
Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version - sethbannon
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/03/25/minecraft-creator-cancels-talks-oculus-rift-version-facebook-creeps/
======
skore
> "Facebook creeps me out."

Whether or not you agree with his decision, having Notch pull away from talks
with you creates an instant credibility "situation".

It's also noteable that Notch had been meeting with the Oculus team just two
weeks ago[0], was tweeting about them in rather gushing terms[1] and seemed
incredibly inspired to work on VR ideas[2].

He is now the personification of the a near universal feeling of betrayal in
the community. Will be interesting to see how this develops.

[0]
[https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/443541395543162880](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/443541395543162880)

[1]
[https://twitter.com/notch/status/443461570195378177](https://twitter.com/notch/status/443461570195378177)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/notch/status/446312677745254400](https://twitter.com/notch/status/446312677745254400)

~~~
sillysaurus3
Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago:
[https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481)

 _For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect
the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR._

Glad to see Carmack is still being Carmack.

EDIT: By the way, if anyone is wondering why people are having a negative
reaction to this Facebook deal, I think one way to understand it is to watch
this video fullscreen and try to imagine any way that Facebook could add to
the experience, or at least not detract from it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DGZc0Dd9Hc#t=5s)

It's hard to.

~~~
Shivetya
nah, all the angst is because far too many nerds like to think they "own" up
and coming cool technology even if they are not even involved beyond having
read about it. When it goes to company that the clique no longer favors,
usually after incredible success or the unwashed masses show up, then they act
as if the world collapses.

It happens so often many of us just laugh if not smirk the whole time we watch
the familiar process play itself out. Eventually they learn they are not the
center of the universe.

~~~
pfraze
This is upsetting because it means Facebook is building the software platform
for the Oculus, not enthusiast developers or hundreds of independent startups.
This has economic impact, and it's personally disappointing for anybody who
gets excited about building VRUI.

Or, yeah, angst.

~~~
stonemetal
_Facebook is building the software platform for the Oculus_

The core services sure but why wouldn't it be like FB in general(full of third
party apps and games)?

~~~
ENGNR
And how many developers have found success dealing with the FB APIs and
platform?

There's a reason people only integrate with FB to try and take traffic, and
even then they become the customer paying for ads. It's not worth your time.

------
noonespecial
_" And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build
value for a Facebook acquisition."_

I'm guessing that pretty much sums up the reaction of everyone who backed the
initial kickstarter. Sounds like a serious lapse of "dance with the one who
brung ya" to me.

~~~
Camillo
When I said that it was silly to simply donate money to a commercial venture
without gaining any stake in it, they called me a naysayer. Who's saying nay
now?

~~~
noonespecial
You are quite right, of course. But kickstarter is a brand new animal in the
world of products and financing. There aren't any laws or even any concrete
social norms around it yet. Perhaps people should "know better' but I'm not
sure that's helpful.

In the absence of laws or codified rules we should expect to fall back on
_manners_. What Oculus did feels bad because its _rude_. At the very least,
they should recognize that they are in uncharted territory. A bunch of random
strangers gave them gifts because they believed in the vision. If that vision
turns into a multi-billion dollar payday, they might consider giving a few
gifts _back_ to those kind strangers. Its not like they don't have a list of
them all with contact info and everything. It would be _polite_ to do so.

~~~
avar
What do you mean there aren't any laws? You hand people money in exchange for
their non-legally binding vague promises. This model of exchange has been
around for hundreds if not thousands of years. Legally speaking Kickstarter is
nothing new.

If I meet someone on the street that promises me to try out some new idea and
I give them money the courts aren't going to give me any more credence than
someone who handed a $50 bill to a bum. How is this in any way a new and novel
legal situation?

The only thing that's new is that now due to the Internet more people have the
ability to easily give out their money to potentially stupid initiatives.

~~~
noonespecial
In that reguard, its the same thing it's always been. A gift. Reciprocity is
not required by law, only common decency. The new about kickstarter is it
seems we're looking for something more than a gift, less than a regulated
investment and not quite a sale. That's novel.

~~~
avar
Maybe you're looking for something more than a gift, but are you actually
entitled to more than that? Are you a shareholder in these companies than you
fund through Kickstarter? I think not.

