Facebook Buys Oculus Rift For $2 Billion

[Boo Berry]

Yeah, our real hope is now Valve's VR. I wouldn't touch Sony's VP with a 10 foot pole.

[T3X4S]

I can see why they want it - anyone see Surrogates ?  that was social media ...

[Boo Berry]

Coming in 2015: FarmVille VR! Ugh...

[riahc3]

The stock market did so-so with this announcement.

[margrave]

Please be an April Fools.... PLEASE!!!

[Praetor]

The stock market did so-so with this announcement.

 

but not the Internet: it is Rage(ing) with this, because not only this is Doom for Oculus but it Quake(s) the whole possible gaming experience with VR one could had.

[JonnyLH]

Why are people acting like this is the end of oculus rift? Can someone remind me what happened to instagram? It carried on as it was and hardly even changed as part of the buyout. Even Zuckerburg himself said nothing will change about the rift and it will be focused on the push towards gaming.

If anything this is a good thing as it will have so much more money, staff and resources pumped into it to make it more of a market success and a better product. Why would Facebook take something that is primarily a core gamers device and rebrand it into something the casual wouldn't care about?

Come on guys.

EDIT: Oh and that Marcus comment and decision is exactly why I don't believe all the articles surrounding indies and theyre quibbles. What Marcus said is childish and has no basis other than a personal image towards a company who is going to do nothing but help the device.

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Palmer Luckey on Reddit:
 

I?ve always loved games. They?re windows into worlds that let us travel somewhere fantastic. My foray into virtual reality was driven by a desire to enhance my gaming experience; to make my rig more than just a window to these worlds, to actually let me step inside them. As time went on, I realized that VR technology wasn?t just possible, it was almost ready to move into the mainstream. All it needed was the right push.
 
We started Oculus VR with the vision of making virtual reality affordable and accessible, to allow everyone to experience the impossible. With the help of an incredible community, we?ve received orders for over 75,000 development kits from game developers, content creators, and artists around the world. When Facebook first approached us about partnering, I was skeptical. As I learned more about the company and its vision and spoke with Mark, the partnership not only made sense, but became the clear and obvious path to delivering virtual reality to everyone. Facebook was founded with the vision of making the world a more connected place. Virtual reality is a medium that allows us to share experiences with others in ways that were never before possible.
 
Facebook is run in an open way that?s aligned with Oculus? culture. Over the last decade, Mark and Facebook have been champions of open software and hardware, pushing the envelope of innovation for the entire tech industry. As Facebook has grown, they?ve continued to invest in efforts like with the Open Compute Project, their initiative that aims to drive innovation and reduce the cost of computing infrastructure across the industry. This is a team that?s used to making bold bets on the future.
 
In the end, I kept coming back to a question we always ask ourselves every day at Oculus: what?s best for the future of virtual reality? Partnering with Mark and the Facebook team is a unique and powerful opportunity. The partnership accelerates our vision, allows us to execute on some of our most creative ideas and take risks that were otherwise impossible. Most importantly, it means a better Oculus Rift with fewer compromises even faster than we anticipated.
 
Very little changes day-to-day at Oculus, although we?ll have substantially more resources to build the right team. If you want to come work on these hard problems in computer vision, graphics, input, and audio, please apply!
 
This is a special moment for the gaming industry ? Oculus? somewhat unpredictable future just became crystal clear: virtual reality is coming, and it?s going to change the way we play games forever.
 
I?m obsessed with VR. I spend every day pushing further, and every night dreaming of where we are going. Even in my wildest dreams, I never imagined we?d come so far so fast.
 
I?m proud to be a member of this community ? thank you all for carrying virtual reality and gaming forward and trusting in us to deliver. We won?t let you down.

 
http://redd.it/21cy9n

 

 

Notch's thoughts in full:

 

Virtual Reality is going to change the world

March 25th, 2014

 

It?s amazing. You strap on some gear, and then you?re inside whatever world you want. It showed up in books, it showed up in movies, and everyone dreamed about it. Problem was, it kinda sucked. I tried Dactyl Nightmare at an amusement park, and it kinda sucked. Huge wires, unconvincing tracking, horrible visual fidelity. VR kept sucking for a long time, and people kinda gave up on it.

 

But then something happened. Or, well, it had already happened, but nobody realized. The technology was finally here to do proper virtual reality. The team behind Oculus Rift realized this, and built the first prototype of VR that was finally just good enough to be usable, and it was only going to get better and better. They set up a kickstarter to fund their enthusiasm, and a lot of people got excited. They made about ten times the money they asked for, and I was one of the top-level backers.

