikir 13y ago
You don't even have to hate facebook to not like the merger. Anyone that has been part of a big corporate merger knows that the small company will very rarely keep its old culture for very long. Being bought changes things, and it rarely makes the company more productive. In all my years in the industry, I've not been a part of one where the consumer was helped: The only winners have always been the few people that got the millions from being acquired. Not every acquisition like this is a total failure, but so many of them are, it's very hard to see any acquisition with optimism, unless you want both sides to fail. Can IBM please buy Oracle?
sparkzilla 13y ago
I think the real victim here is Kickstarter. I saw some project for a new kind of energy-saving device and all the comments basically said "So you'll just take our money and sell to Facebook?"
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
detay 13y ago
if they asked me I would tell.

135 points by Golddisk 13y ago

They're not actually that dumb, right? "According to Mitchell, the company’s current goal is to educate people about the merge and why it is a good thing. He thinks this is working since the negativity is finally starting to cool down." I assume this "gee, we had no idea there would be this reaction" thing is a subtle part of that education campaign.

jonlucc 13y ago
Interesting that they think the public is becoming more alright with the acquisition because the anger is slowing. It's like they don't understand that after all bad news, the stories and comments about it will wane over time.
- baby 13y ago
  The anger slowed in a matter of hours though, it was pretty fast.
  - LoganCale 13y ago
    Not really. Pretty much everyone who was angry is still angry. They just stopped posting about it constantly, because what's the point?
    - deletes 13y ago
      You don't know that, they might as well changed their opinion and are now too embarrassed to speak about it. I think a lot of people were acting with pure emotion. Once the surprise subsides the logical reasoning kicks in and you get the bigger picture.
      - sillysaurus3 13y ago
        they might as well changed their opinion and are now too embarrassed to speak about it. Do people do this? It seems like people who change their opinion are also vocal about it.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        deletes 13y ago
        Note the phrase might as well. The example was a stab at how you can't make such assumptions.
  - bane 13y ago
    Probably because, like me, we've all just written off the OVR and are looking elsewhere. $2b means this is a non-reversible path that fighting against will go nowhere. As exciting as Carmack and Abrash appear, neither of them have been at the forefront of 3D work in the last decade or so and have a monopoly on good 3d tech.
    - DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
      I'm not even angry. I'm just not going to buy a VR device with a Facebook connection, Facebook being involved in platform management, etc. I might consider it if it were an unlocked piece of hardware, but I suspect that's so unlikely, I don't actually need to make up my mind about that possibility. I've also had a couple friends cancel projects they were planning for the Oculus platform, because they're no longer sure that the hardware will remain free, and are looking to avoid Facebook lock-in. So there goes the reason I was going to buy one in the first place. Oh well.
      - grkvlt 13y ago
        > I've also had a couple friends cancel projects they were planning for the Oculus platform This sort of reaction is such an embarrassing load of nonsense. People have cancelled some nebulous 'projects' that they might have carried out? To be honest, the whole 'anger' thing seems like a bunch of gamers and similar people are just upset that all the 'normal' people might get to experience VR technology at the same time as them, and they won't get to be elitist 'early adopters' with the latest kit. Upset because the arcane knowledge that they possess is no longer the passport to an elite club; membership is now open to anyone who wants to use the latest tools and toys. Isn't that what we want? To democratise technology, so that anyone and everyone can have the benefits. No more requirements to understand programming languages, 3D APIs and mathematics, or to study obscure topics to get access to this hardware. If Facebook can deliver VR hardware to the man in the street, brilliant! They managed to do it for interacting on a computer already.
        mikeash 13y ago
        Good lord, speaking of nonsense.... There's no need for a bizarre conspiracy theory in which people are elitist assholes. It's simple: a lot of people think that the Facebook acquisition means that the product is dead, because it will either be transformed into something terrible (VR Farmville!) or the project will be mismanaged until it dies. You don't have to agree with that assessment, but that is the fear, not some ridiculous idea that people are upset because they don't want "normal" people to have access to cool tech.
pasbesoin 13y ago
Evidence that the "Facebook effect" is already kicking in: "Spin, spin, SPIN!"
loceng 13y ago
Admitting fault or that you were expecting a different reaction can displace people's blame and make them a bit softer and more open. I still think it'd be wise to remember regardless that they are still part of Facebook.

awestley 13y ago

Keep an open mind. No need to get angry (yet).

