Nothing is more cyberpunk than the corporations throwing their weight around. At least this has a somewhat Gibson-esque ending.
So thereâs that.
In the future, everything is fake, and built of spam.
In terms of disappointment, this is right up there with halloween caramel onions.
If I was being incredibly optimistic, Iâd say that this is far enough from Facebookâs wheelhouse that theyâll keep it at armâs length and just feast on the profits from letting Oculus do what they were going to anyway. After all, no one suggested the aim was anything other than to make money.
But as the post points out, everything good and exciting about the Rift was in its future, and if people donât believe in that future-- which just got much harder-- then it will continue to not be anything.
Supersadface
Iâd rather they focused more on creating VR versus some sort of Google Glass augmented reality competition.
Hey guys, I bet we can make some goggles too - for less than a billion, even. Whoâs in?
Notch has tweeted that he is cancelling all plans to develop an Rift compatible version of Minecraft.
Iâm starting to hate Facebook with a passion
Thank you for you view point. I heard something on the radio the other day that for todayâs youth âselling outâ isnât a thing. As in, âIf I can make this great thing and get Taco Bell to sponsor me, sweet!â
Iâve worked with a lot of companies who are funded by VCs and have seen how they are treated when it doesnât look like they are going to make âthe next big thingâ they are shut down or ârolled upâ and all the energy that went into it, from the internal people and the external users or promoters dies.
Some of the companies made money, but not enough. But because the metric for the backers was âmake a ton of moneyâ not 'create something mind blowing and different" they got shut down. The VCs needed a huge win. Hell, in the old days you didnât even have to make money! You just had to have âeyeballsâ Netscape wasnât making money. Twitter either.
Iâm glad you are lamenting the promise and you are using the term âselling outâ because what it means in this case is not just what might happen but who might do it. We know what is in a companies âpersonalityâ and how they will use what they have. Maybe this will free up people for the 'next big thing" like the canceling of the Newton did at Apple.
A while ago a friend said, âIâm waiting for Facebook to be âover.â another friend said, âIt will never be over!â I said, 'I know! That is exactly what I told my MySpace friends!â
Maybe Hiro Protagonist will have something to say about this.
This is precisely the point I was hoping to get across. Now that Oculus is owned by Facebook, Facebookâs shareholders are their shareholders. They are directly tied together. Whatâs good for one may not be whatâs best for the other.
Crowdfunding gave promise that the early stages of a business could be bought into and backed by the people who want it. That even without a share, the people who really wanted what was best for the product would support the business. On the other end of this lifecycle is the companyâs IPO: now itâs large enough to pay dividends or grow value for its shareholders and it can make that offer to them.
Your comment is great because it nails the problem here: Oculus was damned close to making it to the IPO stage, but because thereâs that middle stretch where they need more funding in larger quantities it could still go sideways. Dang. So close.
I hear the Facebook copyright people already have a brand name in mind and a new concept with more rounded curves, thereâs already an info site up showing the newly minted Facebook employees trying it out at their first employee orientation:
Yes, they were bought out. No, thatâs not terrible. It may not even be a crass money grab. It may have been their only path to survival.
The truth is that without a big money buyer like Facebook, many of us felt Occulus had almost no chance of relevance or survival, even in the medium term.
Like many small technical innovators, their product had become a prime target for the established manufacturers. Occulus was about to be under-priced and overwhelmed by entrenched, experienced, low-cost, quality hardware builders like Sony, Samsung, and Microsoft.
Oculus didnât build most of their own hardware, they built the shell, but purchased all the sensors and screens from companies who will soon be their competitors. Oculus would never have received the best component prices and wouldnât have any presence in the channel. Oculus didnât have any world beating patents, as most of the patents in this field are over twenty years old and no longer enforceable.
Sony has already shown a VR device that is superior in almost every way to Oculusâs latest development. Sony has the funds, manufacturing expertise, retail channel, and gaming platform to immediately support their device. Sony could sell their VR headset for less than Oculusâ manufacturing cost and still manage a profit.
Facebook brings enough money to give Oculus a chance. They will now have leverage, they will now have a massive marketing force.
Hate Facebook all you like, but Oculus wasnât the scrappy small-town team about to beat the reigning world champions. They were a grade school team playing against all six world champions at the same time, probably about to get their asses kicked all the way back home.
Without Facebook or a company like them, Oculus were destined to be a soon forgotten speed bump.
Tonight, in my mumble community,
in my teamspeak community,
in my shoot-thingee communities
âŚthe communities that bow to our patron saint john carmackâŚ
there was no talking about valuation,
or metrics,
or eyeballs,
or selling out,
or corporate survival.
There were only howls of pain.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a book strapped on a human face - forever
Imagine the neck muscles you will eventually work out though
Alas, itâs very well balanced, so it will probably just give you compressed vertebrae.
Ready Player One.
Coming next: The OASIS by Facebook.
Facebookâs primary focus is data harvesting, not making games, not making innovative technologies, data harvesting. Perhaps if a video game company bought them out, or an Augmented Reality company, or really any company that was remotely connected to what it actually does, I wouldnât be so cynical but in this case I really donât think that it is going to go well.
Note, for so many reasons, that was one of the saddest comments I could make. Ready Player One, wonderful and prophetic, deserves better.
HoweverâŚ
This is BoingBoing, and all that happened is that the Oculus Rift got bought by Facebook. It does not mean the technology of ALL immersive VR ends, or that indeed, the dreams of all good things ends.
Just consider the people who come here, and how we thinkâand more importantly, what we DO. All that âFacebook buys Oculusâ means is that we who seek better things will make better things, and those of us who canât engineer better tech ourselves will find ways to hijack and subvert what is around, towards better purposes.
I have faith in Happy Mutants.
