Vinncynt ------------------------- -------------------------
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Vinncynt on Tue Mar 25, 2014 5:52 pm
In what can only be a really shitty deal for gamers in general Facebook announced today that it has reached a definitive agreement to purchase Oculus VR for $2 BILLION dollars. I thought, perhaps this is an April Fools joke played early... Turns out it's actually very, scarily, true.
Zuckerberg posted to Facebook explaining the purchase and you can read his post here.
Well that's it folks... VR will now be for Porn only. Det's probably pretty happy he can order a hooker online, put on his VR googles, and go to town in the near future...
PC Gamer has coverage here...
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UnholyDucky------------------------- -------------------------
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by UnholyDucky on Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:10 am
God.. This just makes me sad, I understand the entire reason behind it but I feel as if the technology is just going to go into the shitter now, Oh well folks.. It was good when it lasted.
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Vinncynt on Wed Mar 26, 2014 1:46 pm
It also made Markus "Notch" Persson quiver in revulsion yesterday. The creator of Minecraft tweeted yesterday that "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out."
He's not the only one creeped out by this deal, I'm right there with him. I wonder if anyone else will jump ship?
Notch made a lovely blog post to notch.net outlining what exactly creeps him out about Facebook. You can read his post here.
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Vinncynt ------------------------- -------------------------
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Vinncynt on Fri Mar 28, 2014 1:15 pm
The news continues to flow! Now Cliff Bleszinski is getting into it. You may know Cliff as one of the guys who made the Unreal series.
In his recent blog post (which you can read here) Cliff defends FB's acquisition. In fairness he does, up front, tell you he was an early investor and that he personally stands to make a LOT of money from the deal. Reading through his post there are some worrisome mentions that really make me wonder where OR's going.
Cliff says "IF OR is going to be (hopefully) a dedicated system insted of a (ugh) peripheral they need their version of whatever the app store would be. Your device is only as good as the store and community around it; if users can't say shut up and take my money, if developers can't post their work then the device will ultimately flounder. Facebook can assist with this sort of thing, as well as having a multi billion user reach.".
That statement, what he uses as reasons the sales good, are reasons I personally feel the sale is bad... I was wanting OR to be a peripheral. I don't want it to be a platform... I wanted a replacement for my monitor. Instead it seems like development will mean that the OR will become a platform. You'll buy it and then need to buy your games from OR's version of Steam/Origin/iTunes/Google Play.
Why in the hell are they trying to turn it into that? If that's the way it goes I can tell you I won't be overly interested in purchasing one...
Le Sigh...
PC Gamer has an article about it here. In closing, I now hate Cliff Bleszinski...
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Vinncynt ------------------------- -------------------------
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Vinncynt on Fri Mar 28, 2014 1:32 pm
More news that I'm posting here because, well it's a continuation and in DIRECT response to this sale...
A website called The Verge has published an article that asks the question, "If you back a Kickstarter project that sells for $2 Billion, do you deserve to get rich?"
OR Backers who backed the Kickstarter would have seen a 145x return on investment had it been an investment instead of a donation. What does that mean? Well it means if you ponied up $300 you would have netted somewhere around $43,500.00 from the sale. And as backer Carlos Schulte wrote "I'd rather have bought a few shares of Oculus that gotten my now worthless and obsolete VR Headset."
Kickstarter straight up simply doesn't allow the offer of equity (shares) for investment. Never has, never will according to a KS spokesperson.
That doesn't mean that OTHER companies aren't willing to jump onto the crowd funding bandwagon and offer that equity. Want to invest because it's a sound business decision, not because it's something you want to see come to market for personal reasons? New websites like Wefunder, SeedInvest and Crowdfunder are a few that are in the works and are just awaiting approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (since they'll be essentially selling stocks).
The article on The Verge is a really good read and I'd encourage you to take a gander. I think this sale of OR to FB and the clamity that's ensued is going to be a turning point for crowd funding and as denizens of the internet we have a mild responsibility to read up on it and be informed.
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Vinncynt ------------------------- -------------------------
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Vinncynt on Tue Apr 01, 2014 10:28 am
In the latest news on this Chris Roberts has chimed in with his thoughts on the topic. Star Citizen broke the $41 Million mark yesterday with all capital having been raised through crowd funding. With that milestone met and the Procedural Generation R&D Team stretch goal met Roberts penned a Letter from the Chairman.
In it he talks about how the deal is good for OR. Specifically he mentions the cost of getting new technology to market. Mass production, distribution, shelf space, it's all infrastructure that has to be built / bought and requires some deep pockets.
He also mentions that Star Citizen has none of those costs and most costs related to Star Citizen are in development, and will eventually expand to massive server farms and related internet backbone structure. According to Roberts "Thanks to the generosity of the Star Citizen Community we have these two things covered."
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Dethroat. ------------------------- -------------------------
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Dethroat. on Tue Apr 01, 2014 1:47 pm
Damn it Cliff
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Dethroat. on Tue Apr 01, 2014 2:05 pm
And of course Cliff is going to speak highly of them, he probably got back a few million I AM SURE. It's kind of bullshit that you see the gaming community split with this decision. Now I am pretty sure we can say that all gamers are pissed about this.
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Vinncynt ------------------------- -------------------------
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re: Facebook to buy Oculus VR
by Vinncynt on Tue Apr 01, 2014 5:10 pm
Most people I've been conversing with over the topic are made at the sale. Not because of the moola involved, but because they're worried (as am I) about what FB will do with the technology and where they'll push it. Never mind the personal information data mining that'll happen...
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