 

I got my oculus rift dev kit, and played around with it. It was convincing. It presented a lot of design problems. It made me nauseous. It was signed by the entire Oculus Rift team. I got super excited and worked on a couple of prototypes before moving on to other things. Perhaps I would pick it up again closer to the consumer version release.

 

A couple of weeks ago, they reminded me that I still hadn?t visited their office, one of the rewards from the kickstarter. John Carmack would be there. The combined opportunity of seeing their latest tech and getting to talk about vr (and doom) with John was overwhelming, so I took the 12+ hour flight there. What I saw was every bit as impressive as you could imagine. They had fixed all the major issues, and all that remained was huge design and software implementation challenges.

 

As someone who always felt like they were born five or ten years too late, I felt like we were on the cusp of a new paradigm that I might be able to play around with. I could be part of the early efforts to work out best practices, and while I have no doubt that in ten years we?ll look back at the problems with early VR applications in the same we look back at GUI problems with early PC games, it still felt exciting to me. My head started spinning with potential applications and how to deal with all the issues (how do you do gui? how do you deal with locomotion? what input do you use? what happens if the player leans far enough forward to clip into a wall? how do you prevent vr induced existential crisis?)

 

Of course, they wanted Minecraft. I said that it doesn?t really fit the platform, since it?s very motion based, runs on java (that has a hard time delivering rock solid 90 fps, especially since the players build their own potentially hugely complex levels), and relies a lot on GUI. But perhaps it would be cool to do a slimmed down version of Minecraft for the Oculus. Something free, similar to the Minecraft PI Edition, perhaps? So I suggested that, and our people started talking to their people to see if something could be done.

 

And then, not two weeks later, Facebook buys them.

 

Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers. People have made games for Facebook platforms before, and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build.

 

Don?t get me wrong, VR is not bad for social. In fact, I think social could become one of the biggest applications of VR. Being able to sit in a virtual living room and see your friend?s avatar? Business meetings? Virtual cinemas where you feel like you?re actually watching the movie with your friend who is seven time zones away?

 

But I don?t want to work with social, I want to work with games.

 

Fortunately, the rise of Oculus coincided with competitors emerging. None of them are perfect, but competition is a very good thing. If this means there will be more competition, and VR keeps getting better, I am going to be a very happy boy. I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook. Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven?t historically been a stable platform. There?s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.

 

And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition.

 

I have the greatest respect for the talented engineers and developers at Oculus. It?s been a long time since I met a more dedicated and talented group of people. I understand this is purely a business deal, and I?d like to congratulate both Facebook and the Oculus owners. But this is where we part ways.

 

If you want to experience Minecraft in VR, there?s an excellent mod that does this. It?s called Minecrift, and you can find it here.

 

http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/

[Xtreme2damax]

Why are people acting like this is the end of oculus rift? Can someone remind me what happened to instagram? It carried on as it was and hardly even changed as part of the buyout. Even Zuckerburg himself said nothing will change about the rift and it will be focused on the push towards gaming.

 

 

Maybe because instagram has more correlation to their social media network and service they offer whereas they are going way off course with purchasing a company was focused on VR hardware for gaming? It was a risky and haphazard purchase on their behalf when they have no experience in that field. Facebook games are not comparable to widespread casual and hardcore gaming, people are afraid they are going to lock OR to their platform which would make zero sense because Facebook isn't a gaming company and there is literally zero market for this tech on their service. SInce they are not a gaming company with little experience in the field it is unknown how well they will be able to develop and support the tech and who they will market it to. If it's primarily going to be marketed to Facebook users and be locked to their platform then it's DOA. The thought of it being FB owned and FB integration is enough to make some shudder and turn off supporters and potential buyers of the OR.

[theyarecomingforyou]

Can't say I'm happy about this. :no:

[Mandosis]

People are saying this is a disaster and such but this could be a very good thing. I am guessing this was bought because they thought it was cool and just wanted to happen and have success so what better way to do that then buy it and throw more and more cash at it? I dont think it will have anything to do with facebook besides ownership.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Palmer Luckey on Reddit:

 

 

http://redd.it/21cy9n

 

 

Notch's thoughts in full:

 

 

http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/

 

 

Cold

 

 

And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition.

 

 

[JonnyLH]

Maybe because instagram has more correlation to their social media network and service they offer whereas they are going way off course with purchasing a company was focused on VR hardware for gaming? It was a risky and haphazard purchase on their behalf when they have no experience in that field. Facebook games are not comparable to widespread casual and hardcore gaming, people are afraid they are going to lock OR to their platform which would make zero sense because Facebook isn't a gaming company and there is literally zero market for this tech on their service. SInce they are not a gaming company with little experience in the field it is unknown how well they will be able to develop and support the tech and who they will market it to. If it's primarily going to be marketed to Facebook users and be locked to their platform then it's DOA. The thought of it being FB owned and FB integration is enough to make some shudder and turn off supporters and potential buyers of the OR.

