Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/05/facebook-acqusition-helped-oculus/

by briankim • 12 years ago

32 43 12 years ago

bobbles• 12 years ago

I was one of the people disappointed with the acquisition.. but to be honest as long as they put out a decent bit of kit and I actually get to experience VR the way they're demoing it I'll be one happy dude

rhizome3• 12 years ago

Looking forward to the Facebook App Store launch. What do you think its name will be?

boomzilla• 12 years ago

Facebook Virtual Reality Platform with Realtime Social Communication for Facebook Certified Users (TM)

agildehaus• 12 years ago

Facebook Alternative Reality Trove

aniro• 12 years ago

apps for facebox

joeevans10005• 12 years ago

Ad Hut.

AJ007• 12 years ago

I thought it was an early April Fool's joke.

Cisco bought Flip for $590 million in 2009. By 2011 it was toast. While visionary for a moment, it wasn't perceptive enough to the impact of the smartphone.

There is a case to be made that Oculus needs large amounts of capital to procure the manufacture of a huge volumes of headsets. Unless explicit guarantees were part of the sale, Facebook could allocate the capital to something else. They are a public company and the bottom line is their companies performance, not the success or failure of Oculus.

joeevans10005• 12 years ago

Now there's talk of Carmack's previous employer alleging IP theft.

Hmmm... maybe that's why they scurried under the FB rock.

netcraft2• 12 years ago

Off topic, but the scroll down to be slammed into a full screen slide show is quite disorienting.

rhizome3• 12 years ago

...or however you spell it.

DerpDerpDerp• 12 years ago

I mean, I hope things go well for them and their partnership brings nothing but good things. From what I've seen, they've put a lot of work in to their device and made significant gains.

But Facebook doesn't and won't have a device in my life, and I refuse to buy an Occulus product because I don't believe that Facebook won't get access to usage data (or be involved as a platform middleman).

gjjhjjjhhh3• 12 years ago

Oculus complete source code is available. That still doesn't guarantee their transparency; I'm certain when the next version( when under Facebook ) is released it won't have any facebook integration, and its protocols will be checked and revealed by the community anyway.

selmnoo2• 12 years ago

I'm certain when the next version( when under Facebook ) is released it won't have any facebook integration, and its protocols will be checked and revealed by the community anyway.

That doesn't necessarily mean anything. Lots of hip tech companies open source a lot of things, that doesn't make their rent-seeking, dark-patterned, scammy operations any better for the end consumer.

Facebook is one of those companies who's done so much public bad that I personally can never forgive them - it doesn't matter if they open source Oculus code, I just simply will not participate in anything that will make Facebook richer.

netcraft2• 12 years ago

So IMO that interviewer was terrible. Iribe gave mostly good answers despite the questions - but did anyone actually think that FB was going to put their messenger in the oculus?

It is also telling to me that when they talked about the emotions that you could evoke with VR vs a 2D screen that most of them were negative.

We have a couple of the DK1's and we really had a lot of hope for the tech - but I remain unconvinced that this acquisition will be a good thing in the long run. I also didn't like how he talked about the kickstarter campaign being the first to prove that the crowdfunding model could be used to create a billion dollar company - I believe if you went back and asked most of the initial investors in the kickstarter I don't think that was something they were hoping for.

cyborgx7• 12 years ago

So he prefers rapid growth, with the risk of the whole thing becomming a bubble instead of the stability that results from a slow build of users and developer support? That doesn't put a lot of confidence in me either.

michaelt• 12 years ago

If you launch too gently, there's a risk no customer will buy it because no developer supports it, and no developer will support it because no customer will buy it.

That said, I got the impression things were going pretty well for Oculus without Facebook's help.

caust1c• 12 years ago

I respect your business perspective about slow growth early on, but.. It's fucking virtual reality! I don't think there's any doubt that developers would be flocking to this with or without the acquisition.

loceng• 12 years ago

Those big name developers would have eventually started to develop if the technology kept advancing, though I would think many more might be hesitant now to even consider it now that it is owned by Facebook.

dkarapetyan3• 12 years ago

Yes, a big corporation with big pockets means more money and stability but it comes at a cost. The cost being whatever you do must at the end of the day feed back into the pockets of your parent company. Twitter used to be a platform too but how many third party applications do you see now? A lot less than what it used to be. What do you think will happen to Oculus applications? Those that are sanctioned by Facebook will thrive and those that aren't will be brutally shut down.

