I was really concerned seeing there was no topic about this huge gaming breakthrough that is about to hit us in the upcoming months even before 2014, i hope. All the reviews are really great and everyone is expecting this to be the next big thing in gaming.
I'm excited to see what the consumer version will be like. Also, with developer kits and the SDK shipping in the coming months, it's going to be fun to see what devs can make with it. :D
Look awesome, very interested to see how it goes too, also what the restrictions are going to be like on it. As i can't see Microsoft or Sony letting them use this on an Xbox/Playstation. Looks like a massive step though!
Also can't wait to see this at E3 this year, pretty sure it's going to be there?
What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Read some reviews. Looks quite nice. I still feel integration won't be as easy as tom makes it out to be, but the fact that this is under a year away excites me.
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
The devs have said multiple times that you won't need a top-of-the-line rig in order to use it as intended, but you will need something over the current average. I've seen it run on one of those Asus gaming laptops (dunno which version), for example.
Concerning games support it'll be easy or hard to "port it" depending on how the game is built. As for games intended for this... there are more than a few projects started.
One game I'd love to test this with is Amnesia. :3
On January 17 2013 20:47 DannyJ wrote: If i played Amnesia in that thing I'd have a panic attack when i turn on my light and nothing happens.
Just imagine if this thing ever supports slenderman.
This thing just might be enough to get me back into playing games - I haven't bought anything gaming related since SCII, and before that I hadn't bought anything in ~5 years. The hype is massive... I hope it holds up!
Wouldn't that thing cause serious nausea? I mean, your brain is immersed in a virtual world but your body isn't. So moving and jumping should cause some serious problems.
On January 17 2013 20:47 DannyJ wrote: If i played Amnesia in that thing I'd have a panic attack when i turn on my light and nothing happens.
Imagine if someone puts his hands on your shoulders while you're playing Amnesia with this thing. :D
On January 17 2013 21:30 n0ise wrote: Can't seem to find the price, does anyone have an estimate?
Also, will they bundle the acid or do I get it someplace else??
No price announced yet, but people who invested $300 on Kickstarter get the dev version. I'd guess the consumer version will cost from $200 to $300. I wouldn't mind paying that much, kinda like buying a new monitor to me.
If it's "only" $300 I'll definitely get one. From all I've read, this thing seems to be awesome. At one point I read that someone wanted to jump down from somewhere but stopped when he reached the ledge because he got an instinctual fear that he was going to fall and hurt himself. Of course he still jumped and wasn't afraid to do it, but at the first moment when his brain registered what it saw, his instincts popped up and told him: "NO!". That is pretty impressive since it implies that the brain will have a much harder time keeping reality and gaming apart which is a good thing for immersion.
On January 17 2013 21:45 heishe wrote: If it's "only" $300 I'll definitely get one. From all I've read, this thing seems to be awesome. At one point I read that someone wanted to jump down from somewhere but stopped when he reached the ledge because he got an instinctual fear that he was going to fall and hurt himself. Of course he still jumped and wasn't afraid to do it, but at the first moment when his brain registered what it saw, his instincts popped up and told him: "NO!". That is pretty impressive since it implies that the brain will have a much harder time keeping reality and gaming apart which is a good thing for immersion.
On January 17 2013 23:00 Arevall wrote: Looks awesome. They should combine it with kinect
Edit: Also, I'd probably pee myself if I played Doom with this thing.
me and some friends from college are putting money together to get one of these with the SDK. we won a bunch of kinects on some FB contests some time ago and this was definitely one of the first ideas. We are thinking of starting low and just make a 3d tourguide of our college (thinking of asking the electronics or mechanical department to build some 360º rolling platform) so we can go up to the president and ask him for $ to buy some more :p
On January 17 2013 23:24 ETisME wrote: I will never get used to using my head than using my controller/mouse :p
I don't think it will work quite like that. Say you're playing Doom, I really doubt you will aim using the Occulus. It will probably be more like a "tank" style where your headmovements only dictate where you look while your aiming is still controlled by the controller.
On January 17 2013 23:24 ETisME wrote: I will never get used to using my head than using my controller/mouse :p
I don't think it will work quite like that. Say you're playing Doom, I really doubt you will aim using the Occulus. It will probably be more like a "tank" style where your headmovements only dictate where you look while your aiming is still controlled by the controller.
wouldn't that make it super hard to aim? you have to align your head movement and your aim (mouse/stick) to get any accurate clicks
On January 17 2013 23:24 ETisME wrote: I will never get used to using my head than using my controller/mouse :p
I don't think it will work quite like that. Say you're playing Doom, I really doubt you will aim using the Occulus. It will probably be more like a "tank" style where your headmovements only dictate where you look while your aiming is still controlled by the controller.
Yeah, It will probably work the best at flight kinda games where you need your hands to control the aircraft but you can still use/need your head to look around
On January 17 2013 23:24 ETisME wrote: I will never get used to using my head than using my controller/mouse :p
I don't think it will work quite like that. Say you're playing Doom, I really doubt you will aim using the Occulus. It will probably be more like a "tank" style where your headmovements only dictate where you look while your aiming is still controlled by the controller.
wouldn't that make it super hard to aim? you have to align your head movement and your aim (mouse/stick) to get any accurate clicks
I think it would come very naturally, because it's more lifelike. It would be like when you play Forza with Kinect, your head movements let you look around the car, but they don't steer the car, just like moving your head in a real car won't change the cars orientation.
On January 17 2013 23:24 ETisME wrote: I will never get used to using my head than using my controller/mouse :p
That's like saying you will never use strafing since you can just turn your mouse and walk forward all the time. I treat it more like another axis that you can make use of turning everything into a fluent set of movements.
On January 17 2013 23:47 Falcon_NL wrote: How would this work on someone with glasses?