brubaker 13y ago
"No need to get angry" The people angry have no right to get angry.

higherpurpose 13y ago

First off, they should've expected that reaction if they sold to anyone, because: #1 it was too early, and they still had a lot of investment money #2 they've implied many times that they wouldn't sell. I don't remember if they said it directly, but they certainly made it seem that way #3 they basically decided to sell the company "overnight". That took everyone by surprise, and it made the move extremely suspicious (personally, I still think Mark Andreessen forced the decision, and Oculus was more like "ok, well I guess that could work", rather than enthusiastically try to sell the company themselves, prior to that) #4 Facebook seems like one of the worst companies that could've bought Oculus, and no one would've even dreamed that would ever happen, from the community. A lot of people were like "WTF? Is this a joke?" when they heard it. And it's one of the worst, not just because people hated it for being so privacy-intrusive, but also because there's no connection between Oculus and Facebook, and usually when the cultures and visions are very different, the acquisition fails. I don't believe them when they say they really din't expect the reaction to Facebook buying them. If they didn't maybe they aren't paying much attention to what's happening in the tech community lately. I think Oculus could've only done worse than Facebook if they would've been bought by Oracle.

dragontamer 13y ago
They are in a bad position overall however. Sony Morpheous looks like it has taken all the good ideas from Oculus. And with Oculus selling out to Facebook, the "indie" community may not be as supportive of the platform.
- Golddisk 13y ago
  I think that other companies announcing their plans for VR is one of the reasons Oculus sold to FB, especially so quickly. They see themselves needing the backing of a big tech company if they want to be able to compete with companies like Sony or Microsoft.
- XorNot 13y ago
  Sony bastion of not corporatism is the funniest thing that keeps getting repeated all over about this. Yeah, Sony, of memory stick, mini-disc etc. fame won't create a locked in platform. Really?

dragontamer 13y ago

Strangely, they understand why people would be angry about selling out to Microsoft or Sony (which frankly, are far more legitimate platforms than Facebook. IE: Oculus on XBox or Oculus on PS4 would be great). However, selling out to a large company is almost always going to be seen as a negative when you bill yourself as an "indie company". Facebook on the other hand, is facing a huge amount of negativity as well. Their stock price dropped by 15% this past week, as investors don't understand the purchase at all.

MarkHarmon 13y ago

Many people view Facebook policies as creepy and unethical, that is probably driving this negative response. We don't know where mainstream VR will take us in ten years, but we do know that there have been many assaults to our privacy and we don't want to create another keyhole into our private lives.

jader201 13y ago

> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. > If you actually understand [Facebook’s] vision of letting us be who we’re going to be, just like they wanted to let Instagram be who they are. The reason people don't get this -- or at least, why I don't get it -- and thus responded negatively, is because VR should have nothing to do with Facebook's vision, and Facebook -- or social gaming in general -- should have nothing to do with Oculus' vision. Gamers cared about Oculus and Rift because they felt Oculus was innovating in the interest of gaming as a whole. But being bought out by Facebook makes it seem that Oculus is "selling out" to someone that is historically more interested in monopolizing innovation than they are in gaming, or at least the type of gaming that Oculus was originally innovating towards. It's hard for many to see anything under the umbrella of Facebook doing a service to gaming -- look at the direction social gaming has taken us. This is how I see it, in my admittedly limited view, anyway. And since the views of those "beyond their core community" are likely similarly limited, it makes sense that others may have a similar reaction. So I'm baffled how Oculus is surprised by the reaction.

dragontamer 13y ago
Case in point: Facebook games are Mafia Wars and Farmville... games that represent raking in tons of money by offering very poor (but addicting) gameplay. The core gamer audience is pissed off at Facebook as it is, and that is the audience Oculus Rift is aimed towards. If Oculus sold out to Valve, Sony, Microsoft... hell... maybe even EA or Activision... they wouldn't have nearly as bad of a reaction as with Facebook. Because as bad as EA or Activision is... they have demonstrated an understanding of the core "hardcore" gamer audience that appreciates greater depth and vision in gameplay. Facebook however, does NOT.
- threeseed 13y ago
  See this is why I like that Facebook acquired Oculus. VR shouldn't be the exclusive domain of hardcore gamers. I want the equivalent of Playstation Home in VR. And nobody can pull that off except Facebook.
  - 13y ago

officemonkey 13y ago

I think it's because nobody understands what FB is going to do with it. Instagram definitely has location and social graph data to exploit. But Oculus? What is FB going to do with that? I think most people still think of FB as the site and advertising sales for the site. But if you see FB as a conglomerate like Google, Apple, and Sony then it makes more sense. FB is diversifying, buying up promising technology with the hopes of leveraging new markets out of it. Maybe they want to make the Gameboy of wearable gaming? They have had success in working with gaming companies (Zynga and King might have peaked, but FB still made money.) And they certainly have a enough power to make things happen.