So why do you think you have any rights beyond someone who's donating money to
a cause that may never pan out?

It's perfectly fine to fund something through Kickstarter, but for some reason
it seems that some people doing it think they're entering into a deal that
isn't really there.

Generally when you give money through Kickstarter you're _giving it away_
without any string attached, only if the company pans out might you actually
get some small gift, not a share of the profit.

What's so hard to understand about that? The model's fine. The problem is that
for some reason people donating to it think of themselves as shareholders, not
donors.

~~~
gfodor
You are not listening to the person you are responding to. Nobody is going to
argue that kickstarter backers are entitled to equity in the company, or that
they have legal rights beyond what is guaranteed in the kickstarter.

What the person is trying to get across is that in any financial transaction
there are non-legal aspects involved. There are human relationships. The world
runs on favors as much as it runs on contracts. No single transaction stands
alone: you have a personal reputation based on your actions and ethics dictate
what other people are going to think of you. If someone gives you a deal on
favorable terms, it's generally understood that you will remember that and act
accordingly in the future.

It's not specifically outlined and it's not a hard rule, but _in general_ ,
when people donate to a kickstarter they are doing so under the assumption
that the person receiving that money is going to act in a way that doesn't
undermine their trust. Turning around and selling your company to Facebook
leaves a bad taste in peoples' mouths, since the company was built on the
money they donated to make it possible. Do they have a _legal_ right to
compensation? Of course not. Do they have a right to be emotionally hurt by
this? Sure, and it's not unjustified.

~~~
avar
I'm listening. Are you? The parent of this thread quoted: "And I did not chip
in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook
acquisition."

If you didn't chip in ten grand of seed money for that purpose _why didn 't
you make that part of the deal then_?

There are no non-legal aspects of financial transactions. When you give
someone money they're going to try to retain that money and not give it back
to you to the best of their legal ability. There really isn't a non-legal
aspect involved in it unless you're a sucker who's willing to get screwed
over.

Who cares about the value of their reputation when they've been bought by
Facebook for some undisclosed value? Surely that's worth more to them than
their reputation, seeing as they now have enough money to never work again
with the people who'd care about their reputation.

~~~
gfodor
I mean, we're going to disagree on this:

> There are no non-legal aspects of financial transactions. When you give
> someone money they're going to try to retain that money and not give it back
> to you to the best of their legal ability. There really isn't a non-legal
> aspect involved in it unless you're a sucker who's willing to get screwed
> over.

This isn't really true, if you plan on doing business for more than one
transaction. If you put a poison pill in a contract, guess what, you are
blacklisted and can't do any deals in the future because nobody trusts you.

A similar thing is here. People chipped in money with the general expectation
that Oculus was not going to sell out on the drop of a hat. It wasn't in the
terms obviously but that was the expectation for many people. As such it's
pretty much guaranteed for example that Palmer will never be able to do a
kickstarter ever again (not that he cares at this point.) But it's a very real
consequence, and so even though it was not in the deal in terms of legal
consequences it is a very real outcome.

If you look at negotiations and transactions as if they are strictly
independent events completely detached from human relationships you're
probably a terrible negotiator slash businessperson. It's the difference
between law and politics. I'll happily do a deal that isn't exactly a home run
for me if I want to be sure I'll have a good relationship with that person for
future opportunities.

~~~
avar
Don't get me wrong. I'm disappointed in Oculus too, and I'd be even more
disappointed if I'd actually invested in them.

I'm just saying that people need to learn the hard lesson that when they're
"investing" in something like Kickstarter they're not actually "investing" in
the general sense. They're making a donation with little or no string
attached, at best it's a "you give us money and we send you some doodad in the
mail" investment.

So they're effectively donating money with no string attached.

So if you donated money to the company thinking they were going to do X and
they actually do Y they _can and will fuck you over_ if they think they can
make more money doing Y than they can doing X, accounting for all the
alienation from their existing customers from doing not doing X.