I've heard something along the lines of "If not optimally, still good". Quite a few of the testers in the videos from CES are wearing glasses when trying it. It comes with the added risk that you might scratch the lenses (on the rift/glasses) tho if too close.
On January 17 2013 23:24 ETisME wrote: I will never get used to using my head than using my controller/mouse :p
I don't think it will work quite like that. Say you're playing Doom, I really doubt you will aim using the Occulus. It will probably be more like a "tank" style where your headmovements only dictate where you look while your aiming is still controlled by the controller.
wouldn't that make it super hard to aim? you have to align your head movement and your aim (mouse/stick) to get any accurate clicks
Nah, your crosshair would probably stay in place while you look around. Look up videos of ArmA 2 with TrackIR, it's pretty much the same concept without the VR.
I can totally imagine this killing your accuracy, but at the same time, for most games, that'd be so worth it. There's never going to be a competitive dueling game better than quake 3 anyway
There is a more "general purpose" device being made over at google called Project Glass. Bascially, the only way for us to acheive a larger display without making displays that are impractically large is to move it closer to the eye. Right in front of the eye is obviously the best place since that allows us for more displayed content but actually smaller displays.
However, just like with Glass, I feel like this is just one component of the next generation of interfaces. The entire chain from programming the games to designing the game controllers will likely need to change before this becomes truly an improvement. I am also worried about what kind of strain this thing puts on the eyes during prolonged use. When I was in the military we had night vision goggles that were used pretty much exactly like this and it was not a pleasant experience to wear those in the long run.
I can't say definitely what will happen, just don't get your hopes up too much. There is a reason we stopped doing virtual reality back in the 90ies and so far I don't think a whole lot has changed in the mechanics of how these devices work. Sure, resolution and processing speeds have gone up, but thats not as relevant.
Though, imagine what you could do if you combined this with eyetracking software like the company tobii does, you could apply this kind of hardware to much more than just games. Also, it is pretty easy to make position aware gloves with some simple arduino chips. You could likely make hands that appear in game just as easy. Then you have other vectors to aim with or use to interact with the game.
Overall a rather interesting technology full of potential pitfalls
It looks awesome but I dont think the average gamer will buy it. It will problably be preety expensive and therefor ust not worth it. In a few years this might be standard tho!
On January 18 2013 00:34 Bourneq wrote: It looks awesome but I dont think the average gamer will buy it. It will problably be preety expensive and therefor ust not worth it. In a few years this might be standard tho!
Actually the technology behind this is quite simple, you have cheap lenses (optical distorsion are corrected in software, so you can use really cheap ones), a LCD screen (these things keep getting less and less expensive), and motion sensors. I think the real issue is to actually get games/applications made for it, because I feel that simply adapting an existing game won't work too well.
For you techies who are interested in reading about the cutting edge of VR and AR and the challenges still to overcome, check out this blog article from Valve's Michael Abrash (he of iD software fame). In it he mentions the Occulus and Google Glass, among other things coming down the pike:
On January 18 2013 02:03 Scythe90 wrote: Any news on the refresh rate on the final model, I suspect anything above 5-10ms would be disorienting since it is your entire field of view.
Refresh rate is in Hz or frames, no? You seem to be talking about delay.
On January 17 2013 23:47 Falcon_NL wrote: How would this work on someone with glasses?
I could be totally off but I read some snippet somewhere that they might be able to adjust for your prescription (perhaps not all prescriptions) in software/hardware (not sure which, or maybe both), so you could play without glasses.
This may be what puts the steam box way ahead of anything Microsoft and Sony are willing to do, and shut them down almost completely outside of their exclusive titles.
I started a thread a while ago about this and it almost immediately died... curious /shrug.
I ordered a dev kit many months ago, and am expecting mine to arrive in March/April. I've read virtually every video and piece of literature out there about the device, so if you have any questions shoot them my way and I virtually guarantee I'll be able to answer. Some common questions / misconceptions:
Isn't it uncomfortable to look at a screen so close to your face?!
No. The screen may be close to your face, but the optics you look through are focused at infinity. This means that, for your eyes, it will be as if you are looking at something very far away (it should actually be more comfortable to look at than a computer monitor is).
Glasses
Because the Rift's optics are focused at infinity, this means those who are short-sighted (have difficulty seeing distant objects) will not get a clear image while using the current developer version of the Rift.
The dev version does not have a "nice" way of supporting glasses. Three options are available to you:
Wear contact lenses
Get a cheap pair of glasses of your prescription, and glue them onto the Rift's lenses
Wear your glasses underneath. However, as your eyes are further away from the Rift's optics this comes at the cost of some FOV. There may also be a risk of scratching the Rift's lenses.
The Oculus team have stated several times that there WILL be a solution for the consumer version (Palmer Luckey, the creator, is short-sighted himself).
They need to get this to work with Mirror's Edge... The fact that you can see your body in that game and that you do so many crazy stunts makes it seem like the perfect game for virtual reality imo.
Anyway, if I can manage to get a computer that can run the latest games.. at 60 fps... in 3d... (which may be easier said than done) by the time this comes out, I'll by this so fast.
On January 18 2013 02:56 Hairy wrote: I started a thread a while ago about this and it almost immediately died... curious /shrug.
I ordered a dev kit many months ago, and am expecting mine to arrive in March/April. I've read virtually every video and piece of literature out there about the device, so if you have any questions shoot them my way and I virtually guarantee I'll be able to answer. Some common questions / misconceptions:
Isn't it uncomfortable to look at a screen so close to your face?!
No. The screen may be close to your face, but the optics you look through are focused at infinity. This means that, for your eyes, it will be as if you are looking at something very far away (it should actually be more comfortable to look at than a computer monitor is).
Glasses
Because the Rift's optics are focused at infinity, this means those who are short-sighted (have difficulty seeing distant objects) will not get a clear image while using the current developer version of the Rift.