jdavis703 13y ago
Right on, Facebook's goal is to connect the world. That's why they've acquired companies that range from cloud hosting (Parse) to Internet-delivering drones (Ascenta/Internet.org).
- oafitupa 13y ago
  I thought their goal was to make money, go figure.
  - threeseed 13y ago
    Successful companies do not think like you. They focus on making the very best products/services they can and have the money be a secondary consideration.
kybernetikos 13y ago
I pretty sure that they want to create something like a successful second life - i.e. a VR social network, where users have their own virtual property that they can customize and virtual spaces where they can meet. Basically something like the metaverse in Snowcrash. And I can completely see the high ups in Occulus thinking that this is a brilliant match of visions.
- 13y ago

lawl 13y ago

Yeah well, I don't buy this. However, I think Oculus could easily kill any doubts over that aquisition by promising to release an open source driver. Because that would mean that even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttions, there's still the option to build an alternative open source universe using the open source driver. Personally I think that would restore my faith in the Rift.

danabramov 13y ago
>even if the Rift universe they built is beeing crapped on by like buttons Why do a lot of people keep repeating this? Does Google create self-driving cars to show ads on the windshields? I just don't get it. What on the earth makes you think Facebook bought Oculus to show ads and like buttons inside your games? If, if VR becomes the Next Big Thing, will the like buttons “from the old Facebook“ matter as much, or will the social need to be re-imagined anyway?
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Because Zuckeberg is in charge. I just don't think he could thing of anything interesting. FB was just a landgrab. The product has a/ stagnated b/ gone worse depending on why you ask.
  - danabramov 13y ago
    Have you seen Paper?
    - fizzbar 13y ago
      aka Flipboard by Facebook?
      - danabramov 13y ago
        Execution is king.

neona 13y ago

At least to me, the issue is more that Facebook is not who I want developing these technologies. I think facebook is going to eventually use this to create a modern connected virtual world. Which is something I dearly want. I just don't want it controlled by facebook. In the short term I don't think facebook will screw Oculus up, however.

themodelplumber 13y ago

Facebook is right in the middle of pissing off just about everyone with a FB page, and Oculus is all excited about advancing VR by pairing with Facebook. Seriously, a simple geek campaign like "let's call it the Facebook Oculus from now on" would probably have a good chance at destroying the project. It's not that I personally have anything against either FB or Oculus, but it seems like a huge business risk to everyone involved. The one point that sticks out as a plus is the "this will advance VR no matter what" point. You can safely bet (probably) that this will contribute to the future of VR.

Dylan16807 13y ago
I don't follow your point about a campaign. As apprehensive as I am about this buyout, "Facebook Oculus" has only neutral connotations to me.

LarryMade2 13y ago

I guess for me: A) Doesn't seem to make sense whats Facebook going to do with such a device? They don't do gaming, manufacturing, or design. B) I for one am not happy with Facebook presently, they've morphed their great community/communication platform into a frustrating ad-pushing machine that will only let you interact with your community/friends at a an increasing price. C) Given those two, I can only shudder at what Oculus Facebook will become.

petercooper 13y ago

I don't think Mozilla expected the backlash this week either. Hundreds of thousands of people with very rapid ways to share opinions (Hacker News, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) equals a very different scene to that of even 10 years ago.

kmfrk 13y ago

Two words: Google Glass. Maybe they are the kinds of people who are excited about something like Google Glass, and who just don't see what bothers people about Facebook?

daenz 13y ago

I've been thinking about this Facebook acquisition for a little while, and in my mind, the only play that makes sense for Facebook is to become the login gateway to Oculus games. For many Windows games, there's Windows Live...a social-ish, login service that you literally have to register and sign in with in order to play the game. You cannot opt out. If Facebook became this... "Sign in with Facebook"... for all commercial Oculus games, they would have a guaranteed mindshare on the future younger generations of gamers. And becoming just the gatekeepers would more or less let them be hands-off with the actual Oculus direction as a company, which is in line with what's been said so far.

