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."
hej hej hej (Score:2, Funny)
Cool story notch.
"What?" yelled Occulus founders (Score:5, Funny)
"We can't hear you through all of the cash."
Re:"What?" yelled Occulus founders (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/10/23/
"Would you like to stay for dinner? I think we're having MONEY!"
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"Do you like my hat? It's made of MONEY!"
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.
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What does that have to do with people who don't prioritize money over everything?
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Didn't Davinci write some kind of code?
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.
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:Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Informative)
Huh, that was exactly my reaction too. Odd how I read that IBM/MIcrosoft/Facebook/Oracle bought another tech company the first reaction I get is exactly this.
Interestingly when I hear that Google bought a company I don't get this reaction (yet).
Also where is Carmack? If he is still with Oculus then there might be some hope. But if they sold out without his vote, well there is something very wrong. John Carmack has being know to be someone uncompromising when it comes to tech.
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.
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(Sorry, dropped out of the fantasy too early there.)
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Carmack/Stoltz, separated at birth?
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net... [nocookie.net]
http://www.interactive.org/ima... [interactive.org]
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It's about fulfilling his adolescent fantasies of being the guy who programs a lame facebook-branded Second Life knockoff
To be fair, it would probably be hard for Carmack to do worse at SL than SL.
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That may be, but he would probably leave (now or soon) Oculus/Facebook if it did not shown any promise. I would have grabbed the money and ran away at the earliest possible date and fund another startup.
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I don't think I could do that. Eventually it would eat at me until I would have to stick a pistol to my head to get the taste out. Maybe that's why so many rich people commit suicide.
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If Microsoft had bought Oculus Rift there would be a good chance of it coming to light. With Facebook, odds are it dies alone.
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Everyone dies alone.
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Interestingly when I hear that Google bought a company I don't get this reaction (yet).
I'm at that point however. I have a Nest thermostat which I love, but now that Google owns it I'm wondering what my options are. I'd love it if I could break into it and load my own firmware, or even an opensource firmware. I think the JTAG pins are exposed as pads on the main board so I should (in theory) have some access, I just have to figure out what exactly that access is...
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Well but at least they put the tech to good use, google docs for example started after an acquisition. Google docs is very useful in my life (but I don't put anything that I would rather keep private there).
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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.
And how, exactly, will a VR headset be used for that?
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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?
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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
I'm really amazed at the complete lack of critical thinking on
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Oh, we're still thinking critically.
Except that it seems everyone is, and everything is. Or they are blindly accepting/hating what [insert company you hate here] does, or that it can/will be exploited by the NSA and their ilk.
I might suggest the same. As little as 5 years ago, saying a lo
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Except that it seems everyone is, and everything is.
You seem to be confusing paranoia with critical thinking. They are not the same. Many /.'ers lately are just default to crap like that, and it takes away from the validity of things that are real threats. It's gone from a site for geeks to a site for paranoid Luddites.
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When you or anyone else here was younger how many would go to hangout somewhere wh
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?
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Bingo, my friend. As soon as I read the headline last night, my heart sunk, and my hopes for Oculus died. I want nothing to do with Facebook owning them or their technology - the moment Zuck & Crew become a part of my gaming experience, I'm moving on. I don't mind Candy Crush - I get it, Facebook integration is a big part of what they do. I don't mind it in many other phone games. I do not link my FB to Call of Duty, GTA, or anything else on a console or that doesn't run in a browser (and mostly don't o
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karmack has some rumblings about leaving as well.
Real advances for Occolus are dwindling. Zuck should have invested under his secret investment firm, "Evil Acquisitions inc."
Re:Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Informative)
karmack has some rumblings about leaving as well.
Real advances for Occolus are dwindling. Zuck should have invested under his secret investment firm, "Evil Acquisitions inc."
Carmack has already tweeted that he is not leaving.
Re:Unsurprising ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course he's not. He's probably locked in for 3 years as a term of the sale.
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Man, and I was so excited they the developer iteration was 1080 resolution and only $350. If that reflects potential commercial pricing, and you look at other existing HMDs at that resolution, then that's actually pretty awesome.