The dev version does not have a "nice" way of supporting glasses. Three options are available to you:
Wear contact lenses
Get a cheap pair of glasses of your prescription, and glue them onto the Rift's lenses
Wear your glasses underneath. However, as your eyes are further away from the Rift's optics this comes at the cost of some FOV. There may also be a risk of scratching the Rift's lenses.
The Oculus team have stated several times that there WILL be a solution for the consumer version (Palmer Luckey, the creator, is short-sighted himself).
Near sighted and short sighted might not have quite the same meaning..
In any case, I'm really exited about it. I just really hope it's not going to be a "fun little thing with a test map" and no games. If this takes off we could see a huge spike in the technology of these things in the future.
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Only 110 fov? Looks like I won't be playing quake or tribes on it any time soon, especially considering how the screen is closer to your face and thus requires an even larger fov than normal...
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Only 110 fov? Looks like I won't be playing quake or tribes on it any time soon, especially considering how the screen is closer to your face and thus requires an even larger fov than normal...
"Only" 110 FOV? Have you actually worked out your FOV when looking at your monitor or television?
I'm sitting a fairly standard distance away (70cm) from a 27" monitor, and I calculated my horizontal FOV to be only 46 degrees. The rift is over double that!
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Only 110 fov? Looks like I won't be playing quake or tribes on it any time soon, especially considering how the screen is closer to your face and thus requires an even larger fov than normal...
"Only" 110 FOV? Have you actually worked out your FOV when looking at your monitor or television?
I'm sitting a fairly standard distance away (70cm) from a 27" monitor, and I calculated my horizontal FOV to be only 46 degrees. The rift is over double that!
yeah, but if you don't count mass effect 3, most computer games have a much larger fov than that in the game itself (I think between 60 and 90?). Humans have about 120 degrees fov in focus and another 60 without depth perception if I remember correctly. Still, I think 110 is plenty for immersion.
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Only 110 fov? Looks like I won't be playing quake or tribes on it any time soon, especially considering how the screen is closer to your face and thus requires an even larger fov than normal...
"Only" 110 FOV? Have you actually worked out your FOV when looking at your monitor or television?
I'm sitting a fairly standard distance away (70cm) from a 27" monitor, and I calculated my horizontal FOV to be only 46 degrees. The rift is over double that!
And yet my fov is set to 120 degrees in quake and tribes. I would not be able to play either game as effectively with a lower fov, I guarantee you that.
OMFG. Looks like this will be very good for everyones eyes.
Still, I don't need some fancy "bull shit" technical console to enjoy games. Especially in a time were most of the games get cut in depth, story etc. to get fancy graphics and what not. But this console strikes directly into that way. I don't like it.
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Only 110 fov? Looks like I won't be playing quake or tribes on it any time soon, especially considering how the screen is closer to your face and thus requires an even larger fov than normal...
"Only" 110 FOV? Have you actually worked out your FOV when looking at your monitor or television?
I'm sitting a fairly standard distance away (70cm) from a 27" monitor, and I calculated my horizontal FOV to be only 46 degrees. The rift is over double that!
And yet my fov is set to 120 degrees in quake and tribes. I would not be able to play either game as effectively with a lower fov, I guarantee you that.
That's pretty high, even for Quake. Rapha is the only pro I know with an FOV over 105, he uses 110. Everyone else uses 100 (some 103, some 90).
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Only 110 fov? Looks like I won't be playing quake or tribes on it any time soon, especially considering how the screen is closer to your face and thus requires an even larger fov than normal...
"Only" 110 FOV? Have you actually worked out your FOV when looking at your monitor or television?
I'm sitting a fairly standard distance away (70cm) from a 27" monitor, and I calculated my horizontal FOV to be only 46 degrees. The rift is over double that!
And yet my fov is set to 120 degrees in quake and tribes. I would not be able to play either game as effectively with a lower fov, I guarantee you that.
You realise that you're completely mixing up FOV? You can set your virtual FOV to whatever you want. There's no reason whatsoever you couldn't play quake or tribes on a rift with the game's FOV set to be astronomically high.
People are excited because (amongst other things) the Rift will has a huge physical fov.
On January 18 2013 07:45 dxong wrote: Does it track your eyeball?
Would be so easy to make headshot if the crosshair is being tracked by where you look with your eyeballs
No. There is no eyetracking within the device, nor is this likely to happen for several years at a minimum as the technology to do with sufficient accuracy and latency is not here yet
On January 18 2013 07:45 dxong wrote: Does it track your eyeball?
Would be so easy to make headshot if the crosshair is being tracked by where you look with your eyeballs
No. There is no eyetracking within the device, nor is this likely to happen for several years at a minimum as the technology to do with sufficient accuracy and latency is not here yet
There is eye tracking technology being developed for gaming that actually got revealed at CES.
It looks very interesting and I'd consider buying one further down the line if there's interesting enough stuff to do with it. I suppose the next step is gloves/hand trackers with tactile feedback, stuff like that.
On January 18 2013 07:45 dxong wrote: Does it track your eyeball?
Would be so easy to make headshot if the crosshair is being tracked by where you look with your eyeballs
No. There is no eyetracking within the device, nor is this likely to happen for several years at a minimum as the technology to do with sufficient accuracy and latency is not here yet
There is eye tracking technology being developed for gaming that actually got revealed at CES.
Their tech is low framerate and relatively high latency. It would not be suited to VR eye tracking.
It works well across a wide range of environments, which is great, but you can get much better results within the constraints of an HMD.
And in response to the question "Are there any plans for eye tracking ever to be inside the Rift?"
No plans, just investigation. Eye tracking becomes most useful when you can use it to adjust convergence and physical focus of the display. Current eye tracking tech is not up to that task, neither is optical technology.
Why do you shoot where you look? I thought u would be able to look and shoot seperately! That SUX!!!
There is no limit or restrictions to what control mechanism is used; it's completely up to developers how they choose to use the device!
