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> 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 li

> 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.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    Or you know... Sony. The maker of PlayStation Home and the Oculus competitor "Morpheus". Or Valve, the creator of Steam... one of the largest online video game social networks. Or Second Life, who has a very agreeable model of virtual space and virtual goods.
Geee 13y ago
Don't you see it? Facebook can't currently monetize face-to-face interactions, but in virtual reality they can. The purchase makes a lot of sense for Facebook. Facebook's business model is to monetize human interactions. Today, most of human interaction happens over the Internet (with messages and images), and in the future, it will happen in virtual environments. VR will be the ultimate platform, and Facebook wants to own that platform. Virtual reality is not about gaming. Would you describe Matrix as a game? Facebook's wants to put everyone in the Matrix, so they can monetize us.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  This is what people fear from Facebook. Selling out to Microsoft or Sony would have been "monetize by making awesome games". Selling out to Facebook means virtual reality ads will penetrate everywhere you walk.
  - danabramov 13y ago
    Do you seriously believe this? Then there will be competitors without ads.
    - Geee 13y ago
      You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. These services (and companies) operate around the idea of giving away free candy and locking everyone in with network effects. This is what will happen to VR as well under Facebook's control.
      - evan_ 13y ago
        Maybe it's harder to be #1 without being free but there are many video sites competing with YouTube that do pretty well. Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc- they're not FREE but they're still very popular. There's no reason to believe that Facebook's VR network will be the only one. Also, none of the products you listed had first mover advantage. They're all excellent examples of things that upset a formerly dominant major player.
bstar77 13y ago
> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. How can you go in understanding that you are going to upset your core community and expect anything other than a negative response?
- codeflo 13y ago
  This is the part that stuck out for me as well. They quite plainly state that they knew this would alienate their existing audience, and that they were perfectly fine with that.
  - stingraycharles 13y ago
    And in the end, it's their choice anyway. People respond mostly negatively because of their expectations about how Facebook will monetize this. It's now up to Facebook to prove them wrong. I personally think it's not going to be as bad. Oculus has a clear path to monetization, while Facebook, with their other products, have always been struggling to monetize their user base, which lead them to implement controversial features like Beacon. In this case, all they have to do is back off and make sure the right people are leading Oculus -- and so far, I think they are doing fine with that.
    - teacup50 13y ago
      > "Oculus has a clear path to monetization" "Monetization" is a bastardization of a term that was necessary to describe how non-profitable companies could somehow make money from giving away their product for free -- usually by abusing the userbase they're handing the free product to. See the second paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetization I think what you meant to say is: "Oculus has a clear product that they will sell for money, because that's how businesses that actually sell products to their customers survive". This is a major reason why the Facebook buyout is so terrible for a product company. Facebook doesn't know how to make and sell a product that isn't their own users.
      - 13y ago
McMarty1100 13y ago
That very true, however I think in terms of the entire valuation of Facebook. In the last 2 Facebook has spent more that $20 Billion. I think the Facebook Bubble will burst? http://thegamingpc.webs.com/apps/blog http://thegamingpc.webs.com/apps/blog
kyleblarson 13y ago
It's easy to take the moral high ground when you don't have a three comma offer sitting on the table in front of you.
- teacup50 13y ago
  "Greed is good"? That isn't an argument for the moral low ground. It wasn't like the alternative was "or you get nothing". The alternative was "or you get to pursue the vision you built the company on and potentially have a few more commas in front of you".
- adestefan 13y ago
  I'd sell out in a heart beat. However, I also wouldn't be shocked at the outrage.
  - sirkneeland 13y ago
    Same. And I also would go do an interview claiming that I was.
- jader201 13y ago
  The point isn't that they made a bad/immoral decision. The point is that they say this: > Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. Oculus are brilliant people -- how could they expect this would be received positively, even by those "beyond our core community"?
bane 13y ago