So please everyone, if you want to invest in something and you want to have
the expectations of an investor make sure you're actually _investing_ , not
just _donating_.

~~~
rhizome
_when they 're "investing" in something like Kickstarter they're not actually
"investing" in the general sense_

I'd say they are only investing in the general sense, but not the specific
one. Because, as we've seen with the Kickstarter failures and flake-outs,
regardless of the HN-conventional definition of the word, the donors are
certainly and legitimately _invested_.

------
elohesra
I can't honestly blame him here.

I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's
uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook
isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games
company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use
this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they
_do_ want Oculus Rift for.

I assume Notch is worried about those implications. Will Facebook start
demanding that every Oculus Rift game have tight Facebook integration? Will
Facebook do something strange, like have Facebook wall updates appear in the
game world irrespective of whether it fits into the game? If I were a game
developer, this'd creep me out too.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out'

I think that's very much the issue.

Seriously, "virtual reality" and "Facebook" are two things I don't want to
think about in the same context. The former is an extremely promising piece of
technology that can change the way people work, talk and play. The latter is a
gigantic online advertising engine. Put them together and there's only one
direction virtual reality can go: a new way to advertise to Facebook users
(once they "bring virtual reality to everyone" of course. /eyeroll ).

~~~
elohesra
Okay, let me play devil's advocate:

Perhaps Facebook are thinking "What's the one thing that could truly set us
apart from all other social media sites, and place a prohibitively high
barrier to entry on this otherwise very easy to enter field?", and perhaps the
conclusion they've reached is to take social media to the next level, and have
it simulate life in virtual reality.

Perhaps Facebook are going to aim to have a FacebookVR some time in the
future, where you can meet up with other avatars 'in person' in their virtual
reality community?

... Or perhaps this is just a sleazy cash in where they think they can
recapture the video-game-enamoured youth market by shoving Facebook into every
Oculus Rift game.

~~~
XorNot
It'll fail.

The hard lesson over the coming decade or 2 is going to be that UI design for
virtual reality tolerates much less intrusion then a desktop PC.

If you're remotely computer literate and organize your desktop the way you
like, it hurts when you lose that and it already feels like an invasion when a
program does something you don't want it to.

I suspect transposed to virtual reality, people are going to be even less
tolerant of trying to force things on them because the experience is _much_
more intimate.

~~~
amirmc
> _"... people are going to be even less tolerant of trying to force things on
> them because the experience is much more intimate."_

Perhaps not if that's how you 'grew up with it' (so to speak). If you're
clever enough and insert yourself into the system early enough then you get to
shape all the 'norms' that will eventually emerge.

~~~
XorNot
Except that's not what's happening. Virtual reality isn't an abstract
interface to a complex piece of hardware - it's intended to mimic your
everyday experience of reality.

A lot of UI paradigms will simply disintegrate against that issue. You'll be
able to transpose _existing_ ideas into virtual reality by projecting them
onto things which are those abstract interfaces (virtual displays etc.), but
you're not going to be able to expect to control how the user moves or
interacts.

------
ROFISH
[http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/25/5547584/facebook-buys-
oculu...](http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/25/5547584/facebook-buys-oculus-rift-
game-developers-reaction)

> Mojang's Notch was more direct in a tweet. "We were in talks about maybe
> bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus," he said. "I just cancelled that
> deal. Facebook creeps me out."

> We reached out for further comment, and he clarified his position. "Well, VR
> has huge potential in many fields, including social. I can see why Facebook
> would want to get in to this," he told Polygon. "As a game developer,
> however, I don't ever want to get stuck trying to target a platform not
> focused on games. People have made this mistake before."

~~~
chris_mahan
The Android version of Minecraft is very nice. Looking forward to more and
better. (My son would love more raising sheep/pugs/cattle game options--he's a
rancher at heart)

~~~
arcatek
Notch sayed that console versions were almost fully reimplementations rather
than portages, so some features will probably go missing for quite a long
time.

~~~
chris_mahan
I know. I have normal minecraft on my PC. I like the Android version better.
It's too boring to make the items in the crafting table on the PC version.

------
DigitalSea
What company isn't creepy these days? Google, Facebook and Amazon are a few
companies of many that come to mind when I think of all the user data they
hold, what they know and what they could use it for. Thems the breaks
unfortunately.