"Aiming where you look", combined with a gamepad, is just a simple and immediately understandable way to interact with the game, which is important when demoing to a huge number of people who may only have ~5 minutes each
Some games (such as ARMA) already seperate looking from aiming, so that you can aim in one direction and look in another. I expect this will be a common control mechanism in future games aimed at the Rift.
But why stop at only standard input mechanisms? Instead of a mouse & keyboard or a gamepad, why not an accurately tracked gun peripheral, or something like the Razer Hydra? Or perhaps full body tracking like with a Kinect-esque solution?**
** The kinect's abhorrent latency actually means it would be unsuitable for VR purposes, but hopefully future tech will fix that ^^
On January 18 2013 09:50 marconi wrote: I have a feeling that in 20 years no one will want to live in the "real world" anymore...
20 years might be a bit short on time, but within the forseeable future we are going to have no distinction between the digital world and the real one. They have already succesfully mapped signals in the human brain with computers to a point where you can control a cursor with your mind. The next step is to send information back and we will have a complete integration of human and machine. 50 years is more realistic tbh.
VR was first attempted 20 years ago, using a 'stand in place and look around' mechanic with an over-weighted helmet/glasses and a large fist-grip controller used to shoot at the dragon or whatever was displayed in the 10 polygon environment.
At first glance, this just seems to be a graphical and weight-reduced rehashing of that. Then someone mentioned Skyrim. There would need to be photorealistic graphic capabilities at that point, and some walking mechanic that doesn't involve jogging in place.
There's already a phone based game of slenderman using the camera function, so if this likely expensive hardware will support indie games, there could be an explosive revolution.. or the whole idea itself will die for another 20 years.
On January 17 2013 20:32 ffswowsucks wrote: What really impressed me was the 110 FOV and that there is NO latency in head movement !!! also I think I read somewhere (not sure) that you would need a very good PC to run this without problems. Do not know yet if games should support this or not, I guess they should since they say that the first game that is compatible with it is Doom3. I would love to be able to play dayZ standalone with it though.
Only 110 fov? Looks like I won't be playing quake or tribes on it any time soon, especially considering how the screen is closer to your face and thus requires an even larger fov than normal...
"Only" 110 FOV? Have you actually worked out your FOV when looking at your monitor or television?
I'm sitting a fairly standard distance away (70cm) from a 27" monitor, and I calculated my horizontal FOV to be only 46 degrees. The rift is over double that!
And yet my fov is set to 120 degrees in quake and tribes. I would not be able to play either game as effectively with a lower fov, I guarantee you that.
Don't you lose a lot of awareness at that point? I have an fps (quake) background as well and anything over 110 is too much for me..
On January 18 2013 15:03 TMD wrote: VR was first attempted 20 years ago, using a 'stand in place and look around' mechanic with an over-weighted helmet/glasses and a large fist-grip controller used to shoot at the dragon or whatever was displayed in the 10 polygon environment.
At first glance, this just seems to be a graphical and weight-reduced rehashing of that. Then someone mentioned Skyrim. There would need to be photorealistic graphic capabilities at that point, and some walking mechanic that doesn't involve jogging in place.
There's already a phone based game of slenderman using the camera function, so if this likely expensive hardware will support indie games, there could be an explosive revolution.. or the whole idea itself will die for another 20 years.
This isn't really supposed to be VR though, it's just a new visual interface. You shouldn't expect matrix-like moving around in a room and it being represented in the game, you should just think about how much more awesome it would be to be inside the screen than staring at it. Even in the most simplest terms, it's very interesting. Hell, just think about a flight simulator. You don't need walking around to be represented in the game, you just need to feel like you're sitting in an airplane. The disconnect is bigger with games like skyrim etc where you walk around, fight etc, but I think it will come natural, at least to people like me who immerse in games pretty easily. I already feel like "I'm there" staring at a screen... with a device like this, I would literally feel like I'm in the game, even if I'm still holding a 360 controller in my hand.
On January 18 2013 07:45 dxong wrote: Does it track your eyeball?
Would be so easy to make headshot if the crosshair is being tracked by where you look with your eyeballs
No. There is no eyetracking within the device, nor is this likely to happen for several years at a minimum as the technology to do with sufficient accuracy and latency is not here yet
There is eye tracking technology being developed for gaming that actually got revealed at CES.
i remember being a kid and going to a local trade exhibition and playing duke nukem 3d in "virtual reality" which was just a big ass helmet that would track the x/y and not even in stereoscopic or anything. was just an early mocap thing like the wii, only stuck to your head with a billion cables and hardware the size of a fridge. how times have changed! excited to see where this technology goes.. the whole holo deck thing is so incredibly unlikely for the next 100 years, but as far as gaming immersion goes, i think this would be cool. wont ever be used in competitive gaming, but for the casual wow players this would be extremely cool.
I don't see this taking off or being successful besides catering to an extremely small niche market or to the curious consumer who wishes to spend money. Most gamers aren't going to spend more than $100 just to try out another gaming platform that has a risky future, especially a platform that will no doubt have few games in its library and without any social/internet connectivity. Most AAA developers will avoid it due to small audience (but that could just about buy anything that's available) and right now indie and small developers are being vied by multiple platforms that has access to a larger audience.
On January 18 2013 20:44 BirdKiller wrote: I don't see this taking off or being successful besides catering to an extremely small niche market or to the curious consumer who wishes to spend money. Most gamers aren't going to spend more than $100 just to try out another gaming platform that has a risky future, especially a platform that will no doubt have few games in its library and without any social/internet connectivity. Most AAA developers will avoid it due to small audience (but that could just about buy anything that's available) and right now indie and small developers are being vied by multiple platforms that has access to a larger audience.