Carmack fully supports the move (Score:5, Informative)
Carmack (the fact you can't spell him name right ames me dubious you understand his intent) said this on Twitter [twitter.com]:
I have a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale.
If you want to understand what he means, read Ready Player One [amazon.com].
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.
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.
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Totally the opposite (Score:3)
Well I want to decide for myself what to plug my goggles into
That is EXACTLY what Oculus was trying to do. The current dev kits work on OSX and Windows, iOS/Android support is also planned...
There's no reason to think any different is true under Facebook. In fact if you think about it, almost no other company would be as likely to keep the device cross-platform as Facebook - certainly Google and Apple would have each dragged it back to their respective lairs to horde.
You are monitored at every step. And n
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Wanting to monetize everything doesn't mean he's a Republican.
Sincerity or Negotiating Ploy (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook just hasn't thrown enough money at him yet.
When they do...then we'll see.
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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.
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There was a study a while back (I wish I had the link) that found that more money can make you happy, but only if you're not already born into money. And Notch himself has said in an interview that he basically accepts that his biggest achievement is now behind him.
The happiest people in the world aren't the ones who are driven by ambition; they're the ones who can realize that they've achieved something and then stop and enjoy life. Notch is doing what he loves to do, because he can afford to do that. H
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I can't help but find it ironic that an alleged general truth about a demographic seems to actually only very rarely be true when you start trying to apply it to specific individuals in that demographic... rather, it only seems to apply to the group as a collective whole.
I'm certain there's a connection between that and the Pareto principle, somewhere. Which itself can seem ironic on the surface too, I suppose.
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Facebook just hasn't thrown enough money at him yet.
When they do...then we'll see.
The day Mr. Zuck decides to throw money in Minecraft, it will be the day that the present owner will not risk HIS money on Facebook.
Until there, I think Mr. Notch is right. Let Zuckerberg risk his own money on Facebook games.
Re:Sincerity or Negotiating Ploy (Score:5, Insightful)
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You do realize Notch rakes in $100+ million every year, right?
2012: http://www.forbes.com/sites/da... [forbes.com]
2013: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/a... [gamesindustry.biz]
Thank you, Notch. (Score:5, Insightful)
"In discussions" (Score:2)
Is software development speak for: "literally no work has been done".
Why is this news worthy?
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I mean I get that it's an "important backer" (what percentage of $2.4M is $10k?) pulling out, but there really has been no discussion or public planning of Minecraft to the OR.
I don't like Facebook owning OR, but at the same time I don't like people treating notch like some god of indies. I guess it was unfair to ask why this was "news" worthy.
I should be asking: why does anyone care what notch thinks about a device he has no input on other than: "yo fuck facebook"?
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.)
From the Oculus VR Forums on Markus (Score:5, Interesting)
From the Oculus VR Forums [oculusvr.com] (which you should really read some of to get a better balanced view of how the actual developers feel).
spire8989 writes:
"Hi, I'm a developer and am very happy with this news. Also, Markus is a pretty well-known hipster, this is very expected from him. For someone who seems so anti-Facebook he should really stop having an active Facebook account that he constantly updates though. If you actually read this article you'll see where he says that this will have a positive impact on social VR experiences, but he doesn't want to work with them "because he doesn't know their intentions".
I guess you get to be picky and complain when you have an extremely popular game."
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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.
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What I *don't* do is use the app on my phone (contact-stealing)
I use the Facebook app, I just don't give it access to my contacts.
You can both have reasons to use FB and reasons to avoid/dislike it that aren't necessarily at odds.
I don't see how, because you are encouraging other people to go onto Facebook to read your content, people who may not be able to take the precautions you do to limit what they get from you.
I hardly use Facebook myself, mostly just to keep track of family. I see Oculus as a separa
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Yes that's exactly what you get to be. Why this is seen as some negative is beyond me. Notch built his company from nothing and hasn't taken investment or any of the number of things most companies want to do. He has enough money to tell anyone he wants "fuck you" and has every right to as a business owner. There's nothing wrong with that.