I admire Notch standing up for what he believes in, but I just can't see how
Facebook is creepier than anything else or affects the acquisition of Oculus.
It's not like the gaming device is going to give Facebook any extra
information it most likely doesn't already have on you.

It is also a known fact that Amazon are trying to move into the gaming space,
as are others and what better way to move into a space that is largely
undominated than buying the Oculus? If Facebook didn't buy Oculus, someone
else would have, maybe Google or Amazon.

People keep iterating the statement, "But Facebook aren't a games company"
which reminds me of a few years ago when people (especially Steve Balmer) were
saying that Apple isn't a phone company and won't gain any market share.

Facebook have the funds, talent and workforce to go into any area they choose.
Look at Google, what did they know about clean energy, driver-less car tech,
cloud infrastructure hosting when they started? Nothing. And now look at them,
through various acquisitions and talent hires, Google have become an empire
and this is what Facebook are doing: building an empire.

Through previous acquisitions Facebook have proven that they leave them mostly
untouched. Besides tighter integration with Facebook, what has changed in
Instagram since it was acquired by Facebook? Nothing.

If anything, this is great for Oculus, because it means they won't have to
repeatedly seek VC capital every time they want to iterate and improve the
product: we the consumer win out of this.

The backlash is unwarranted and ridiculous in my opinion. People complaining
over nothing.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Notch didn't say Facebook acquiring Oculus was creepy. Notch said Facebook is
creepy.

 _Besides tighter integration with Facebook, what has changed in Instagram
since it was acquired by Facebook? Nothing._

You just pointed out exactly what changed with Instagram, and what everyone is
afraid of changing with the Oculus.

"Log in to your Facebook account to continue playing."

~~~
rafe33
No no guys Instagram also released direct messaging.

~~~
danudey
Props to them for understanding the benefit in competing with Snapchat. Kind
of late in the game, but better late than never?

------
letstryagain
'Within the last hour EVERY friend I know was developing a rift game has
canceled. That's around 11 projects just gone.'

from a Reddit comment

~~~
venomsnake
The backlash is phenomenal. And completely predictable.

~~~
waterlesscloud
And ridiculous.

~~~
baby
And over in a few days/weeks. It's a trend that comes from a gut feeling more
than rationalization.

I really believe people will change their mind about Facebook now that
Facebook is not just the social network but also Instagram, WhatsApp and
Oculus.

~~~
nknighthb
Facebook is now three things I don't want, plus a thing I don't want anywhere
near the things I don't want, so I'll change my mind?

What?

------
cwyers
"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build
value for a Facebook acquisition."

The community raised $2.5 million, which (in part) enabled Oculus to build the
first round of prototypes. That's great. I'm sure that the Kickstarter money
was burned through a long, long time ago. And as far as I know, Oculus has
delivered on every backer reward it offered. So backers got to do two things:
they got the rewards they were promised, and they got to support Oculus'
growth -- as far as I know, that is exactly the premise of Kickstarter.

So now Oculus has grown, and as Notch himself says:

"They had fixed all the major issues, and all that remained was huge design
and software implementation challenges."

Huge challenges. Including scaling up from building limited quantities of
developer kits to trying to mass produce consumer hardware. Oculus was helped
to get to this point by Kickstarter money, but that money wasn't going to get
them any further, and there's still a very large gap between where Oculus is
now and where they (and their backers) want them to be.

Do I trust Facebook? No. Would I trust Microsoft or Google or Amazon or Apple?
Not really. But I don't need to trust; I can simply wait and see what Oculus
does with the money Facebook is giving it, and see what Facebook expects of
Oculus in return. It COULD be bad. Or it COULD help Oculus grow. But the
feeling of betrayal by the Kickstarter backers seems to me misplaced; you paid
money to help Oculus grow and succeed, and they have.

~~~
WalterSear
There are literally hundreds of product design firms that could have helped
them with this that you never hear about, that are well versed in bringing
mass produced technology products to market.

Facebook doesn't have any of that: all it has is money, which I am certain
that Oculus wouldn't have any trouble raising on its own.

Source: a family member works for one, and is in China right now, producing
headphones for Dr. Dre.

------
loity9
He has my respect. Facebook needs to be shunned by anyone with a brain, until
they are a footnote in Internet history. Their privacy violations are
unforgivable.

Really disappointed in the Occulus Rift board right now. I guess money
overrides any sort of values.

------
rjtavares
You could say the Facebook aquisition... took it down a Notch!

(Sorry, had to do it. I accept the inevitable downvotes as long as I make one
person smile)

~~~
thenmar
Maybe that new comment system was a good idea after all.