You made my point yourself, if anything FB would be more inclined to merge Instagram as part of Facebook, but they didn't. You said that there primary business focus isn't on gaming, so why would they intervene? Oculus have a team who've worked on this kit for years, all Facebook is going to do now is provide more money and staff to help them reach that goal while giving them independence. Its a good thing.

[Doli]

You made my point yourself, if anything FB would be more inclined to merge Instagram as part of Facebook, but they didn't. You said that there primary business focus isn't on gaming, so why would they intervene? Oculus have a team who've worked on this kit for years, all Facebook is going to do now is provide more money and staff to help them reach that goal while giving them independence. Its a good thing.

 

Bingo. I don't know why people think they are going to change everything. The guys at Oculus VR, Inc think its a good idea so lets trust them and let Facebook help their vision.

[+Anarkii Subscriber²]

I think even if Facebook had good intentions of just financing Occulus development and staying out of any oversight, the fact that this is now public knowledge has pretty much killed any hope of the Rift VR being marketable to anyone. 
I expect more devs to announce cancelled work with it, or more devs to announce working with Sony with the Morpheus project.
It is a shame too, the Occulus looks to be a great toy, but with Facebook having the final say in what they make for it, and how its marketed, then I have to agree that I also wont be supporting the Rift.

[vcfan]

does anyone know who holds the patent for strapping a smartphone screen to your face?

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

So yeah, Zuckerberg is already talking about putting ads into the Rift, that whole independent thing lasted long.

[Praetor]

Why are people acting like this is the end of oculus rift? Can someone remind me what happened to instagram?

 

yes it's fading away.

I think even if Facebook had good intentions of just financing Occulus development and staying out of any oversight, the fact that this is now public knowledge has pretty much killed any hope of the Rift VR being marketable to anyone. 

I expect more devs to announce cancelled work with it, or more devs to announce working with Sony with the Morpheus project.

It is a shame too, the Occulus looks to be a great toy, but with Facebook having the final say in what they make for it, and how its marketed, then I have to agree that I also wont be supporting the Rift.

 

This. Even if it was good ol' intentions, the Internet has decided: Oculus is no more!

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Here is why I think this news sucks...

Facebook can say they are going to leave them be and let them continue on the path they currently were all they want, when a number like 2 billion dollars is involved, that sentiment only lasts so long.

 

As Oculus was going, it is really hard to envision how it would have tied into everything Facebook has done thus far.

However after reading the possibilities outline by Zuckerberg in his press release, it is clear they see the application to be much more than gaming.

Which I do believe all gamers saw those possibilities as well, we were just excited gaming was the main focus, at least initially.

 

With this move, it seems like gaming will eventually be pushed to the side for the other applications. How soon or not that may happen is the million dollar question (or billion dollar I guess you could say) that has people upset.

 

And not for nothing, call me crazy but I do not think a whole lot of people are excited by the possibility of having a big F Facebook logo branded on the side of a device that already made one look like a truly huge nerd to begin with.

 

The simplest way I can put that last part is Facebook is not cool. Acquiring Oculus does not all of a sudden change this fact.

That is why I believe people are most upset. Would have been great if Oculus just did it all on their own without the backing of perhaps the least popular tech company out there, especially one that seems to be known for being among the worst offenders of invading their own users privacy.

[Praetor]

Here is why I think this news sucks...

Facebook can say they are going to leave them be and let them continue on the path they currently were all they want, when a number like 2 billion dollars is involved, that sentiment only lasts so long.

 

As Oculus was going, it is really hard to envision how it would have tied into everything Facebook has done thus far.

However after reading the possibilities outline by Zuckerberg in his press release, it is clear they see the application to be much more than gaming.

Which I do believe all gamers saw those possibilities as well, we were just excited gaming was the main focus, at least initially.

 

With this move, it seems like gaming will eventually be pushed to the side for the other applications. How soon or not that may happen is the million dollar question (or billion dollar I guess you could say) that has people upset.

 

And not for nothing, call me crazy but I do not think a whole lot of people are excited by the possibility of having a big F Facebook logo branded on the side of a device that already made one look like a truly huge nerd to begin with.

 

The simplest way I can put that last part is Facebook is not cool. Acquiring Oculus does not all of a sudden change this fact.

That is why I believe people are most upset. Would have been great if Oculus just did it all on their own without the backing of perhaps the least popular tech company out there, especially one that seems to be known for being among the worst offenders of invading their own users privacy.

 

well, it could be worse: it could be EA buying Oculus... :rofl:

[Boo Berry]

Valve should of bought Oculus instead. That'd be a match made in Heaven.

 

Valve's VR, you're our only hope.