It is connected to PC and can be used to play Unreal Tournament. How the hell it would not have internet connectivity, since it acts more like a mouse/keyboard set and not a new console.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
I'm very curious as to why the fuck he went ahead with this. Facebook has literally no products that would take advantage of this technology. Frankly I'm a little pissed that this was even considered by the guys at Oculus, let alone approved.
On March 26 2014 07:09 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote: Wonder what Valve thinks about that since they basically gave them a lot of tech for free.
They're probably okay with it. All they Valve about is how it can be integrated into games, hopefully boosting game sales or creating new games to sell. If they now have an investor to soak up the high costs of developing new technology, they're probably glad that Occulus is now more stable.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
Shares are still worth money. Please don't act like shares aren't a big deal.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
ugh, I hate stupid buys like this
Why is it stupid? It gives OR some breathing room.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
I'm very curious as to why the fuck he went ahead with this. Facebook has literally no products that would take advantage of this technology. Frankly I'm a little pissed that this was even considered by the guys at Oculus, let alone approved.
2 billion. they sold out for 2 billion. I would be okay with this if another investor like Google or Valve bought them, but to sell out to fucking FB of all the damn companies shows that they simply wanted the crash grab and FB offered most. What if Blizz sold out to FB? Yeah both have social aspects and are tech companies, but there is no way in hell that their goals are alike.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
Well this is fucking awful...
I don't get this sentiment. There's nothing to show that facebook is going to shit this up. If anything this investment is showing that they're going to try and be a serious player in the tech world, not just a social network hapstance that made tons of money.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
I'm very curious as to why the fuck he went ahead with this. Facebook has literally no products that would take advantage of this technology. Frankly I'm a little pissed that this was even considered by the guys at Oculus, let alone approved.
Google has a fuck ton of side projects that made no sense. Like automated cars and shit. This outcry is so bullshit.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
$400m. Shares are shares, they go up and down in value and Zuckerberg doesn't really care about them.
ugh, I hate stupid buys like this
Why is it stupid? It gives OR some breathing room.
breathing room? you must know nothing about the millions it raised via crowd funding and pre orders.
They said that they're going to let them continue developent. I think they're just buying it so they have it locked before it gets mainstream coverage in the consumer market and the price goes up.
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
Exactly. If anything this buyout might just give them huge resource to push it forward. It would only look bad if a direct competitor bought out OR to prevent release, but fb is a farcry from competitor with OR.
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
Let me try: Facebook is a shady company that thrives on spying on its users and selling their data to third parties with zero transparency. It has nothing to do with gaming and the direction that they will push VR to will most likely be disgusting "social" (aka gathering your data to sell to marketing firms) applications.
Those eager to cobble together monumental structures in virtual reality will be sad to hear that Minecraft is no longer being developed for the Oculus Rift officially.
In August we reported on a series of tweets from Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson in which the developer stated that he was "VERY excited" by the potential of the Oculus Rift headset. Now that Facebook has acquired Oculus Rift, Persson is singing a different, decidedly unhappy tune. "We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus," Persson tweeted. "I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out."
We've reached out to Persson for more information on why exactly the social networking giant creeps him out. We will update this post with anything we hear back. In the meantime, those especially hard up for some blocky virtual world building may want to take a look at Minecrift, a Minecraft modification that adds Oculus Rift support to the existing version of Mojang's indie hit.
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
Let me try: Facebook is a shady company that thrives on spying on its users and selling their data to third parties with zero transparency. It has nothing to do with gaming and the direction that they will push VR to will most likely be disgusting "social" (aka gathering your data to sell to marketing firms) applications.
Don't dent your tinfoil hat there.
For everyone else who's not living in a faraday's cage and already has a facebook nothing really changes.
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
Let me try: Facebook is a shady company that thrives on spying on its users and selling their data to third parties with zero transparency. It has nothing to do with gaming and the direction that they will push VR to will most likely be disgusting "social" (aka gathering your data to sell to marketing firms) applications.
Don't dent your tinfoil hat there.
For everyone else who's not living in a faraday's cage and already has a facebook nothing really changes.
Tinfoil hat? That's like the only reason for Facebook to exist. Where exactly do you think they get those billions that they've been throwing around lately, by being nice guys and helping your friends see the pictures of your cat?
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
Let me try: Facebook is a shady company that thrives on spying on its users and selling their data to third parties with zero transparency. It has nothing to do with gaming and the direction that they will push VR to will most likely be disgusting "social" (aka gathering your data to sell to marketing firms) applications.
Don't dent your tinfoil hat there.
For everyone else who's not living in a faraday's cage and already has a facebook nothing really changes.
Tinfoil hat? That's like the only reason for Facebook to exist. Where exactly do you think they get those billions that they've been throwing around lately, by being nice guys and helping your friends see the pictures of your cat?
It's hardly shady. I think everyone is aware that they target advertisement to each person. But there's no fucking evidence in regards to their plans with the OR yet. For all we know it's simple buyout to ride on it's sales tailcoat as it comes out, or highly integrated social software.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
They also bought WhatsApp last month, for $16 billions + another $3 billions in payouts.
I'm actually surprised, considering Facebook did horrible when they went public, that they have that much money to throw around. I guess Facebook is a sure thing no matter what when it comes to money.
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
Let me try: Facebook is a shady company that thrives on spying on its users and selling their data to third parties with zero transparency. It has nothing to do with gaming and the direction that they will push VR to will most likely be disgusting "social" (aka gathering your data to sell to marketing firms) applications.
Yet the funds and the huge amount of user might be what's needed for vr to go big, even beyond gaming
Facebook has bought Occulus VR for 2 Billion Dollars. Facebook's goddamn rich, throwing out these billion dollar investments. First they buy Instagram for a billion. And they apparently think Occulus VR is worth twice as much as that.
They also bought WhatsApp last month, for $16 billions + another $3 billions in payouts.
I'm actually surprised, considering Facebook did horrible when they went public, that they have that much money to throw around. I guess Facebook is a sure thing no matter what when it comes to money.