> 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. Yes, look at social gaming. At least inside the retrogaming communities, people who take a very long view of gaming, social gaming is not well loved. It's seen as a shackle not a new experience by and large. Even among new games, Skyrim and GTA V are hugely popular even though the experience is mostly single player. There have been some good examples of it (Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, EVE), but by and large you end up with Farmville and the new SimCity more often. Both of which are horrible and/or exploitive games. Getting dozens of spams a day from your "friends" to play this or that shallow psychological-reward hack social game on Facebook is what people are envisioning with this acquisition when what people wanted was Half-Life 3 VR edition or a Star Wars 3D game...or even non-gaming "take a virtual tour around the Pantheon" experiences. And just as important, social games have no lifespan. I'm used to being able to pull up a 20 year old game and get it working (even on PCs with a little work). Social games in general have a short half-life. Remember the huge hit that was Farmville? Is it even still around? I dunno. I'm definitely in the camp that thinks this acquisition will come to no good. But to be hoenst, if somebody waived $2b in my face I'd take it and skip off to a comfortable retirement in Malta without giving two shits about the community that supported it in the beginning.
- s3r3nity 13y ago
  Depends on what you mean by that -- The Halo & Call of Duty franchises have been getting by on great social multiplayer experiences. (Halo also has a great campaign, but I digress...) The great experiment & test of your theory would be to see something like Titanfall only last a year or so, since it's ALL a social/multiplier experience. In theory I think social gaming has strong networking effects that have to potential to cement a game, especially in crowds that aren't maybe hardcore gamers. For example, I thought one of the best things to come out of the Zynga era was the fact that middle aged mothers were the core gaming segment. Why is this awesome? Because as a life-long gamer I thought it was awesome that more than teenage boys were welcome into the community, regardless if the niche/genre was not my style. Yes, there are a few problems that no one has quite figured out yet in regards to hyper-social, and solutions have been kind of lazy at best, but there's a big market opp here for somone who DOES figure it out.
samstave 13y ago
If FB wanted anyone to believe they had some mighty vision in social gaming, then why didn't they buy out Zynga or other game companies like that that actually had massive userbase on their actual platform.
wiremine 13y ago
> 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. Honest question: why shouldn't VR be in Facebook's vision? _Someone_ is going to create a Google Hangouts-style product that incorporates VR. I'm not excited that it is FB, per say, but I can see how a company built on social interactions is going to want a piece of that pie. I get the frustration about the short-term impact on gaming, but I don't (yet?) understand why this is a bad move for VR in general...
- pfraze 13y ago
  It's not that VR shouldn't be in Facebook's vision. It's that Facebook's vision shouldn't be a primary player in VR.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    Why?
    - bane 13y ago
      Have you ever used Facebook?
- teacup50 13y ago
  > _Someone_ is going to create a Google Hangouts-style product that incorporates VR. Are they? Why is VR inevitable? We already went through this once in the 90s, and the same truths are still true: nobody wants to put a face-covering headset just to communicate with other people.
  - wiremine 13y ago
    > Why is VR inevitable? Good point, I agree that I am making a big assumption. That said, I don't think the argument that "it didn't work before" is valid. I don't think people want face-covering headsets that _suck_. If I can wear an _awesome_ headset and have a virtual conversation with my family across the country, I'd purchase one in a heartbeat.
cookiecaper 13y ago
Spot on. The problem is that it's very difficult to conceptualize a merger of the two companies' products that ISN'T really, really unpleasant. Most people are already tired of and/or annoyed with Facebook and having it strapped to your face and watching everything you do in a "virtual reality" is very offputting. Facebook is linked to publication and noise, and it creates an aura of intrusion. When you post on Facebook, you are performing for your hundreds of acquaintances and friends. People don't want to feel like they'll have to be doing that every time they use an Oculus product, let alone one so intimate that you literally strap it to your face. I know no one who sits back and thinks, "I need more Facebook in my life". I don't know why they didn't see it coming, but almost anyone would've been less creepy than Facebook. People would have still have concerns, but I think they'd be more optimistic if it was Google or something.
scient 13y ago
Oculus probably did not expect people to be so short-sighted. If you acquire new businesses, they dont have to align with your current field of operations. Thats actually the main point of diversification. What matters here is the sheer scale of resources available for FB to push absolutely _anything_. And one would expect at least somewhat intelligent people to understand this, instead of mindlessly raging and throwing utterly stupid arguments around about why this is bad.