nilved 13y ago
If you needed a Facebook account to use the Rift, I would avoid it like I do every other service that requires a Facebook account.
danabramov 13y ago
This doesn't make sense at all. Imagine the new generation goes purely VR and doesn't use the “old web” for entertainment. What would be the point of “Login with Facebook“ if those kids don't use the web anyway? This is a very narrow vision.
- daenz 13y ago
  You sound like you've never used a mandatory social login for a game. I never go to https://login.live.com https://login.live.com but I have an account...one I had to create to play a game. I receive in-game messages and friend requests during game sessions. Take a look at the Games for Windows - LIVE feature set and tell me that isn't a social network that Facebook would want a part of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_Live#Games_for_Windows_.E2.80.93_Live_features http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_for_Windows_%E2%80%93_Liv... I'm not limiting the vision of Oculus...the sky is the limit. But I think the play for Facebook's immediate involvement will be similar to Games for Windows. Social gaming data is actionable to the Facebook business.

brubaker 13y ago

The target market is geeks that generally have a gigantic entitlement complex. What they need to do is ignore those people and move on.

vermontdevil 13y ago

If they sold to Valve, the reaction would have been different. But it's all initial impression. We'll see long term how it shakes out. I do admit it seemed odd to me that Facebook would be the buyer. I just don't see the connection.

MPSimmons 13y ago

Darn. This means they're not as smart as I thought.

doesnt_know 13y ago

Kickstarter is all about directly funding unique concepts and products by independent entities. The whole point is to avoid the "traditional" investment model. Or I suppose more accurately, fund what the "traditional model" wants nothing to do with. If I was a backer, I would probably want the Oculus to fail now, just out of spite.

XorNot 13y ago
There's a certain irony to this statement. Community funding and all that, but if they don't do what I say then by golly I'll be mad I can't crush them like the corporations I'm protesting against!

rch 13y ago

I don't use Facebook and I don't play games, but I'm curious to see if the acquisition will have a positive effect on pure VR; meaning the kind of VR Jaron Lanier talks about. It seems like FB could actually bridge between VR, AR, and everyone else more easily than most. I can imagine attending the next presidential inauguration (virtually) because of this deal, and that wouldn't have been the case with Valve, for example.

stan_rogers 13y ago
I'm pretty much of the same mind here. A huge part of the backlash (and a large number of the comments here) seems to revolve around gaming (hardcore or otherwise). Valve, for instance, would have been okay, but EA, Sony and even Microsoft have been mentioned as better/more suitable. And I firmly believe that, while I get the appeal of gaming VR, it rather misses the larger picture. I no more want to see this sort of tech tied to gaming, even philosophically, than I want to see it become a dongle for Autodesk software (which, by the way, would be a much more meaningful application than gaming). I want holonovels and walkthroughs and avatar space for those whose meatspace experience isn't great. Many of the dreams we dreamed when ubiquitous computing meant that you got a punchcard with your bill and a handful of people owned something like a TRS-80 or an Apple ][ are on the verge of becoming very real (and not in quite the same way that strong AI has always been "almost here"). FB has an intrinsic interest in the avatar space part of that, but they're also as good a bet as anyone to diversify into the other realms.

ianstallings 13y ago

Maybe if you replace "Facebook" with "Walmart" the comparison will be easier. Because that's what FB is, the Walmart of the Internet. It sucks and it could be so much better, but it's packed with "content" and everyone still goes there reluctantly. When you have high hopes for a new player in the game the last thing you want is them buddying up to a company whos whole strategy can be summed up as "find the lowest common denominator". Is this judgement a fair assessment? Of course not. Facebook is just our whipping boy.

dragontamer 13y ago

http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1257 http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/1257 Relevant comic on the issue

uptown 13y ago

I don't think Facebook's acquisition of Oculus has much to do with gaming. I think what it does is give Facebook access to a part of our minds that few others may have. What we look at ... whether in a real world or a virtual one ... reveals what we covet. Perhaps it's something we'd never search for in a search-engine - but it is able to be leveraged to enhance the profile of a person in order to more-perfectly market to them. I suspect that what we look at, and for how long, will convert far better than anything we ever type into a Google search box. It's why Google is building Glass ... and why Facebook bought Oculus.

hockeybias 13y ago

Face F*ckbook. Boo.