Isn't it normally better for the technology when the company making it is independent? Like when it gets bought out a lot of management gets thrown in slowing down development.
I'm going to wait and see and how bad this really is. As long as the Oculus software/hardware does not require me to do anything related to other facebook products, then I am fine.
Well, that's unfortunate. I am still very much interested in the technology and would like to see the final product, but it has been downgraded from "must buy" to "curiosity".
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
A company lead by a narcist half-sociopath man-teen that only desire is to give satisfaction to the companies stockholders is not hurting a future basic technology owned by that company.
I'm pretty sure that FB is just seeing this as an opportunity to visualize social encounters. I really don't have an issue with this since it will simply pour more money into the OR.
My issue are:
1) Please, no required FB integration. 2) No spying, kk plz.
On March 26 2014 11:24 GinDo wrote: I'm pretty sure that FB is just seeing this as an opportunity to visualize social encounters. I really don't have an issue with this since it will simply pour more money into the OR.
My issue are:
1) Please, no required FB integration. 2) No spying, kk plz.
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
Let me try: Facebook is a shady company that thrives on spying on its users and selling their data to third parties with zero transparency. It has nothing to do with gaming and the direction that they will push VR to will most likely be disgusting "social" (aka gathering your data to sell to marketing firms) applications.
spying is the least crime they do. the biggest is filtering and shaping the public oppinion together with google
btw here something to think about facebook, google and data glasses n stuff
I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
On March 26 2014 11:47 Serejai wrote: I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
Gaming is dead. Instead of Kickstarting tech companies to be bought with Facebook, support your local libraries with that money. They do not track your movements or sell your data. Read books again and become enlightened, watch good DVDs and listen to real music. The only way to beat these guys is just to stop participating.
OR just sold out for peanuts. Now FB can send ads directly into your brain and you can't look away and the NSA has a new toy to study your brains and eyes. If VR takes off FB is making 200 billion for this on your bodies minds and souls thanks to that parasite Zuckerberg. If that doesn't upset you then you aren't aware of anything or understand this issue even from a basic level. Also John Carmack one of my gaming heroes sold out too.
Its one of the darkest days in gaming history, at least as bad as when EA bought Bioware but probably much worse.
On March 26 2014 12:38 WoodLeagueAllStar wrote: Gaming is dead. Instead of Kickstarting tech companies to be bought with Facebook, support your local libraries with that money. They do not track your movements or sell your data. Read books again and become enlightened, watch good DVDs and listen to real music. The only way to beat these guys is just to stop participating.
OR just sold out for peanuts. Now FB can send ads directly into your brain and you can't look away and the NSA has a new toy to study your brains and eyes. If VR takes off FB is making 200 billion for this on your bodies minds and souls thanks to that parasite Zuckerberg. If that doesn't upset you then you aren't aware of anything or understand this issue even from a basic level. Also John Carmack one of my gaming heroes sold out too.
Its one of the darkest days in gaming history, at least as bad as when EA bought Bioware but probably much worse.
That certainly sounds a little too doom's dayish. It's the world we live in, people make programs and have ideas, then the big guys try to buy them out.
Microsoft did it with Skype, Facebook did it with Instagram and WhatsApp, I believe SnapChat received a lot of offers too, but declined?
In any case, it's not the first and won't be the last. I don't exactly trust Zuckerberg as someone who respects people's privacy, so I'm certainly skeptical (if not down right suspicious) as to what he has in mind for this. I still remember his statement about his own belief that there is no such thing as privacy anymore... shudders.
On March 26 2014 11:47 Serejai wrote: I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
Assumptions. Deliver a source.
edit: about that "better" version
Assumptions? I tried them both at GDC. No need to fanboy for Rift - especially when every tech site on the internet says they are equal or the Morpheus is slightly better.
On one hand, I cant help but laughed myself out for 1 hours straight reading reddit about this news. The amount of hate facebook got in the last 2 years has been phenomenal and the reaction of Notch and Carmack were just icing on the cake.
On the other hand, my roommates work(ed) at facebook.... I have a good understanding of how the decisions are made and how the company handle damage control for things like this. Believe it or not, majority of facebook is made off tech community and they, just the same as you, read and use social media platforms such as reddit and twitter. They know how the news are received or, to put it more precisely, they knew how the news would be received. 2 Billions is a very small number here considering how monopoly VR is on the market(only competitor is Sony which not likely to target PC) and only 400mil of those were in cash. It is a strategic business deal for facebook and they did it correctly as any effective corporation would do in their position.
The one to blame here is no one else but the current owner of Occulus team. Its a clear cash grab no matter how you put it. And its a stupid cash grab as well... Im quite sure microsoft would have won the bid given the sony news on their own device but facebook is just a PR nightmare. The damage control for the brand gona excess what ever 400mil could buy you. Even developers are pulling out, leading by Notch, one of the major backer of the kickstarter.
The owners of OR have probably had the chance to sell themselves long before now, hell I was honestly surprised they weren't folded into Valve. With this however I think that OR wanted to avoid being pigeon-holed into being a gaming-only thing, though that is the application that could see the highest adoption rates as of now.
For Facebook on the other hand... I'll be curious to see what they do with this. I'm pretty sure they have enough smart people to realize no one is going to pick up an OR set to play Candy Crush in VR with ads spammed across their eyes. Personally I would have though augmented-reality rather than virtual would suit Facebook so much better. I could see things like VR conferencing and such being built into Facebook chat and such though.
Personally I don't like it, but that might just be the Luddite in me speaking: I love the idea of VR for games and entertainment once it becomes available I'll be first in line, but I'm a lot more leery about the use of VR in the mainstream world to supplant reality. Maybe I've just read too much science-fiction novels, but I could see a slippery slope to a physically disconnected Matrix-like world.
Ah Facebook, reminding me of the sad reality that is the world.