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.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Or you know... Sony. The maker of PlayStation Home and the Oculus competitor "Morpheus". Or Valve, the creator of Steam... one of the largest online video game social networks. Or Second Life, who has a very agreeable model of virtual space and virtual goods.

Geee 13y ago

Don't you see it? Facebook can't currently monetize face-to-face interactions, but in virtual reality they can. The purchase makes a lot of sense for Facebook. Facebook's business model is to monetize human interactions. Today, most of human interaction happens over the Internet (with messages and images), and in the future, it will happen in virtual environments. VR will be the ultimate platform, and Facebook wants to own that platform. Virtual reality is not about gaming. Would you describe Matrix as a game? Facebook's wants to put everyone in the Matrix, so they can monetize us.

dragontamer 13y ago
This is what people fear from Facebook. Selling out to Microsoft or Sony would have been "monetize by making awesome games". Selling out to Facebook means virtual reality ads will penetrate everywhere you walk.
- danabramov 13y ago
  Do you seriously believe this? Then there will be competitors without ads.
  - Geee 13y ago
    You can't compete with 'without ads' business model. Look around: Google search, Youtube, Facebook etc. They all had first mover advantage and there's no way someone can compete with these. These services (and companies) operate around the idea of giving away free candy and locking everyone in with network effects. This is what will happen to VR as well under Facebook's control.
    - evan_ 13y ago
      Maybe it's harder to be #1 without being free but there are many video sites competing with YouTube that do pretty well. Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc- they're not FREE but they're still very popular. There's no reason to believe that Facebook's VR network will be the only one. Also, none of the products you listed had first mover advantage. They're all excellent examples of things that upset a formerly dominant major player.

bstar77 13y ago

> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. How can you go in understanding that you are going to upset your core community and expect anything other than a negative response?

codeflo 13y ago
This is the part that stuck out for me as well. They quite plainly state that they knew this would alienate their existing audience, and that they were perfectly fine with that.
- stingraycharles 13y ago
  And in the end, it's their choice anyway. People respond mostly negatively because of their expectations about how Facebook will monetize this. It's now up to Facebook to prove them wrong. I personally think it's not going to be as bad. Oculus has a clear path to monetization, while Facebook, with their other products, have always been struggling to monetize their user base, which lead them to implement controversial features like Beacon. In this case, all they have to do is back off and make sure the right people are leading Oculus -- and so far, I think they are doing fine with that.
  - teacup50 13y ago
    > "Oculus has a clear path to monetization" "Monetization" is a bastardization of a term that was necessary to describe how non-profitable companies could somehow make money from giving away their product for free -- usually by abusing the userbase they're handing the free product to. See the second paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetization I think what you meant to say is: "Oculus has a clear product that they will sell for money, because that's how businesses that actually sell products to their customers survive". This is a major reason why the Facebook buyout is so terrible for a product company. Facebook doesn't know how to make and sell a product that isn't their own users.
    - 13y ago

McMarty1100 13y ago

That very true, however I think in terms of the entire valuation of Facebook. In the last 2 Facebook has spent more that $20 Billion. I think the Facebook Bubble will burst? http://thegamingpc.webs.com/apps/blog http://thegamingpc.webs.com/apps/blog

kyleblarson 13y ago

It's easy to take the moral high ground when you don't have a three comma offer sitting on the table in front of you.

teacup50 13y ago
"Greed is good"? That isn't an argument for the moral low ground. It wasn't like the alternative was "or you get nothing". The alternative was "or you get to pursue the vision you built the company on and potentially have a few more commas in front of you".
adestefan 13y ago
I'd sell out in a heart beat. However, I also wouldn't be shocked at the outrage.
- sirkneeland 13y ago
  Same. And I also would go do an interview claiming that I was.
jader201 13y ago
The point isn't that they made a bad/immoral decision. The point is that they say this: > Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive. Oculus are brilliant people -- how could they expect this would be received positively, even by those "beyond our core community"?