At the end of the day this isn't good or bad. It is really more about long term disruptive technology and its viability outside giant dens like Facebook and Google. Looking around I don't see an ecosystem that can support such things without giant corporate backers and that is definitely not a good thing because at the end of the day the values of our corporate overlords tend to be slightly misaligned with that of the individual.

flogic• 12 years ago

While I don't trust facebook, they do seem like one of the more benign buyers possible. Any of the large gaming companies would have incentive to do some sort of "our products only" deal. Facebook just doesn't have any viable products to do that with.

rtpg• 12 years ago

What do you think will happen to Oculus applications? Those that are sanctioned by Facebook will thrive and those that aren't will be brutally shut down.

Does Facebook have a history of doing this? Instagram is still completely seperated (there's fb integration but twitter is the one that broke instagram integration, not the other way around).

Not even mentioning the fact that the Oculus is not a SaaS, it's a screen. How is Facebook going to "shut down" calls to a device driver (if it's even that)? Why would they do that?

People here seem to think that Facebook the company can only consist in Facebook the website, but they have a lot of money to invest in other things.

allenschen• 12 years ago

Just to nitpick about your Instagram integration comment - Instagram broke the integration, not Twitter. See: http://status.twitter.com/post/37258637900/instagram-photo-r...

dkarapetyan3• 12 years ago

That's not sustainable. Facebook is not buying these companies because they are adhering to some kind of moral code. Facebook is a corporation like any other that needs to justify things to investors and analysts. That's the model as far as I know. So if they're pouring money into Oculus and its ecosystem then surely they expect to get something out of it. Ultimately they control the technology and as a profit driven corporation they are going to drive the technology in the direction of profits. They are not going to drive it in the direction of sustainability. Facebook is not in this to break even and they are not going to subsidize more benevolent but unprofitable uses of the technologies they acquire.

Like I said in my original comment. I don't think this is a good or bad thing. My philosophical stance on technology is different and I'd much rather see a sustainable ecosystem of technologists that are not always driven by profits and quick payoffs from acquisitions.

general_failure• 12 years ago

I am surprised nobody has pointed out the typo in the title

alecco• 12 years ago

No sign of remorse. Screw the community that took him there. Get Facebook's billions under the excuse to get major game studios behind the platform. Huge blow to future crowdfunding. Lovely guy.

outside1234• 12 years ago

I thought this was going to be a story about Zuck being totally wasted, doing lines of blow, and then suddenly shouting to Occulus: "I'll buy it for $2B!"

That would have made it make more sense at least.

mikeryan• 12 years ago

FFS Selling to Valve would have convinced developers to build for it too.

acgourley• 12 years ago

Serious question - could Valve buy a company of more than a few people? Their company structure depends on having certain types of employees who are local in bellevue. I would also speculate those employees need to be added in a steady drip and not a huge rush. Maybe you're thinking 'What if they left Occulus alone and in LA?' - well... who would manage them from Valve's end? A self organizing committee?

CamperBob2• 12 years ago

Valve could buy the Vatican if they wanted.

thefreeman• 12 years ago

There are probably a lot of reasons that wouldn't work (and didn't happen... I'm sure they were aware of the project).

But as a huge Valve fanboy... it sure is fun to imagine.

rhizome3• 12 years ago

Was there ever any indication that big developers were holding fire? As far as I'm aware, there wasn't time to even know how the market and developer support was shaking out.

bluthru• 12 years ago

A blazer over a hoodie over a dress shirt?

Apparently I don't have enough money to pull that off.

joeevans10005• 12 years ago

Not me.

Oh, right, but I'm just a small developer.

joeevans10005• 12 years ago

I like how the only way to comment on this article is by your Facebook account.

Now, reporters will look at the comments by FB predisposed people and assume there is now acceptance.

Oculus CEO says selling to Facebook convinced big developers to build for it

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