Unfortunately, I am not as optimistic as elt about what this means for the gaming side of this product.
"Log in to Facebook before you can play this game." "Here are some ads before you can play this game." "Here are the limited games we will let you play (Candy Crush, YAY!), and every 15 minutes you get an add! Isn't that great?" "Oh look we will post automatic updates on your page to constantly let everyone know you're playing this!" "Don't mind us just gathering and selling even more of your information!" "Wouldn't you rather be VIRTUAL CHATTING WITH YOUR FRIENDS INSTEAD OF PLAYING GAMES?!"
They don't want this to be a gaming tool. They want this to be an everything tool. That is not cool for me. VR for things other than gaming will happen eventually... but why now? Make it stable and improve it with gaming first. And if other people want to bring their personal life into VR, let THEM do so afterwards. Don't take a gaming device and turn it into something no one wants it to be. I also agree with elt that virtual reality and many aspects of our lives should not be combined.
I don't have a facebook account and I never plan on having one because of the extreme invasion of privacy I consider it to be. I was legitimately excited by this product. I was planning on getting it; no doubt in my mind. It was the next big thing in gaming and could really open up the way for new types of exploration-based games and games we are used to but on another level. I am now 99% certain I will never get it. Up to Facebook to prove me wrong that this will have no integration with facebook, will not steal my data, will not be a glorified smart phone and will not limit what the original vision of the product was.
On March 26 2014 15:05 Kurr wrote: Ah Facebook, reminding me of the sad reality that is the world.
Unfortunately, I am not as optimistic as elt about what this means for the gaming side of this product.
"Log in to Facebook before you can play this game." "Here are some ads before you can play this game." "Here are the limited games we will let you play (Candy Crush, YAY!), and every 15 minutes you get an add! Isn't that great?" "Oh look we will post automatic updates on your page to constantly let everyone know you're playing this!" "Don't mind us just gathering and selling even more of your information!" "Wouldn't you rather be VIRTUAL CHATTING WITH YOUR FRIENDS INSTEAD OF PLAYING GAMES?!"
They don't want this to be a gaming tool. They want this to be an everything tool. That is not cool for me. VR for things other than gaming will happen eventually... but why now? Make it stable and improve it with gaming first. And if other people want to bring their personal life into VR, let THEM do so afterwards. Don't take a gaming device and turn it into something no one wants it to be. I also agree with elt that virtual reality and many aspects of our lives should not be combined.
I don't have a facebook account and I never plan on having one because of the extreme invasion of privacy I consider it to be. I was legitimately excited by this product. I was planning on getting it; no doubt in my mind. It was the next big thing in gaming and could really open up the way for new types of exploration-based games and games we are used to but on another level. I am now 99% certain I will never get it. Up to Facebook to prove me wrong that this will have no integration with facebook, will not steal my data, will not be a glorified smart phone and will not limit what the original vision of the product was.
Ok so I'm a early backer of oculus rift and i'm also really pissed off but the things you just point out are plain exageration.
There will be no connexion to facebook require for the rift and all this bullshit.
The main concern here as you mentionned is that Oculus rift may become in the future be much more compatible with social interaction software and might have a development less oriented into video games.
It's not the webcam that will suggest adds but the software like skype that use the webcam. I don't think the driver software for occulus rift will need facebook account or any shit like that. But this is sure a big blow for perspective of a "gaming" device for OR .
On March 26 2014 21:41 endy wrote: Hmm does being a backer entitle you to a share of the company? If so then it's a pretty good news for all the backers?
No it's not. Usually when you backup a kickstarter campaign you gain some fan stuff + a finished version of the product if you pledged enough. You don't own anything and don't have any right except claiming what was promized to you.
On March 26 2014 21:41 endy wrote: Hmm does being a backer entitle you to a share of the company? If so then it's a pretty good news for all the backers?
No it's not. Usually when you backup a kickstarter campaign you gain some fan stuff + a finished version of the product if you pledged enough. You don't own anything and don't have any right except claiming what was promized to you.
Well they certainly have enough capital now to print a couple of cool t-shirts for all the early backers :D
A somewhat savvy move by Facebook, They're likely growing jealousy over how well Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, pretty much every other big silicon valley company, are doing off of hardware. The battle for the web rages on, but while Facebook has a presence on nearly every device in consumer's hands, they don't have a device of their own to be a flagship product.
However, what I don't get is, why start with Occulus Rift? I would have expected a mobile phone company before this. Zuck addresses this by saying he's "preparing for the next platform" and rattles off a bunch of things you could do with OR besides gaming. I agree that OR has great appeal as a "spectator emulator" for sports and movies, but is facebook really in the best position to grow it into that, aside from the fact that they have cash?
I don't think Occulus Rift is the next physical platform we will pump our data through. If Zuck imagines it's going to replace television though, I bet he's willing to put his money where his mouth is.
On March 26 2014 11:47 Serejai wrote: I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
Assumptions. Deliver a source.
edit: about that "better" version
Assumptions? I tried them both at GDC. No need to fanboy for Rift - especially when every tech site on the internet says they are equal or the Morpheus is slightly better.
As a PC player, why should I be interested in Sony's VR headset? I bet there's a lot of people who don't have a PS4 and are waiting for Oculus Rift.
On March 26 2014 11:47 Serejai wrote: I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
Assumptions. Deliver a source.
edit: about that "better" version
Assumptions? I tried them both at GDC. No need to fanboy for Rift - especially when every tech site on the internet says they are equal or the Morpheus is slightly better.
As a PC player, why should I be interested in Sony's VR headset? I bet there's a lot of people who don't have a PS4 and are waiting for Oculus Rift.
I would be extremely shocked if Morpheus wasn't available for PC as well considering the head of SOE has already stated their upcoming PC MMO will support VR and I can't imagine them using Rift for that over their own product.