------
xendo
I'm wondering, what's John Carmack take on this, he quit idSoftware to join
Oculus, which was very open by that time. He always was proponent of
openness... right now from a laik perspective it looks it was mistake to leave
id.

~~~
Danieru
A year or two back Carmack gave the keynote to Quakecon and mentioned his
space program ran out of money. He said he promised his wife to not put more
money in, until a liquidity event.

This I assume counts as such a liquidity event. He must be a bit conflicted.
He gets to restart his pet company, but facebook.

~~~
firebones
Or he could be taking an executive position as the head of Facebook's new
fully-capitalized Virtually-Piloted Space Drone division.

I'm only half kidding.

------
daturkel
"I did a midnight mind dump on the situation. I'm jetlagged and tired, so it
might not make sense: [http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-
change-...](http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-
world/) "

-@notch on twitter.

------
neotek
That's a shame, because Minecrift[1] is the most astonishing Oculus experience
I've had so far. Just being inside a world I had created, surrounded by
peaceful ambience, floating above the treetops (fly mod, heh) - I can't
express just how beautiful that experience was.

[1]
[https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift](https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift)

------
LoganCale
It's great to see some people maintain their integrity even while others are
selling out.

~~~
a1a
Apples and oranges: Notch is made $100 million, just in 2012 [1].

That being said - I am truly thankful that he is taking a stand, I certainly
hope others will follow. Either way, Zuckerberg will learn his lesson; you do
not fuck up a crowd-funded project.

[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/minecrafts-notch-on-
earnin...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/01/minecrafts-notch-on-
earning-101m-in-2012-its-weird-as-f/)

~~~
tlrobinson
"you do not fuck up a crowd-funded project"

Oculus raised $75M after their Kickstarter. Crowd-funding was a stepping
stone.

And it remains to be seen whether Facebook "fucks it up" or turns it into
something amazing look Google did with Android.

~~~
a1a
Google did fuck up Android (privacy wise).

(1) Requirement of a Google account (i.e. forced correlation of your phone
with youtube, google searches, google analytics, google ... ), (2) Ever
checked those privileges on the default applications - that you can't disable
or remove? Why are those closed-source by the way?, (3) Search the web for
more examples.

Either way, I agree that I made an assumption - but - this is kinda related:
[http://bgr.com/2014/03/06/facebook-android-app-
permissions/](http://bgr.com/2014/03/06/facebook-android-app-permissions/)

Crowd funding is not only about money. Your funders also invest emotions into
the project. I am mad, I think others will be as well. To quote Notch[1]: "And
I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value
for a Facebook acquisition."

[1] [http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-
change-...](http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-
world/)

------
epenn
I don't really understand this decision. From an experiential standpoint, the
Rift seems like a pretty obvious platform to have a release of Minecraft
available. Within a short time it will likely have a solid user base which
makes it a good business decision as well. Now support for that platform is
being pulled, not because of any technical, financial, or licensing issues,
but because Notch thinks the new owner is creepy? That seems like a knee-jerk
reaction drawn more from emotion than logic.

~~~
varkson
He's always been childish like this, this is no different.

He did provide a better explanation to one of the gaming sites, talking about
how he doesn't want to put time into a platform that won't be gaming focused,
but we have no indication of that happening.

------
s3r3nity
>"Facebook creeps me out."

So you lose out on an audience of 1.2Bn people for Minecraft and comment on
the situation on Twitter -- a social network that does pretty much all the
same things Facebook does.

~~~
argv_empty
Who are these 1.2 billion? Facebook's users? Notch already has access to that
audience. Plenty of them already play his game.

------
nostromo
Am I way off in thinking Zuck wants to make Oculus Facebook's response to
Google Glass?

