News Facebook buys Oculus VR for $2bn

Greetings!

 

Palmer was already doing very well on his own. Morpheus is locked to PS4. Palmer wanted Oculus to run on PC and Android. Palmer had achieved a lot already. Selling out to facebook and announcing it 6 days before april 1st is actually the biggest joke of the decade. It's a joke on all of us because he had us believing in his vision. Part of the appeal of oculus was that it was a little guy's vision and not being tied to some vast faceless dubious corporation. Palmer states facebook has a reputation for openness. Actually it's the opposite so that statement was ironic and almost tongue in cheek.

There hasn't been any negative reaction to the previous investors Palmer has joined forces with. This is his biggest investment and the amount of shock, disappointment and resentment is a clear indication of how people dislike this deal.

 

Wonder what all the people who pledged on Kickstarter think

 

I have no issue with this. The very fact that they have sold, means they were probably stretching thin for money anyway. ok, Zuckerberg wants to use it for social media, but there is no way he will have any beef with letting them focus on games also.......too big of a cash cow.

 

The best way to regain goodwill would be to refund to backers the $2.5million they got via kickstarter.

 

Yes and as I said in my post, which you clearly didn't read properly, I'm highlighting the point that if the PS4 has a version, why wouldn't the Xbox One get one if it's popular?

He wasn't exactly doing very well, they had to go through so many delays in production because they couldn't even secure parts. They need the purchasing power to ask for a few hundred-thousand units for it to take off fully, only a handful of developers actually did anything with the device, despite many promises. At their previous position, they were in no way able to reach those figures, kickstarter can only go so far.

As for those who backed the kickstarter, why the hell should they get their money back? Without that backing the Occulus never would have reached the stage it has. The kickstarter has been a massive success and allowed Occulus to succeed by gaining a large internet following, not to mention getting the idea across to developers initially. The funding has not been wasted.

 

Actually they have no legal reason to do such a thing - the Kickstarter fund was for the DK1 only, which they produced and made good on. Though I agree they certainly need to regain trust somehow, and FAST. Hordes of people are cancelling their pre-orders for the DK2 already, and quite rightly.

If it makes anybody feel better, the $2bn was largely made up of Facebook shares (I believe around 1.6bn of the total). Considering that Oculus can't immediately sell these shares (as the share price on the market will drop) they are essentially stuck with a pile of FB shares for a long time... As many have noticed these share prices are likely to continue dropping in value as FB continues to go downhill.

 

Exactly, I'm pretty sure that the wide majority of the contributors didn't do it thinking this would happen.
Imagine if they had a $2.400.000 stretch goal saying: "Facebook buys us!". No one would have invested one penny.

How about no one? Seriously, nowadays, every good new idea gets absorbed by huge companies.
I don't even get why they could survive independently. Sure it'd take a bit more time to grow, but they'd still have their reputation intact to their primary target audience.

I highly suggest that you guys read the kickstarter comments page, remembering that these were those that made the company possible.

EDIT: Oh and, by the way, imagine if their DK2 model was announced after the buyout. The number of preorders would be a lot smaller, for sure.

 

The Kickstarter page is rather vocal!

 

The real issue might be the damage this causes for some future KS projects if people start to feel like this guy?

From the KS comments.

I've only pledged to one project, "Obduction" the new adventure game by Cyan the Myst game creators and it's pretty unlikely they would sell out to anyone but this will certainly make me think before I pledge to anything in the future.

 

I really don't see the problem with this. Oculus gets a whole lot of financial support, bigger market significance (great for securing better deals on screens etc.) and potentially a huge new audience.

Yes, there are some concerns about Facebook's view on privacy, but how would that effect the developement of the Rift? Acting all hysterical about this is helping absolutely no one (and I honestly expected better from Notch).

EDIT: And I wouldn't look too much at the Kickstarter comments, since there's always a percentage of backers who have the tendency to get ridiculously angry over even the most insignificant of changes and telling they feel "betrayed" etc. Just look at the campaigns of Numenera, DFA,...

 

Weren't the KS pledgers pledging money in order to create the product, or a devkit or whatever it was, which they have/will do.

They didn't promise not to be bought buy a bigger company etc, in the end the pledgers are still going to get what they pledged money for, so I don't really think they have that much of a right to complain?

 

Well, but that can go the other way as well, like the cases this blog collects:
Our Incredible Journey (about)

This can also explain why the KS backers are so angry, even though they have the kit they paid for. The future of the company will determine whether that product will remain supported, IMO.

 

Only if they can get the wool texture right on the VR gloves...

I should probably go now

 

Exactly. As far as I know, the funding platform is called "Kickstarter", not "Foreverindependentcompanystarter".

I don't know what will happen in the future, but I trust that Luckey has made the right choice.
Aside from the enormous opportunities I named before, who knows, maybe they needed the money to even get to the public release?

The advantage of the Rift compared to the examples on that blog is that it's a relatively open platform. There is no way to just "switch off" all Rifts in the world should the company stop existing, and with the given tools, fans can still create some content. Though I agree that it would certainly be infinitely better if Oculus does not merge or get hollowed out...

 

I think this is the problem with some KS projects, by asking people to back a project they feel a sense of entitlement, wrongly so IMHO. The backers got what was claimed on the tin, early access to a development kit, AFAIK they were never promised a finished product.

 

All these **** no's. Does anyone have evidence to back up the premise that facebook will drive Oculus to the pavement?

 

This, so much this.

"OMFG, WHAT A SELL OUT, WHERE ARE HIS PRINCIPLES, I THOUGHT HE STOOD FOR THE LITTLE GUY, THE INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, RABBLE, RABBLE RABBLE!!!"

Guys... it's $2bn

Let me rephrase:

Two...

Freaking...

Beeeeeeeellion...

Dollars.

I'd sell out to Facebook for less, and so would everyone here, and everyone rabbling on KS.

Fin.

 

Markus Persson is hardly a spokesperson for congruence and reason.

And yeah: Two. Billion. Dollars. Bitches. Many moaners would sell their very souls for a lot less.