Deus Ex Alpha

http://time.com/37842/facebook-oculus-rift/

$2 billion. $2 billion to a company who just recently paid $19 billion for a messaging app. They got ripped, and by a company who will likely singlehandedly destroy my dreams.

Selling out isn't really the issue here, as I saw this coming and knew people would vye for control anyway. The issue is selling out to Facebook. Of all the companies you could possibly sell out to, why would you sell to the one who has a history in selling private information?

I don't even know what to feel anymore. Some people think I'm over-exaggerating with how I feel but ever since I watched films and anime and wanted to live in those worlds virtual reality felt like a pipe dream, and the Oculus Rift could have made that happened.

It will still happen of course, of that I have no doubts. Once one person has achieved something many more can do the same thing, but good guy Facebook? I just don't understand it. And for $2 billion? A messaging app got $19!

Whoever made that deal is a fucking idiot, at best.

Who was the moneyhat here? Fuck everything.

I can sort of understand why they'd do it, as they no longer have to worry about financial support for R&D but there are so many other companies they could've sold out too.

Even EA would be better than Facebook.

This is what happens when people donate to kickstarter.

Occulus confirmed for failure.

Let's be clear here: The Kickstarter "donators" got exactly what they paid for, a Oculus Rift Development Kit 1. They weren't promised anything other than that in the Kickstarter.

The reason people feel a bit betrayed is because no more than a month ago did Palmer Luckey say that he wasn't looking at selling out to anyone, and years ago he said he wouldn't sell out at all.

http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments ... ure_of_vr/

He has made this attempt at a PR stunt but because that's exactly what it looks like it means nothing to most people. The top comment pretty much explains peoples concerns and why.

Amusingly, Luckey argued that he went with Facebook over someone like Microsoft or Apple because he felt those two companies would want to take over the OR and turn it into their own vision of VR, which is exactly what Facebook is likely going to do anyway.

Besides, there's more companies than Microsoft, Apple and Facebook that have the financial backing to support OR but whatever.

Facebook of all companies... I thought this was an April Fool's when I saw it earlier.

I have been in denial all day; this is too stupid to be real.

You're not the only one, my friend.

"Facebook does not yet have a business model for Oculus, but revenues won’t center around selling Oculus Rift headsets. Zuckerberg said he could envision people visiting virtual worlds where they can buy goods and are served advertisements."

NOOOOOOO

Tycho from Penny Arcade made a well-written argument on how this can normalize virtual reality letting us experience what we've always seen in films.

You can read it for yourself here:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2 ... he-nexesse

Now, I don't agree with his argument on normalization because I really don't care about what other people think. Most futuristic films I watch don't make me question whether I want to live in the world (because I don't, most are cyberpunk horrors), but they make me want to use the technology.

Frankly, I don't care if no one else does. Normalization for video games didn't happen overnight because some huge company said it did. It happened because multiple said it should and figured if we can profit of one group, why not all the groups? That's a fine argument, but I don't care if anyone else uses VR tech so long as I do.

The key point with Facebook is Facebook is not looking to normalize products for the benefit of everyone, they're looking to remake their two billion investment with more social media techniques that use forced integration and ad-based revenue. Normalization tends to happen with profits in mind, not because people want everyone to enjoy the same things.

If I want to see an advert I can go to town and look up at any building. The idea this was going to be put into a VR set was never really an argument, because no shit it's going to be abused like that at some point, but that doesn't mean we should speed up the fucking process.

Ads will be ads and they'll exist everywhere but at least give us a moment of peace before our senses are bombarded even further.

Well, there goes any interest i ever had in this, what a shame.

I'd like to be the elephant in the room and say despite Facebook being behind Oculus Rift is a scary thought, I'd like to believe that their development for the future of VR and AR will go unhindered, just the product side of things may potentially be damaged.

We can only hope, Jay