A Rift in the Occulus Rift

The biggest news in gaming last week (Edit:  I wrote this two weeks ago):  Facebook bought Occulus VR, the makers of the Occulus Rift virtual reality headset, for $2 billion in combined cash and stocks.  If you read some of the internet comments regarding this move, you'd think the world is ending.  What is the Occulus Rift?  It's a crowdfunded organization responsible for develping one of the most advanced virtual reality headset around and the initial purpose of such a device is to play games with it.  Their first headset was made purely for development purposes and it's reception was an immediate success.  Just about everyone who's tried one says great things about it.  Developers who tried it can't wait to start making games for it.  And then, one day, last week, all that was sold to Facebook.  Why is it such a big deal?

 

I'll answer that in a bit, but first, I want to get own personal views out of the way.  When I first joined Facebook (which wasn't that long ago, actually), the site almost immediately recommended me a bunch of people I can 'friend' with.  Shockingly, I actually know some of these people!  As a newly minted account, how does the site know who I could possibly be friends with?  Of course, it read my address book.  Without my permission.  I remember another shocking incident, also very recently.  I was doing searches on the net tyring to find a hotel for our Japan trip.  After looking up a bunch, I went onto Facebook.  Lo and behold, the very first advertisiment on the site wast the very last hotel I just looked up!  How does Facebook possibly know this?  Of course, it read my browser history.  Again, without my permission.  When I use Facebook, I give only the most necessary information and to be honest, I don't even use my real name.  Why?  Because of behavior like this.  This is called spying and it's not appreicated.  If so many of my friends weren't on the thing, I wouldn't be either.

 

And that's partially why the Facebook acquisition of Occulus VR is such a big deal.  Because A LOT of people online feel the same way about Facebook I do.  Trust for Facebook, as a company, isn't very high.  And of course, there's Occulus VR themselves.  The owners of Occulus VR sold out.  It had to be.  There's probably only a dozen people in the entire world who can turn down a share of 2 billion dollars and the folks at Occulus aren't those people. 

 

I think that, in a nutshell, is why people are up in arms over this deal.  The people who love Occulus enough to crowdfund them feel ripped off because the owners sold out, and every body else hates the deal because they also don't like Facebook.  The thing to understand here is that the company had the unanimous support of probably every single developer who've heard of the machine.  They all fell in love with the concept and the possibilities.  The people who chipped in some cash felt pride at having done so.  Occulus VR had nothing but positive PR prior to this news.  Now, they have mostly the opposite.  I think anyone with such a strong commitment to Occulus would feel betrayed by the move.

 

Normally, this will do in a company.  When the people who love you now mostly hate you, you have problems.  But Occulus VR isn't actually selling anything.  They don't have a device on the market, all they have are prototype units/development kits.  Yes, they sell them, but no, they can't be making that much money off them.  Truly brining the device out to market - that is where the money's at.  Therefore, as sad as it is for me to say, in the long run, Occulus VR, now part of Facebook, will do just fine.  Even if the entire development community turns against them.  Why?

 

Marc Ecko.  Okay, not really, but yes, really, because this reminds me of what happened at E3 once in the early 2000s.  Marc Ecko… yes, THAT Marc Ecko (I don't even know if I spelt the name right) was a keynote speaker at E3.  Here was there to promote his video game (yes, he has one).  Then, the second he opened his mouth, he made big news.  Imagine, right there, in the middle of thousands of developers, he said, to their faces, that they don't matter.  He said to the developers that they don't matter.  Just like that.  Why?  Because nobody cares about them.  Noone knows who they are and so, noone cares.  They care about the games they are making yes, and since 2000, many developers have become semi celebrities but for the most part, developers are just part of the faceless crowd. 

 

I have to day that this is harsh, but true.  My bet is that the mainstream haven't even heard of the Rift until the deal came out and some of them are probably still scratching their heads as to why this is such a big deal.  The developers who loved the Rift so much barely registered in the scheme of things.  If Facebook manages the deal to the end and brings out a market version of the Rift, then firms like EA, Activision and all the others would make games for it.  It doesn't matter if individual developers within these firms don't like Facebook.  If the boss says 'make a game' the employess make a game.

 

So while the majority of the development community hate the idea of Facebook owning something they so cherish, my bet is that most of them don't have the power to do anything about it.  In the long run, if Occulus succeeds with Facebook, then they will just have to fall in line.  It is a very sobering thought, and my sympathies lie with the game developers but the success of Occulus VR has almost been guarenteed by this deal and that is something everyone will just have to live with.