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If you're dependent on Oculus doing well then you're much more likely to toe the company line
To be clear I'm not dependent on them doing well, I would just be pleased if it happened and it would bring some benefit to me.
it's likely that many devs think having Facebook intrusions into their game will only bring them more money,
I don't think that at all, nor do any developers I know. We just don't think that will happen.
What makes you think it will? It's not true of Instagram.
The Mod still works (Score:5, Informative)
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What version of Minecraft does it support? The answer to that question does change something.
How hard to support multiple VR headsets? (Score:3)
Oculus isn't the only VR headset. They may be the current best (I don't actually know). At least conceptually, the inputs and outputs are reasonably understood. So what makes it hard for an application that supports the Oculus headset to support others?
Very hard without additions (Score:3)
So what makes it hard for an application that supports the Oculus headset to support others?
You can easily provide a similar 3D view across multiple headsets.
What makes it hard to deliver the same application is all of the hardware that gets added to do tracking really well and keep latency very low. The 2nd dev kit has some advanced positional tracking hardware to help keep the view in sync with what the users head is doing, and also (perhaps just as important) built-in hardware to be able to test latency
He never was making a VR port. (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing to realize is that Notch really never had any plans of making a VR port of Minecraft. In the past, he has stated that because of the JAVA technology used in Minecraft, it was too difficult to do it right, and they were having a problem making the UI work. They weren't very thrilled with the way the Minecrift mod did it, and wanted to do it better, but it just wasn't possible.
(In fact, the Minecrift mod doesn't even work with anything higher than 1.6, which means you can only use it in singleplayer or on servers that never upgraded. This is because of how much things have changed in the code between 1.6 and 1.7.)
So, Notch actually abandoned the effort sometime last year.
Last year: "We aren't making a Rift port because it's just too difficult with our current codebase."
Yesterday: "We aren't making a Rift port because Facebook."
To me, it sounds like a convenient excuse to cover up the fact that their codebase is really messy and can't do as much as they wish it could. We can blame it on Zuck now!
Dime's a dozen. (Score:2)
His loss, the need will be taken by someone else in this very competitive environment. VR is coming, and playing the ostrich will only limit the bird, not the environment.
I'm ok with this... (Score:2)
I've already got enough Creepers as "friends" on Facebook...
Re: Kickstarter skeptics eat your heart out (Score:4, Funny)
That's why I invest all my money in Bitcoin instead of kickstarter.
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Anyone that pays someone to make money with no expectations in return is a fool.
Expectation: Pay money and get promised reward.
I'm pretty sure they met the expectation for that project. As for them "selling out", well duh. The vast majority of their funding came from their VC rounds, not kickstarter. VCs are usually looking for an exit and these days want to control burn rate until they get to there. Honestly they are probably better off now with Facebook. FB will want to get the product to market, where the VCs wanted to get the COMPANY to market.
As for all the paranoid NSA, a
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:Kickstarter skeptics eat your heart out (Score:5, Interesting)
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
I'm not the only one. If you read the founders Reddit posts they also appear to be under that assumption. Also, what possible IP could facebook want from Oculus that would be worth that much to them? That just does not make sense. They are not buying a user base, like with What'sApp. Aquiri-hire also doesn't make any sense here. They bought a hardware company. They (Oculus) is already saying that they are planning to start work on custom hardware components (versus being tied to off-the-shelf parts for mobile phones), and part of the deal terms was to allow them to lower the final cost of the consumer hardware. The more likely explanation is that they (Facebook) want to branch out into an emerging tech. I don't see it any differently than Microsoft developing the XBox. Just because they are a social company doesn't mean that's ALL they can do. It would be smart of Zuck to branch out. He, like the rest of the world, has to know that social platforms have a shelf life and if Facebook wants to survive they need to start doing other things.
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.
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Technologies that allow them to directly compete with things like google glass?
Either that or they plan to turn facebook into Second Life.