data-cat 13y ago

I don't get why everyone is hating. The fact of the matter is Facebook is about to put a lot of funding in to Oculus. With a lot of other big companies getting in to VR right now, like Sony and apparently Microsoft, Oculus will need that to stay relevant. When I first found out about the buyout I thought of the same thing this article points out; Facebook also purchased Instagram and it seems to be doing just fine. If Facebook truly lets Oculus "be who they are going to be", I'm sure they will do just fine.

arrc 13y ago

Guys Facebook is no Microsoft or Google who only buy to soft kill the competitor. FB is different just look at their past acquisitions like Instagram and others, they all survived and are still in active development and rolling out new features. If it were MS/Google acquiring Oculus, negative reactions would have been justified.

vezzy-fnord 13y ago
All of FB's past acquisitions before Oculus (just Instagram and WhatsApp) were social media platforms, precisely what FB specialized in and knows how to work with. They don't need to do any radical shift with them, they already serve as private data and analytics incubators. Oculus is a completely unrelated avenue for them, and one can only wonder what their intentions are. Zuckerberg already made a PR statement that the company intends on turning Oculus into a social platform of some sort, so this does raise some eyebrows. As much as I have ethical quandaries with Google, I'd be more content if they had acquired Oculus.
- threeseed 13y ago
  But what makes Facebook different to what Google was a few years ago ? Google has been a long time advertising player that only recently got into hardware.
  - logicallee 13y ago
    >But what makes Facebook different to what Google was a few years ago ? Mark Zuckerberg.

beshrkayali 13y ago

> “We assumed that the reaction would be negative, especially from our core community. Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. I don’t think we expected it to be so negative.” So basically *k the core community? What Oculus founders don't understand is that without this core community they wouldn't have existed in the way they are right now, probably not even approached by Facebook or anyone else. Sure, it could be good to the future of Oculus, what do I know, but it's a big FU to the core community, specially that we've been disregarded like this.

pnathan 13y ago

In the final analysis, deeds define you and your company, not words. Oculus sold to Facebook. Fine. Oculus doesn't have to fundraise anymore, and has a theoretically unlimited R&D budget. Facebook has the cloud expertise to handle virtual worlds at scale. These are valid reasons to be acquired. But more fundamentally, there are a variety of large corporations with big pockets that could have done the merger. Facebook's interest will be in jamming the virtual world full of ads and mining the smallest action to increase ad sales. And everyone understands this and knows this. Google's interest would have been similar, but perhaps skewed towards AR and Glass integration. Microsoft would have likely skewed towards selling corporate VR solutions (these exist(ed) already, but have not gotten press or wide adoption). MSNBC or other media corp would have wanted more to sell talking heads and ads. Etc. I don't much care about the gamer community here, but I really wouldn't want the VR world to be a 3d representation of Facebook (something I fled years ago).

venomsnake 13y ago

One thing I don't get is why did it have to be acquisition. If FB had just acquired 10-30% of the company at 2G$ valuation and left control to the other people they would have had once again first class access to the technology but the backlash would have been smaller. Acquiring stake validates the technology. Buy outs - they mean you try to lock the other away from it.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

SixSigma 13y ago

Facebook have lost 7% share value since the announcement, that's $10bn off the market cap. http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/facebook-share-price-continues-to-fall/0130265 http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/facebook-share-price-continue...

SixSigma 13y ago
One should ignore that speculation. I got caught up in the hyperbole. I should know what X caused change in price Y is one of the fallacies of market reporting.

skywhopper 13y ago

A few billion dollars can lead you to believe most anything.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

tl;dr: People who react negatively are dumb and ignorant, and need to be "eductated". Suddenly I understand much clearer how Facebook and Oculus are a good cultural match.

hibikir 13y ago

You don't even have to hate facebook to not like the merger. Anyone that has been part of a big corporate merger knows that the small company will very rarely keep its old culture for very long. Being bought changes things, and it rarely makes the company more productive. In all my years in the industry, I've not been a part of one where the consumer was helped: The only winners have always been the few people that got the millions from being acquired. Not every acquisition like this is a total failure, but so many of them are, it's very hard to see any acquisition with optimism, unless you want both sides to fail. Can IBM please buy Oracle?

sparkzilla 13y ago

I think the real victim here is Kickstarter. I saw some project for a new kind of energy-saving device and all the comments basically said "So you'll just take our money and sell to Facebook?"

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

detay 13y ago

if they asked me I would tell.