
Google acquires Owlchemy Labs - ptrptr
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15614274/google-daydream-vr-owlchemy-labs-acquisition-job-simulator
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giblaz
Having known Alex in college, it's crazy to me to see how far he's come. I
just remember him as the chill guy who smoked me in Halo worse than I ever had
been ever. All I have to say is what a great guy he is and that if anyone is
deserving of this, he is. He is a hard worker and has a vision - they are very
important attributes to have to achieve at that level.

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shazow
Just last month, Google also (acqui)hired the Soundstage VR developer:
[https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/7/15216720/soundstage-vr-
dev...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/7/15216720/soundstage-vr-developer-
logan-olson-joins-google)

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n13
Just wondering what kind of programming/designing skills you need for this
kind of project?

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shazow
Unity3D. There are tons of amazing resources on the web and on YouTube.

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n13
Anything specific other than Unity3D?

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lquist
Having met Alex (founder/CEO @ Owlchemy) a year ago, this strikes me as a no-
brainer. Owlchemy has put in the time and work to start to develop a new
language for the new medium that is VR. They are not just porting over old
tropes to a new platform. When I met Alex, he explained his vision as wanting
to continue to create this new language, and to sell devtools that would help
other folks build VR-first experiences. Congrats, folks!

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Impossible
The Owlchemy Labs blog post about the acquisition is pretty informative about
the history of Owlchemy. The parts referencing the acquisition are pretty
standard.

[http://owlchemylabs.com/owlchemy-labs-and-google-join-
forces...](http://owlchemylabs.com/owlchemy-labs-and-google-join-forces/)

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Negative1
The company knows how to make great VR experiences but this is a bizarre move
by Google. Historically, they've not been great in the game space (look at
Ingress, or does anybody remember Lively.com)? I suppose you could argue this
is their response to that but its not clear what their end goal is here (more
exclusive content)?

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flor1s
I loved Ingress! Of course after spinning off Niantic (the team behind
Ingress), that spinoff went on to develop the highly successful Pokemon Go.
Pokemon Go contains many of the gameplay elements of Ingress, but the
packaging is a lot better. It seems like Google spun off Niantic because under
Google they did not have the opportunity to make licensing deals with
companies like Nintendo. Some of the motivation behind selling Niantic can be
found here: [https://www.recode.net/2016/7/12/12153722/google-niantic-
pok...](https://www.recode.net/2016/7/12/12153722/google-niantic-pokemon-go-
spin-out)

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RubyPinch
The thing is, Niantic learnt one bad thing from Google: The habit of near-zero
community interaction and support.

The player base for Pokemon Go felt very frustrated at multiple times
(especially anyone who had a rooted phone, completely disallowed to play, but
that didn't stop cheaters!)

They only very recently added PR members to the probably largest PokemonGo
forum around, [https://redd.it/68nxzx](https://redd.it/68nxzx)

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msabalau
Hopeful about having more Daydream content, as well as content for other VR
setups.

(Though what I'd really like is a Tilt-Brush, even a "lite" version, on a next
gen Pixel or PSVR,

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CobrastanJorji
Hrm....the Daydream remote is great for pointing at stuff and clicking, but
it's probably not going to be good enough at careful 3D positioning for a 3D
drawing app. I wonder if someone's manufacturing a third party Oculus Touch
type thingy that could work with phones.

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yathern
It's a huge technological problem to solve, and I doubt it will be solved by a
third party, rather than Oculus/Google. Positional tracking relies on external
devices at the moment - Infrared Constellation Tracking with the Rift, and
Lighthouse tracking with the Vive (and other SteamVR based devices).

Without an external tracking device to rectify motion against, using
gyros/accelerometers is only enough to reliably get 3DOF. A potential halfway
solution would be to use some impressive CV techniques on the phone camera to
track hands, but only where you're looking - mix that with the tilt data of
the controllers - and some inverse kinematics. The more signals, the better
the tracking.

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FLGMwt
Interesting to see this as Oculus is _dumping_ their content generators
(defunding Oculus Story Studio)

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DannyBee
I dunno. Historically, the console makers all went it themselves. Tried to get
others to do AAA titles, etc.

I expect they found they never could get the results they wanted because they
all later went and acquired content generators.

~~~
ShannonAlther
I don't think Nintendo ever stopped creating content for their consoles.

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MBCook
Nintendo is (and Sega was) a software company that makes hardware. I mean,
Nintendo is a toy/games company at heart. Their hardware only exists to
support it and pay for it.

Sony and Microsoft are hardware companies that invest in software to help sell
their hardware. Sony was trying to help Nintendo with software and after
getting stabbed in the back decided to go out on their own. Microsoft saw how
big the segment was and wanted to get in on it.

~~~
Illniyar
I would definitely not characterize Microsoft as a Hardware company that makes
software.

It's a software company that sometimes makes hardware, which is also evident
with xbox in their attempts to consolidate their os.

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thenomad
On the upside, this is great news for them - congratulations!

On the downside, I fear it means that their Mixed Reality plugin for Unity
(which looks awesome, and I've been waiting impatiently for) will be a long
time coming now :(

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lux
As someone who's also chomping at the bit for their plugin, I hope this
accelerates getting it into our hands. Being so focused on their releases up
til now, they probably just didn't have the resources needed to get it
polished up and out the door.

~~~
thenomad
I _really_ hope so.

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dang
We changed the URL from [https://blog.google/products/google-vr/welcoming-
owlchemy-la...](https://blog.google/products/google-vr/welcoming-owlchemy-
labs-google/) to one with a little more information.