~~~
Jack000
I don't see it, they're completely different products

~~~
Riesling
There are already developments towards blending in the real world into the VR
space again. Attach stereo cameras to the front of the device detect certain
important features (like other persons or mouse and keyboard) and merge them
into the picture created by the VR device. In my opinion, this is much better
than the Google approach because it gives you more control over the
visualization. Now imagine the devices having the size of regular sunglasses.
Imagine all the possibilities. I have seen a project displaying the picture
from the front cameras in HDR mode. Therefore, making reality looking better
that it really did. Now think of Facebook having the lead in this development…
Still makes me sad if I think about it, because they are not going to use this
power responsibly.

------
wudf
Now's your chance Sony. Do to Facebook what you did to Microsoft: Nothing.

------
dorkrawk
[an optimistic thought] I feel like a lot of people might be overthinking the
Facebook/Oculus integration. FB is a big company with lots of money that is
still figuring out how to make money. Oculus seems like a company that could
make money in a way that diversifies FB's income. Maybe if they just own
Oculus and let the smart people at the helm do what they do best (I feel like
Zuckerberg can recognize the smart people in charge of Oculus) it will just be
a good company that earns money for Facebook so Facebook can keep doing what
it does. I know Zuck mentions VR and social together in his post, but maybe he
just feels compelled to justify the purchase in relation to what Facebook is
known for.

------
jbb555
Good for him. Not for what he did, I have no opinion on it. But for actually
having some principles other than how to make more money.

~~~
nyrina
Couldn't really have been on how to make more money - as it wouldn't have been
minecraft itself getting VR, but a freebie version.

------
neop
I'm still waiting for Jonathan Blow's take on all of this. He's another one of
the "big" indie developers and he had previously stated that The Witness would
work with Oculus, I wonder if the acquisition changes that.

He already tweeted about the news and RT some stuff, but no word on his plans
yet.

------
duncan_bayne
"And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build
value for a Facebook acquisition."

Actually, that is _exactly_ what he did, and I'm somewhat surprised that folks
didn't see this coming. If not FB, then it would have been one of the other
large and evil (hi, Google!) tech companies.

The thing that makes me sad is that it _wasn 't_ one of the 'old media'
companies, seeking to update their offerings for a new generation of
customers.

------
rocky1138
Does Notch speak for Mojang? Can he say what Mojang will and will not do with
Minecraft? Carl is the CEO.

I suppose Notch is still majority shareholder, but this is the type of thing I
expect the leader of the company to say.

Imagine if Mojang decided to do differently than what Notch wanted here and
ended up porting Minecraft to Oculus despite Notch's protests. What an
interesting story that would be!

------
lotsofmangos
A decent open source hardware standard and dev kit for VR/AR would be really
popular about now. Are there any good ones out there?

------
politician
> "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build
> value for a Facebook acquisition."[0]

I'm beginning to feel the same way about participating in Kickstarter.

[0] [http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-
change-...](http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-
world/)

------
BHSPitMonkey
I can understand shying away from any direct integration with Oculus itself
from now on, but that doesn't explain why a game dev wouldn't want to still
add VR support in at least a platform-agnostic way. I'm under the impression
that there's an effort to create a standardized API for capturing head
tracking data, anyway.

------
cordite
Third party mods will likely make it happen.

~~~
GuiA
They already do:
[https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift](https://share.oculusvr.com/app/minecrift)

~~~
BHSPitMonkey
And that mod is incredible, too. Standing in the Minecraft world in VR while
it's snowing is pretty gorgeous.

------
cwkoss
I don't blame him.

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trekky1700
This is going to be just like how Facebook ruined Instagram and WhatsApp. Oh,
wait. They didn't. I'm quite certain, based on Facebook's history, that
they'll let Oculus be their own thing, and we'll enjoy the benefit of Oculus
being injected with huge amounts of funds.

------
tomelders
Does anyone have any insight into Occulus' incentive or motive to do this
deal?

