
The Oculus Buyout Rage Machine - bane
http://dereksmart3000ad.tumblr.com/post/81282079994/the-oculus-buyout-rage-machine
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waterlesscloud
Blogspam, but... Wow, Derek Smart. There's a name I haven't heard in a while.
And talk about knowing the rage machine...

EDIT - nice long, recent piece on Derek Smart
[http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/14/3553620/the-redemption-
of-...](http://www.polygon.com/2012/11/14/3553620/the-redemption-of-derek-
smart)

~~~
LandoCalrissian
I was pretty surprised to see him too.

Derek Smart's Desktop Commander!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIn1_9YvGds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIn1_9YvGds)

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doktrin
The linked article was more important than the actual piece [1].

Although it was interesting, I still disagree with the final conclusion. FB
taking over OVR doesn't mean they will "own" the entirety of whatever common
VR-accessible space emerges. They're just another player in what will most
likely be a hotly contested market.

[1] [http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-
rea...](http://assayviaessay.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-spaces-real-
data.html)

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comsat
Here's the scoop on Facebook's VR plan
[http://www.virtfriends.com/blog/2014/04/01/facebook-
virtual-...](http://www.virtfriends.com/blog/2014/04/01/facebook-virtual-
reality/)

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sebnukem2
I've seen similar outpouring of unconditional love for companies like Comcast,
Bank of America, and Monsanto. I keep wondering why Facebook has so many
users. It doesn't look good in the long term.

~~~
chc
All of those companies are massively successful. I'm not sure what you're
trying to say here.

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hnnewguy
> _“FB doesn’t make games and there’s not a single game related acquisition in
> the company’s history. More importantly, FB doesn’t acquire outside of a
> very specific set of focus supporting categories. They have zero
> professional experience with the market, and at best the kind of games FB
> hosts that other people make are pretty exploitive and dismal.”_

This whole paragraph can be dismissed by the optimists with the phrase:
_"...Until now_".

Why should the past be the same as the future?

~~~
bane
The past probably shouldn't be. After all Nintendo used to make playing cards.

But the past does inform the future and provide it with likely vectors.

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hosh
I'm sorry a lot of game devs feel this way. As a gamer, I feel some sympathy
for this.

However, this is a case where the game devs are lacking in vision.

(1) My very first impression of the news last week was: Wow, I did not know
that Zuckerberg had the guts and vision. I did not respect Zuckerberg at all.
After the news, I see it as not only a big move for Facebook, I also
explicitly acknowledge Zuckerberg as a visionary. Where this can go will
disrupt what we think of as social networking, and being able to throw away
the work which you have a vested interest in in order to bring in something
greater, that takes courage.

(2) Discussing this with friends and then looking at what is emerging, it is
pretty clear to me that this is not a vanity buy, and that the scope of Oculus
has now been expanded to something much _much_ greater than gaming. We're no
longer talking about the next evolutionary stage of gaming; we're talking
about the next fundamental shift in how the _mainstream_ will interact on the
internet. Gamers have this unconscious, perhaps implicit, understanding of
what it means to interact with the virtual world; many folks in the mainstream
do not. When this pans out in the mainstream (months? years?), it will create
a shift in the psychology of individuals, something we have only seen
discussed in sci-fi and cyberpunk stories. Or at least, that is the potential.
Execution remains to be seen :-)

(3) Game devs in general have great imagination. Like artists, filmmakers,
game devs bring their vision out into the world for others to experience. They
tend to have a better feel for the future, for what the world can be, than
your average person. However, I find it ironic that the game devs are so
fixated on Oculus Rift = Gaming Device, that this is one of the rare times
game devs failed to see the greater vision.

(4) Based on what Caramack, Palmer, and Abrash were talking about in the
articles that have emerged ... until Zuckerberg showed up, they too also
framed the Oculus tech as a _gaming_ technology. That was what they sold it as
in the Kickstarter, and many people were on board with it. So I understand how
many gamers and game devs are up in arms about this. It's also kind of sad to
me: these same folks who are so imaginative are failing to see the much
grander vision.

~~~
alex_c
Okay, I will freely admit to also lacking vision. What part of Zuckerberg's
genius am I not seeing?

Put another way: VR goggles have come and gone in gaming several times,
failing each time due to a combination of price, poor experience, and general
dorkiness (see also: Google Glass). The Oculus may be different, but the
question remains: if VR goggles have failed in the past in the one area they
were most likely to succeed, what is the magic sauce that will make them
finally succeed in the mainstream?

What is the path you see to VR becoming a widely accepted computer interaction
method (which I'm not sure I see happening in general), how do you see that
adoption happening without first being strongly established in gaming (the
most likely early adopter market), and how do you see Facebook helping on that
path?

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hosh
The Times article was interesting ([http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-
inside-story/](http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/) I know,
I know, paywall), and I observed some pretty nifty psychological dynamic. It
was written by someone who wasn't much of a gamer, so I got a chance to see
his epiphany through his writing.

His mind was totally blown away. He kept talking about the aversion to wear
something so ridiculous on there. He had never experienced what it felt like
to step into another reality.

He said that there "is no edge". The screens wrapped around the peripheral
vision. The lag is below the threshold that many would get that sense of "this
is not quite real". It goes with the "VR-induced existential crisis" that has
been reported with the Rift, and not with any previous technology. You start
to forget you're wearing something.

I had not experienced that existential crisis when I used the Rift back in
Oct, since my astigmatism distorted the viewscreens enough that I can see the
edge. But more importantly, I have had a lot of psychedelic experiences and
dream experiences where, now, shifting from one seemingly reality to another
is not a big deal. The way these folks describe that existential crisis, about
how there is no edge reminds me of what everyone says after coming down on
their first trip.

From my perspective, this technology has the potential to bring to the
mainstream what meditators and psychonauts have known about for a long, long
time. I've seen an interpretation of the Matrix movie, about how the movie was
about a virtual reality that is real; but it misses the main point, that this
reality that you are in right now is not as real as you think it is. You're
making an interpretation based on sensory data. It is no wonder that this tech
induces existential crises :-) And it is in that experience of the existential
crisis that something wakes up in the experiencer.

You ask some good, specific questions about adoption, and how Facebook will
help with that. But that is also looking at it without a sense of how
groundbreaking this tech is. It's the kind of tech that someone in the
mainstream -- and not gamers who have these expectations in their head -- puts
it on, tries it for the first time, and will get it. The game mechanics and
the interactions are completely secondary to that experience of the
existential crisis, and that alone, I think, will mean _some form_ of the Rift
technology, whether it is by FB or not, will emerge. It solves a problem
people did not know they have, did not even realize they needed. The demand
will be too great for there to be a vacuum.

~~~
alex_c
I guess what I'm really missing is what is the killer app that will make VR
deliver on that promise (if it's not games). I understand that it's a unique
experience, but the mainstream will love it for what it lets them do, not for
what it is. I can't realistically see some sort of next-gen Second Life
hitting mainstream any time soon. I can't see it being used for work. So
what's left? Movies? Interactive experiences? Games? None of these have much
to do with Facebook.

It's a cool display tech, it's not an experience in itself - that comes from
the software. To me it feels the same as if Microsoft invested billions to buy
a CRT monitor company back in the day - why would they?

Edit: it is, of course, possible that I'm completely wrong on one or more of
the above assumptions. That's why this is such an interesting discussion.

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marknutter
Could it be that VR has wider applications than just video games?

~~~
sebnukem2
Advertisement remains Real in Virtual Reality.

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malkia
Lol Derek Smart... nothing more to be said....