[Lord Method Man]

Valve should of bought Oculus instead. That'd be a match made in Heaven.

 

Valve's VR, you're our only hope.

 

Yep, heaven forbid a company that's still dedicated to core gaming take the helm with something like this. No, we need a social media advertising company to devour them instead.

[.Ruby]

I know it looks too obvious to see this in a negative light but we just don't know where this is heading (the adaptation for mass marketing). We will have to observe because facebook had their eye on the gaming industry for some time and they're dead serious. The way they handled instagram seems to be the same trend we'll be seeing with oculus.

 

[trooper11]

I can certainly understand why this is bad news to most.  I can agree that OR moving from a gaming focused company to one that wants to use it for many things is a big worry. 

 

However, I would point out that as people run to Sony as the white knight on this topic, don't forget that even Sony made it clear during the debut event for their headset that it would not be limited to gaming.  It has applications reaching outside of gaming and Sony has said they are pushing in all directions.  So while Facebook is obviously more social or non-gaming focused than Sony, Sony is not clean either.

 

So basically, if Valve were to create a VR headset, they would be the only ones with a purely gaming focused agenda, at least you would hope they would.  I do wonder what the realistic chance of them investing the money and time to build such a platform would be.  They seemed to be working a lot with the OR guys up to this point. 

 

 

I think even if Facebook had good intentions of just financing Occulus development and staying out of any oversight, the fact that this is now public knowledge has pretty much killed any hope of the Rift VR being marketable to anyone. 
I expect more devs to announce cancelled work with it, or more devs to announce working with Sony with the Morpheus project.
It is a shame too, the Occulus looks to be a great toy, but with Facebook having the final say in what they make for it, and how its marketed, then I have to agree that I also wont be supporting the Rift.

 

If that really is the case, then its a sad day for VR on the pc.  OR is THE VR headset for the pc.  We can hope for Valve all we want, but until they actually go through with it, there will be no other options.

 

Sony is clearly going to focus on console only for a very long time, so by shunning the OR now, it could be setting back pc based VR for quite some time.

 

 

Yep, heaven forbid a company that's still dedicated to core gaming take the helm with something like this. No, we need a social media advertising company to devour them instead.

 

 

There could be a reality in play here that OR ran into such as funding.  It makes me wonder if they really felt that funding would be needed to really make it viable, even if that meant being part of Facebook. 

[Xtreme2damax]

You made my point yourself, if anything FB would be more inclined to merge Instagram as part of Facebook, but they didn't. You said that there primary business focus isn't on gaming, so why would they intervene? Oculus have a team who've worked on this kit for years, all Facebook is going to do now is provide more money and staff to help them reach that goal while giving them independence. Its a good thing.

 

What point was that, if there was any.. Instagram fits right in with the market of FB while this does not. Most FB users aren't gamers or solely play Farm Town, there's hardly any market for this and I'm not sure why FB would consider investing in this, they aren't a name I think of when it comes to gaming or more specifically gaming hardware. Now if Microsoft or a big name developer, publisher or manufacturer acquired OR it would've made far more sense. I'm sorry but I believe it's delusional to even think anything good might come from this as there is rarely anything good about Facebook and that's why I'm now staying as far away from FB as I possibly can. Not saying it's completely wrong nothing with instagram has changed but that may not be completely accurate, surely some things have changed. But there is more room for error and screwing up than with instagram, this is much different territory than a social app used to snap pictures, take videos and apply fancy filters.

 

The issue is FB pursuing something with very little relation to their business and service. From a management perspective since they lack experience with software, hardware development and manufacturing and there is a lot of uncertainty how well they are going to be able to handle this and if it will be successful under management of a non hardware/software company. Facebook likely is going to want to integrate their service into this and the possibility it will be locked to Facebook specific apps. Most of us are trying to escape Facebook hell, it's bad enough we now have it shoved down our throats on most websites and when using some software, now we have to worry about it when making hardware related purchases. This is like the story of King Midas except this will turn not to gold but to ####. i've never had desire to use instagram but I doubt it's anything special and from what I've read and observed it isn't all that great but it fits the market Facebook captures with their service. I realize Instagram and everything else may be alright after their Facebook acquisition but this is not something Facebook should be pursuing, makes less sense than Apple TV did back when that was originally announced and garnered a less than impressed reaction.

 

I would refute this better as to why it's not a good idea but I am exhausted and not in a proper state of mind right now. II doubt that'll change by tomorrow since I have no choice but to try sleeping with a generator running outside. Thanks electric company for cutting electricity  to some homes and removing the meters.. all because some electrical work wasn't inspected. So yeah feel free to say how ridiculous what I am typing sounds, perhaps I'll feel differently once I can get a decent proper nights rest.