bane 13y ago

> 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. Yes, look at social gaming. At least inside the retrogaming communities, people who take a very long view of gaming, social gaming is not well loved. It's seen as a shackle not a new experience by and large. Even among new games, Skyrim and GTA V are hugely popular even though the experience is mostly single player. There have been some good examples of it (Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, EVE), but by and large you end up with Farmville and the new SimCity more often. Both of which are horrible and/or exploitive games. Getting dozens of spams a day from your "friends" to play this or that shallow psychological-reward hack social game on Facebook is what people are envisioning with this acquisition when what people wanted was Half-Life 3 VR edition or a Star Wars 3D game...or even non-gaming "take a virtual tour around the Pantheon" experiences. And just as important, social games have no lifespan. I'm used to being able to pull up a 20 year old game and get it working (even on PCs with a little work). Social games in general have a short half-life. Remember the huge hit that was Farmville? Is it even still around? I dunno. I'm definitely in the camp that thinks this acquisition will come to no good. But to be hoenst, if somebody waived $2b in my face I'd take it and skip off to a comfortable retirement in Malta without giving two shits about the community that supported it in the beginning.

s3r3nity 13y ago
Depends on what you mean by that -- The Halo & Call of Duty franchises have been getting by on great social multiplayer experiences. (Halo also has a great campaign, but I digress...) The great experiment & test of your theory would be to see something like Titanfall only last a year or so, since it's ALL a social/multiplier experience. In theory I think social gaming has strong networking effects that have to potential to cement a game, especially in crowds that aren't maybe hardcore gamers. For example, I thought one of the best things to come out of the Zynga era was the fact that middle aged mothers were the core gaming segment. Why is this awesome? Because as a life-long gamer I thought it was awesome that more than teenage boys were welcome into the community, regardless if the niche/genre was not my style. Yes, there are a few problems that no one has quite figured out yet in regards to hyper-social, and solutions have been kind of lazy at best, but there's a big market opp here for somone who DOES figure it out.

samstave 13y ago

If FB wanted anyone to believe they had some mighty vision in social gaming, then why didn't they buy out Zynga or other game companies like that that actually had massive userbase on their actual platform.

wiremine 13y ago

> 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. Honest question: why shouldn't VR be in Facebook's vision? _Someone_ is going to create a Google Hangouts-style product that incorporates VR. I'm not excited that it is FB, per say, but I can see how a company built on social interactions is going to want a piece of that pie. I get the frustration about the short-term impact on gaming, but I don't (yet?) understand why this is a bad move for VR in general...

pfraze 13y ago
It's not that VR shouldn't be in Facebook's vision. It's that Facebook's vision shouldn't be a primary player in VR.
- XorNot 13y ago
  Why?
  - bane 13y ago
    Have you ever used Facebook?
teacup50 13y ago
> _Someone_ is going to create a Google Hangouts-style product that incorporates VR. Are they? Why is VR inevitable? We already went through this once in the 90s, and the same truths are still true: nobody wants to put a face-covering headset just to communicate with other people.
- wiremine 13y ago
  > Why is VR inevitable? Good point, I agree that I am making a big assumption. That said, I don't think the argument that "it didn't work before" is valid. I don't think people want face-covering headsets that _suck_. If I can wear an _awesome_ headset and have a virtual conversation with my family across the country, I'd purchase one in a heartbeat.

cookiecaper 13y ago

Spot on. The problem is that it's very difficult to conceptualize a merger of the two companies' products that ISN'T really, really unpleasant. Most people are already tired of and/or annoyed with Facebook and having it strapped to your face and watching everything you do in a "virtual reality" is very offputting. Facebook is linked to publication and noise, and it creates an aura of intrusion. When you post on Facebook, you are performing for your hundreds of acquaintances and friends. People don't want to feel like they'll have to be doing that every time they use an Oculus product, let alone one so intimate that you literally strap it to your face. I know no one who sits back and thinks, "I need more Facebook in my life". I don't know why they didn't see it coming, but almost anyone would've been less creepy than Facebook. People would have still have concerns, but I think they'd be more optimistic if it was Google or something.

scient 13y ago

Oculus probably did not expect people to be so short-sighted. If you acquire new businesses, they dont have to align with your current field of operations. Thats actually the main point of diversification. What matters here is the sheer scale of resources available for FB to push absolutely _anything_. And one would expect at least somewhat intelligent people to understand this, instead of mindlessly raging and throwing utterly stupid arguments around about why this is bad.