Minecraft Creator Halts Plans For Oculus Version Following Facebook Acquisition 300
An anonymous reader writes "Not one hour after the announcement of the the acquisition of Oculus Rift by Facebook yesterday, Markus 'Notch' Persson has announced that he has ceased all discussions about bringing it to Oculus Rift. 'I don't want to work with social, I want to work with games. ... Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers. People have made games for Facebook platforms before, and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build.' Persson has stated that he made this decision despite initially investing $10,000 in Oculus' Kickstarter."
Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The ownership by Facebook of any technology immediately puts the taint of a rich douchebag who wants to monetize everything, invade your privacy, and sell your information.
Fuck the Zuck.
Re:Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm starting to wonder if he's just buying shit so no-one else can have it.
Thank you, Notch. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we can't have nice things.
My immediate reaction to seeing Facebook was buying it was "well, there goes some promising technology". Instead, it will be used to check in with your friends on Facebook and to ensure they're monetizing everything you can do with it.
To hell with that. I strongly suspect that's what's at play here.
Re:Outrageous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Zuck. You have billions for promises, that is fine. But Notch got a product I enjoy and never haunt me across the internet for likes. Therefore his opinion carry weight not yours.
Don't care about Minecraft VR, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm glad to see that I won't be seeing "See what your friends are building in Minecraft. Connect your Facebook account today!" plastered all over Minecraft anytime soon.
(Incidentally, f*ck you, Netflix.)
Re:Outrageous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Notch sells a product.
Facebook sells you.
Re:Sincerity or Negotiating Ploy (Score:3, Insightful)
Notch is already rich as hell. I don't think he cares about more money at this point. Minecraft could have already made him oodles more cash if he'd change it to a freemium model. But he's not.
Re:Carmack fully supports the move (Score:4, Insightful)
No, he's isn't a saint in any benevolent sense, but when it comes to commentary on developing technologies, I tend to trust him -- personal disdain for Facebook's sociocommercial business model aside.
Also, Carmack's next Twitter post directly communicates that he's been avoiding creating a Facebook profile up until this point. So perhaps his admiration of the company on a social level is not as strong as his respect for them on a technological infrastructural level.
Re:Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Insightful)
"My immediate reaction to seeing Facebook was buying it was "well, there goes some promising technology"."
Everyone still loves the VR idea though. I think Notch and all the others will just be looking for the runner up product. Which all the Me-To folks are working on. Sony and Xbox are already on that train, I understand. Hopefully there will be someone to sell me one without a walled garden that they're trying to push.
How much IP is there around the oculus? I understood the rift to be mostly an implementation of better / newer technology, not so much new invention, but I could be off. How hard will it be for others to pick up the baton?
Re:From the Oculus VR Forums on Markus (Score:4, Insightful)
For someone who seems so anti-Facebook he should really stop having an active Facebook account that he constantly updates though
I have no problem with using Facebook for things where I want to share things with many people with no expectation of privacy, Shared events, products I'm interested in, public life announcements, FB is fine.
What I *don't* do is use the app on my phone (contact-stealing), allow their site-cookies, or buy other products that are NOT related to my intended use of FB.
You can both have reasons to use FB and reasons to avoid/dislike it that aren't necessarily at odds.
Re:"What?" yelled Occulus founders (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's fun being smug, but you might want to remember Einstein moved to America (and died here) because of some trifling thing that had been going on over there in Europe.
Re:Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Insightful)
That, he may well be.
But depending on just how many zeroes are at the end of anything he'd get ... he may well have just said "oh, fuck it, for that much money I'm in".
And, as has already been pointed out, if it's the difference between making a huge stack and living with the 'golden handcuffs', or getting nothing ... a lot of people might do the exact same thing.
Start getting into 8 figures, and I might blow Ballmer in the MS boardroom. Make it 9 figures, and we can bloody well livestream it and I'll throw in Gates. ;-)
You can buy back a lot of self respect (and mouthwash) for that kinda money.
Re:Sincerity or Negotiating Ploy (Score:5, Insightful)
What Carmack does next will be very telling (Score:5, Insightful)
Carmack works on what he finds interesting. Right now VR is something that he is really passionate about. This deal almost gives him infinite resources to do that work. He doesn't need the money or the job and he will stay exactly as long as he is interested in the tech. I think he cares little how the tech is used just as long as he in on the cutting edge of developing it.
Re:Kickstarter skeptics eat your heart out (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be operating under the assumption facebook will continue to develop the oculus rift as intended and is not buying it simply to obtain some piece of IP they want to bastardize and use in some way to monetize its existing user base further.
I strongly suspect the only oculus rift gaming devices to ever see market, are the ones that are already in the hands of developers and kickstarter backers we should expect this to more likely appear in some other form of social tool that in no way appeals to the original audience of oculus
Re:Unsurprising ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Both exactly like, and somewhat different, from how you do it on a web page.
You really think Facebook has altruistic motives here? Or that they see a potential cash cow in the future?
Of course they see a future cash cow. Why would they not?! As for my original question, that's a dumb answer and you know it. They have no reason to spend 2 BILLION just to sell you a VR headset so you can.... what? Read Facebook posts? Most likely they, like Microsoft and the XBox, are trying to branch out into a new (for them) industry.
/. these days. Everyone is a shill for [insert company you hate here] and every new anything is obviously an NSA plot. Get your heads out of your asses already.
I'm really amazed at the complete lack of critical thinking on
Re:"What?" yelled Occulus founders (Score:1, Insightful)
Unlike that whole "manifest destiny" thing, depriving Native Americans of their lands (ongoing to this day) and slaugtering those that stood up for themselves, oh, and slavery and even after emancipation continuing to deprive them and their descendants of their rights, (again, ongoing to this day), molesting weaker nations in South America since in the early 19th century like some sort of national paedophile, rampant anti-semitism and neo-Nazisim allowed in many states as "free speech" in ways that are not tolerate in the aforementioned Europe, stealth and space technology taken from, and perfected with Nazi war-criminals given shelter and succour by the US government. Oh and let's not forget, it was European enlightenment thought that invented America and that many of the USA's founding fathers were European subjects and, had they lost would have been executed as terrorists.
And here I am, neither American or European and pretty equally appalled by them both. As a neutral observer I can say I am far more impressed by how far Europe has come since 1945 than how far the USA has come since 1776.
Re:Kickstarter skeptics eat your heart out (Score:5, Insightful)
what possible IP could facebook want from Oculus that would be worth that much to them?
Technologies that allow them to directly compete with things like google glass? the oculus is a vr console that has lower lag than any other vr headset ever made, seems to me that's the piece they wanted and its more likely to end up in augmented reality displaying us advertisements and convincing us to like things than FB going from a platform for casual gaming to producing tech geared towards hardcore gamers.