The Times article was interesting (http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/ http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/ I know, I know,

The Times article was interesting (http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/ http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/ I know, I know, paywall), and I observed some pretty nifty psychological dynamic. It was written by someone who wasn't much of a gamer, so I got a chance to see his epiphany through his writing. His mind was totally blown away. He kept talking about the aversion to wear something so ridiculous on there. He had never experienced what it felt like to step into another reality. He said that there "is no edge". The screens wrapped around the peripheral vision. The lag is below the threshold that many would get that sense of "this is not quite real". It goes with the "VR-induced existential crisis" that has been reported with the Rift, and not with any previous technology. You start to forget you're wearing something. I had not experienced that existential crisis when I used the Rift back in Oct, since my astigmatism distorted the viewscreens enough that I can see the edge. But more importantly, I have had a lot of psychedelic experiences and dream experiences where, now, shifting from one seemingly reality to another is not a big deal. The way these folks describe that existential crisis, about how there is no edge reminds me of what everyone says after coming down on their first trip. From my perspective, this technology has the potential to bring to the mainstream what meditators and psychonauts have known about for a long, long time. I've seen an interpretation of the Matrix movie, about how the movie was about a virtual reality that is real; but it misses the main point, that this reality that you are in right now is not as real as you think it is. You're making an interpretation based on sensory data. It is no wonder that this tech induces existential crises :-) And it is in that experience of the existential crisis that something wakes up in the experiencer. You ask some good, specific questions about adoption, and how Facebook will help with that. But that is also looking at it without a sense of how groundbreaking this tech is. It's the kind of tech that someone in the mainstream -- and not gamers who have these expectations in their head -- puts it on, tries it for the first time, and will get it. The game mechanics and the interactions are completely secondary to that experience of the existential crisis, and that alone, I think, will mean some form of the Rift technology, whether it is by FB or not, will emerge. It solves a problem people did not know they have, did not even realize they needed. The demand will be too great for there to be a vacuum.