
VR Devs Pull Support for Oculus Rift Until Palmer Luckey Steps Down - davidgerard
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/vr-devs-pull-support-for-oculus-rift-until-palmer-luckey-steps-down
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PostOnce
At this point, I don't think any of this matters for the viability of Oculus
(regardless of these being small devs anyway, it's not like their games make
or break the platform, even in aggregate). It's dead, and here's why:

Facebook wants "regular people" to "hang out with each other" in VR. Facebook
wants to own the movie theater, the mall, the billboards, the radio, and
everything else, all at once, without having to buy real estate, so they can
own 100% of global advertising, on the VR globe anyway. But regular people
can't afford Facebook VR. Regular people make <$20,000/year (40% of American
workers earn under 20k, and 45mil are on food stamps).

A hard plastic VR phone case with decent lenses is $10 and it's pretty damn
convincing for that price.

The next cheapest VR is PS4, which is ~$700 all up, console and headset. Sony
has a known name in the gaming space, a reputation for quality, and is the #1
console maker. People will buy this.

And then you have the PC VR, whether oculus or vive, $600-800 for the headset
alone, and then over $1000 for a PC (because most people don't have a PC they
can just plug a headset into, nor a PSU allowing them to just upgrade their
GPU, etc, it requires a new unit for most.) -- and no killer apps.

So where are the devs going to go? Playstation has advanced graphics AND is
difficult or impossible to pirate. Mobile has obscene penetration and people
who don't play games and don't want to invest in gaming hardware have the
ability to engage here.

I don't see Oculus having a good end regardless of decisions it can make.

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flipcoder
Why limit who you do business with based on who agrees with you politically?
That will probably hurt you more than it does anyone else.

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marcoperaza
The guy didn't even accomplish anything. He tried to solicit donations and
involvement from Trump supporters online and they quickly told him to beat
feet. In their own words, "memes are not for sale" because "meme magic is
real".

Meanwhile, the NYTimes has a story about Hillary's real, operational, online
propaganda machine: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/hillary-
clinto...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/us/politics/hillary-clinton-
media-david-brock.html) I can't help but wonder if the Nimble America story is
being pushed to bury this.

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poshli
I wonder why FB didn't pull Luckey aside at company purchase time and say "ok
you're worth a LOT of money now, time to delete the reddit account."

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adamrezich
I wonder if this whole debacle is just FB throwing Luckey under the bus.

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will_doz
It boggles my mind that people think this is okay, but when a business that
doesn't agree with gay marriage and won't bake a cake, it needs government
intervention (as long as they don't refuse a gay person from purchasing any
cake, it should be well within their rights).

These developers are using bullying tactics to try to punish the Oculus
developer for merely having an opinion. It only makes me want to vote for
Trump even more.

It's pretty hypocritical to attempt to stop what you think is bigotry and
exclusion by doing the exact same thing to the people you don't like.

With this line of thinking, our world will never change. We are better than
this.

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ultra12
I'm sorry, but I disagree. If someone refuses to bake a cake for gay people, I
agree that is well within their rights. It is also my right to not buy a cake
from them.

This is not a bullying tactic, this is people exercising the same freedoms
that Palmer is by having and supporting his views.

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bhhaskin
People quickly forget that Palmer is a private citizen. He is free to have
what ever political views he wants. I could some what understand if it was
Oculus, but it is not. Oculus has nothing to do with Palmers political views.

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deanCommie
CEOs/Founders of multi-billion dollar companies are more than private
citizens. They are visionaries and metaphors for their vision. People
associate the entire company with the idea of the person. Not always, but
certainly in many cases. For the longest time, and especially before the
Facebook acquisition in the minds of most people, Oculus == Palmer, and part
of the incredible appeal of Oculus was that it wasn't the product of a
multinational conglomerate but felt like it came out of some dude's backyard.

When people support a kickstarter/home-grown project they are supporting more
than the idea - they are supporting the person behind the idea as well.

So you better believe that the political views of such people have an impact
on the perception and success of their companies.

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douche
This liberal McCarthyism is getting a little scary.

Can't we just make cool shit and check the politics at the door?

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xj9
If only. I'm sure we'll get there eventually, the question is if we'll live to
see it.

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serge2k
> While everyone has a right to express his or her political opinion

We'll just try to blackmail your company into stifling political thought.

On the other hand, who would want to work with a company lead by a racist?

> "I absolutely support him doing whatever he wants politically if it's legal.
> To take any other position is against American values."

Also disagree with this. Refusing to work with someone because of their
politics may be a nasty thing to do, but it's equally valid speech.

All that said, i don't know if Palmer Lucky is a racist. I do think he's a
young man with a high profile and based on things that have happened I think
he should probably have someone working with him to help maintain a more
professional online presence.

His GF is a trump supporter. Maybe he is too. So is Thiel. I think less of
them all because of it, but ultimately who they are politically isn't a big
deal to me. I just question what good Luckey thinks can come of funding
"shitposters". Throwing a fundraiser, starting a super pac, endorsing trump,
etc... those are all pretty standard political process things. This just seems
ridiculous.

I'd also be especially careful given what happened to Eich. Yes, he gave money
to a cause many view as oppressive (me included). Don't really see a big
difference between that and Trump at this point.

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MaysonL
+1 for sentiment, upvoted.

-1 for spelling (led is the past tense of lead). Not downvoted.

