Facebook buying Oculus for 2 Billion

Forums › Gaming › Facebook buying Oculus for 2 Billion

macuser

2120 posts

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#142839 26-Mar-2014 11:43

Heres the news,

http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/25/5547456/facebook-buying-oculus-for-2-billion

And Zuck's Facebook post

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101319050523971?stream_ref=1

All I have to say is...Damn...

zaptor

745 posts

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#1013068 26-Mar-2014 12:05

Curious. I wonder if the Kickstarter investors will get any of that?

bazzer

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#1013130 26-Mar-2014 12:57

zaptor: Curious. I wonder if the Kickstarter investors will get any of that?

Why would they? It's not an equity investment, is it?

JimmyCorrigan

49 posts

Geek

#1013185 26-Mar-2014 14:09

My intial reaction was "What the hell? Runined!", but i now think it was probably a good move for FB and an excellent move for Occulus.

Occulus will now have plenty of money to build and refine a product, without the pressure of taking something to market that is not ready. (Plus they got paid $$$$)

FB have a hot new technology that as long as they don't force it unaturally into Facebook, could be great...

Who this is junk for though is developers, who were working on an independent and seemingly platform-agnostic product. A consumer release of Occulus seemed likely this year, but I would think is now extremely unlikely. It could be 2-3 years before this technology is available to buy and who knows what the focus of it will be by then. What is the incentive for developers to continue?

I think Sony, in the game space, is probably the biggest winner out of this. They lose their likely competition and gain lots of great ideas.

SepticSceptic

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#1013195 26-Mar-2014 14:24

Not longer platform independent :-(

gehenna

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#1013217 26-Mar-2014 15:14

Well it was either going to be Facebook or Apple.

ajobbins

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#1013260 26-Mar-2014 16:05

The Oatmeal called it last year...

Source

Twitter: ajobbins

Dairyxox

1594 posts

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#1013300 26-Mar-2014 17:04

Hate Facebook but love oculus rift. Such a weird feeling now.
I guess now I'm hoping Sony can do it right. I like the idea of it working with consumer hardware like a console

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Zeppe

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#1013444 26-Mar-2014 21:50

I was waiting for my order placed 1 month ago, but after this announcement I ve sent an email to cancel it. I don't have a Facebook account and I don't think they are focus on a real gaming experience. Will wait and look for the Sony headset.

JimmyCorrigan

49 posts

Geek

#1013629 27-Mar-2014 08:53

Having read a bit more, from founder Palmer Luckey on Reddit, it sounds like OVR had pretty much already given a lot to control over to VC investors, so their destiny was no longer theirs to control anyway. (They had raised $100m from VC, so presumably that represents a lot of equity)

FB, presumably, aren't looking for a quick return on investment like other investors might, so i guess that is positive for product development? Hopefully...

BigMal

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#1013636 27-Mar-2014 09:02

This summed it up quite well for me

https://imgur.com/NPLjenz

JimmyCorrigan

49 posts

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#1013677 27-Mar-2014 09:43

BigMal: This summed it up quite well for me

https://imgur.com/NPLjenz

Yeah i absolutely agree. It does completely contradict the spirit with which Oculus was conceived, and for that reason alone it is an extremely disappointing turn of events.

zaptor

745 posts

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#1013763 27-Mar-2014 11:44

bazzer:
zaptor: Curious. I wonder if the Kickstarter investors will get any of that?

Why would they? It's not an equity investment, is it?

I checked the Kickstarter FAQ, and it says no (basically). I'm not arguing whether it should or shouldn't be btw.

It's an interesting precedent. Crowd funding for startup/initial-R&D, then corporate funding for a more mature (closer to market) product. Of course, the corporate funding comes with more strings attached (albeit with more money). Corporate risk is mitigated (to some degree) by the upfront startup seeding.

Legally speaking I don't think backers have a leg to stand on.

However, people tend to get just a little titchy when they've invested - often with a degree a goodwill - in something they believe in, only to see it corporatized for order-of-magnitudes more than the funding goal.

It's not necessarily wrong. But, I can appreciate where the disappointment comes from.

JimmyCorrigan

49 posts

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#1013784 27-Mar-2014 12:01

I think part of the problem is that the term ‘Backer’ is used interchangeably in the real world with ‘Investor’. In Kickstarter-land, this is not the same thing.

Kickstarter backers got Oculus dev kits as their ‘reward’. In this instance, kickstarter effectively acted as a pre-ordering system: get enough orders to justify low-level mass production.

merve0o0

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#1024967 14-Apr-2014 15:52

Oculus has meet all the obligations through kickstarter. The kickstarter was for DK1. That shipped and all orders were filled.

While it's sad it had to be Facebook, at least VR will happen now. No one at work had heard of the rift before this happened and now several are interested in it.

Like Palmer said they had already lost control. They got a 40mill investment last year that turned out to be from someone of the board of Facebook so it was only a matter of time.

They have Carmack and now the guy from valve. Now with all the money and resources that Facebook bring the rift will be better then it was going to be. They have the ability to get hardware made specifically for the rift not use phone hardware like they were.

Oculus have said their 5 year plan has not changed it's just a 3 year plan now.

All in all I think it's a positive in the short term. There is nothing to say that oculus was out of money had to close down.