Edit: beyond the obvious monetary incentive, which I'm not sure was that much
of an incentive since hordes of people seemed ready and willing to throw money
at the oculus rift. 2 billion sounds like a bargain right now.

~~~
rjd
Sony was about to steam roll them? and Microsoft in the next year as well?

The Sony morpheus system is already better than oculus feature wise, with
better position tracking, and accessory tracking as well. And don't under
estimate that, I've read some pretty strong "never again" comments from people
using VR headsets and loosing grip of the controls and floundering and/or
having to take the headset off to get the controls back into there grips
again... even just moving your hand on the keyboard is apparently quite
annoying.

Essentially without backing they will loose all market capabilities and be
relegated to experimental hardware and not a mass market device.

Being brought out by other companies probably wouldn't of been a reality. MS
probably have there own tech and wouldn't gain much more than branding... and
xbox is a stronger brand anyway... and Valve would no doubt have chosen to
partner rather than buy out... so waving $2bil in your face and the guarantee
of ongoing funding and launch platform... its a no brainer.

~~~
tomelders
It's hard to knock that logic. Initially I was disappointed that the Occulus
team made this move, but against the backdrop you paint, it's hard to see it
as anything other than a smart move. My only criticism would be... surely
there's someone better than Facebook to do this deal with. But most likely
there isn't.

------
Hominem
Now this kinda sucks because oculus + minecraft is pretty much the metaverse.

------
skrowl
Good. I hope everyone ditches Oculus Rift for non-facebook-owned-alternatives
like they ditched Instagram for (the far superior IMO) Telegram after that
acquisition was announced.

~~~
octo_t
things_which_did_not_happen.txt

------
bayesianhorse
Essentially the kickstarter backers feel cheated when the founders sell out?
Didn't they know this could happen? That in the case of Oculus VR it was
probably bound to happen?

------
joyeuse6701
Well, I was initially pretty against the idea. Then again, maybe I'll write a
Facebook app called snowcrash >=) and tear it all down.

------
balladeer
> And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build
> value for a Facebook acquisition.

That says a lot.

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falconfunction
they could have been a competitor to apple, google and facebook if they had
gone it alone.

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idleworx
+1 for Notch once again

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mantrax3
Facebook buys WhatsApp - hundreds of thousands creeped out, go to Telegram
app.

Facebook buys Oculus Rift, Minecraft creator cancels talks, creeped out.

Feels like that Facebook brand has taken a hit or two with all the privacy
violations, huh?

~~~
asdfologist
WhatsApp lost hundreds of thousands of users out of 450 million. Yeah, I bet
they're losing sleep every night over that 0.1%.

~~~
john2x
Still, that's hundreds of thousands the competition didn't have.

~~~
asdfologist
Crushing. Their competitors now must have enough extra revenue to buy an
expensive couch.

------
benched
I hope that this illustrates for some that the distaste over this deal is more
than a few "irrational" / cynical malcontents on Hacker News. A _lot_ of
people have a serious problem with Facebook the service, the cultural shift,
and the company.

On another note, I was _so_ looking forward to Minecraft on Oculus. I
sincerely hope that Valve picks up the torch here.

~~~
EpicEng
Anecdotal data point; I just informed my girlfriend of this deal. My
girlfriend, who knows of Oculus as "that virtual reality thing you were
talking about." She also uses FB. Her response, verbatim; "that's not good."

------
aaron695
Incredibly immature.

Disappointed in Notch. I guess he's just a game designer at the end of the
day, not an activist, so I guess meh.

Oculus is hardware, hopefully Facebooks billions will bring forward adoption,
reduce hardware dev times and create some crappy software that people can
chose not to use.

How this can been seen as a bad thing, boggles my mind.

I want VR decades ago. At least Facebooks billions might make the current
timeline somewhat bearable.

~~~
chris_wot
"I want VR decades ago" is not what I would call a mature response. I'd hardly
call Notch immature, he has ethical issues with Facebook and it doesn't fit
his worldview. Rejecting any collaboration is the _most_ mature way forward.

~~~
pnut
I experienced VR decades ago in an SGI cave, circa 1995.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environm...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment)

Which is about the same time PC graphics were picking up, and games like
Descent came into existence.

So, like GP, I agree that widespread VR has been overdue for a long time.

What does maturity even mean in a capitalist system? All hail the philosopher
entrepreneur? Give me a break.

------
ps4fanboy
When will notch delete this page
[https://www.facebook.com/minecraft](https://www.facebook.com/minecraft). Or
is it more do as I say not as I do.