Or both at once - you walk down the street and see facebook profiles floating over people's heads.
Who knows...but you can bet it isn't good.
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I'm not the only one. If you read the founders Reddit posts they also appear to be under that assumption.
Ok explain to me what possible scenario they would post "Dude we're f***ing rich we sold our tech to a creativity grave yard, thanks for the support early on screw you guys i'm going home (to my new home on my private island)"
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Of course the founders are saying that, facebook probably even portrayed it to them in that way, but i severely doubt FB will enter the gaming market i am confident that this technology will end up in the IP Graveyard of a giant corporation
Why? Again, it makes zero sense. They might as well burn a pile of cash and stock certificates on their parking lot. They have no IP of any real value to Facebook. What you are saying is that Facebook is going to hand them $2 billion ($400 million of that in cash), and immediately shut them down. That, versus that FB sees the potential for the VR market to be huge and that Zuck wants to get in on the ground floor of it?
Hell, considering how much VC money they had already taken in and they were still str
Re:Kickstarter skeptics eat your heart out (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to see the future of the internet, go read Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson. All these guys did - Carmack, Zuck, the Google guys - whatever, and they've all been trying to make Stephenson's Metaverse come to life ever since. Think of it as a kind of Burnham plan [wikipedia.org] for the internet.
Facebook is trying to produce the Metaverse, just like everyone before them, and the Oculus Rift will be the first incarnation of the Metaverse's headset.
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Are you sure that they're trying to produce the Metaverse and not just the anarcho-capitalistic dystopia part?
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Two Way Street (Score:2)
The companies you work with say a lot about your priorities.
Exactly, and Facebook is now working with Oculus...
Why can't you think about it THAT way? It means the same thing as what you are saying. Why can't Facebook be changing course? WhatsApp and Oculus purchases make MORE sense if that is the case, not less.
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Facebook might not be a games company right now, but the acquisition of Oculus certainly gives them a huge opportunity to venture in to that market.
And the umpteen millions of subscribers it already has doesn't? Pull the other one, it's full of candy.
Re:Temper tantrum (Score:4, Interesting)
Minecraft isn't making the social side, its userbase is. That's why the myriad videos of let's-play are on youtube, the streaming sessions are on Twitch and announced on twitter, etc. and not on some huge (and bloated) "social network" service hosted on minecraft.net
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Facebook might not be a games company right now, but the acquisition of Oculus certainly gives them a huge opportunity to venture in to that market.
Laura, welcome to Slashdot. It is great to see such a positive outlook from a first time poster.
And as far as Minecraft not being social... are you kidding me? It might be a malicious kind of social, but Persson's pull out is coming off as more of a flounce rather than an educated
Sometimes it's better to pull early than live with the consequences.
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I don't think the problem is the "social", but the way Facebook does "social".
Why one would use Facebook (and pay him a share of his incoming) to allow his users to play his games?
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.
Re:Outrageous. (Score:5, Insightful)
Notch sells a product.
Facebook sells you.
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In Soviet Russia, You Sell Out of Products!
Re:Outrageous. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh Crimea river.
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Sad, funny, and true. :-/
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Facebook sells you because you use their product for free.
If you've paid for it directly, then you actually are the customer.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm no fb fan (don't even have an account), but bagging on them for doing what every multimedia conglomerate has been doing for decades seems a little silly.
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Add in some force-feedback and pop-up ads can not only jump right in front of you, but they can slap you in the face if you don't pay attention to them.
(Somewhere, some marketing guy just began drooling at the thought of this.)
Re:Hey editors, how hard is this? (Score:5, Funny)
"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."
It? WHAT is 'it'?
Steven King novel. Frankly, I'm not entirely disappointed that a homicidal supernatural clown isn't being brought to virtual reality. Those are nightmares I'd just as soon do without.
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Notch doesn't owe you any more work. He's already hired a bunch of people to continue development on Minecraft, so any obligations he might have for the Minecraft community are fulfilled. If he wants to spend the rest of his life sipping mixed drinks on an island somewhere, that's his prerogative.