On March 26 2014 11:47 Serejai wrote: I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
Assumptions. Deliver a source.
edit: about that "better" version
Assumptions? I tried them both at GDC. No need to fanboy for Rift - especially when every tech site on the internet says they are equal or the Morpheus is slightly better.
As a PC player, why should I be interested in Sony's VR headset? I bet there's a lot of people who don't have a PS4 and are waiting for Oculus Rift.
I would be extremely shocked if Morpheus wasn't available for PC as well considering the head of SOE has already stated their upcoming PC MMO will support VR and I can't imagine them using Rift for that over their own product.
What tech websites are you reading? What I've read so far is that Oculus Rift looks worse, but the head tracking and display are supposed to be much much better. Haven't tried either, but I'm assuming with all the fb money they will be able to make it look more stylish as well. That said, Morpheus looks like something Daft Punk would wear, not me.
"Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate."
I had really high hopes in the Oculus Rift, because I wanted a new immersive gaming platform to be able to withdraw from the outside from time to time, thus I'm quite pissed off right now, seeing Zuckerberg absolutely destroying that, but at least I didn't invest any money into this. I always knew that Kickstarter is unreliable at best.
On March 26 2014 11:47 Serejai wrote: I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
Assumptions. Deliver a source.
edit: about that "better" version
Assumptions? I tried them both at GDC. No need to fanboy for Rift - especially when every tech site on the internet says they are equal or the Morpheus is slightly better.
As a PC player, why should I be interested in Sony's VR headset? I bet there's a lot of people who don't have a PS4 and are waiting for Oculus Rift.
I would be extremely shocked if Morpheus wasn't available for PC as well considering the head of SOE has already stated their upcoming PC MMO will support VR and I can't imagine them using Rift for that over their own product.
On March 27 2014 01:07 Spaylz wrote: So, wait, what does this mean exactly for the Kickstarter backers?
I can't imagine them taking it well. I know I wouldn't.
It doesnt change anything for kickstarter backer, Oculus already delivered on their kickstarter promise, the kickstarted money allowed them to produce the DK1 and send them to backers, plus selling around 50 000 more of them. Now that the company was successfully KICKSTARTED, they received investment from venture capital worth 100 million, worked on the second version of the dev kit that will be shipped around july (kickstarter was not involved anymore), and now Facebook bought the whole thing for 2 billion. People that chip in a kickstarter are not investors, and occulus delivered now you can think that facebook is or isnt the best way for them to grow VR in the future, but there is no reason kickstater backer should feel like that have any say in this matter.
As one of the Kickstarter backers, I got pissed off at first, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm disliking the decision less and less.
Facebook has left previous acquisitions WhatsApp and Instagram untouched for the most part, it makes sense that Facebook would want to diversify their business while their stock is up, they have little incentive to use the Rift as a weapon to use against their competitors as companies such as Microsoft or EA might, a $2 bil capital injection could genuinely be beneficial for the development of the Rift, and while there's no doubt that Facebook is going to build social apps on the platform, I doubt that Zuckerberg and Co. are stupid enough to outright force tracking and advertising onto people buying a peripheral costing hundreds of dollars. My main concern is that the Rift's specs could be slashed for the sake of cutting costs.
I have yet to understand the problem with facebook buying the whole thing, the only arguments I've heard so far are "they will add facebook integration" , "fuck facebook", and "zuckenberg called us dumbfucks"
On March 27 2014 01:47 ZCive2 wrote: I have yet to understand the problem with facebook buying the whole thing, the only arguments I've heard so far are "they will add facebook integration" , "fuck facebook", and "zuckenberg called us dumbfucks"
I think my problem with facebook being involved is that facebook has not really been know to care about things like game quality or anything of the sort. Their main concern as far as games have gone about as far as "How can we milk incredibly simple games for the maximum amount of money?". It is essentially the site that invented and popularized cow clickers and games available there have strayed little from that path ever since.
This leaves me a bit worried and somewhat confused because I don't understand exactly what facebook wants to do with it. I don't understand how the cow clicker experience would be improved by a device like the OR, especially not in a big enough way that it would convince the very casual gamers to buy a fairly expensive device. Which pretty much leaves it for some kind of integration into the social network aspect, which I also don't understand how the OR would really improve to the point where it would be worth buying it for it. I guess they could make some sort of large 3D world chat thingy where you could actually move around as a character of sorts and interact with people in the facebook 'universe'. A social MMO if you will. Pretty much WoW without the actual gameplay.
Still this leaves me mostly confused and a bit worried what direction things will take.
On March 27 2014 01:47 ZCive2 wrote: I have yet to understand the problem with facebook buying the whole thing, the only arguments I've heard so far are "they will add facebook integration" , "fuck facebook", and "zuckenberg called us dumbfucks"
it's normal that people are skeptical, but I agree a lot of the facebook-bashing seems a bit hypocritical-hipster-ish.
chances are that a more high quality version of the tech will arrive to us much sooner than it would have otherwise, to be honest the people who were thinking occulus could remain an "indie" company for the long-haul were not being realistic.
I really wouldn't worry that we'll be getting pestered by coca cola ads while playing through Elder Scrolls VI... and if they did implement something that obnoxious then at least you won't have to go far to complain along with everyone else on facebook.
essentially this is a long term investment and facebook probably doesn't even have a full idea yet what they expect to get from it. They're just buying the "land" now while it's relatively cheap, and once things get further along in development they'll be able to make more specific moves with their new tech. Regarding the comment above, I think it's safe to assume that there will be other devs than just facebook making apps for the OR. So while there might be a bunch of asinine VR cow-clickers, there will probably be some good stuff as well (the indie game market doesn't seem to be dying out any time soon).
On March 27 2014 02:03 Badboyrune wrote:A social MMO if you will. Pretty much WoW without the actual gameplay.
cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional in the US
Actually there's a gaming exhibit at the IT museum in Stockholm where they pretty much have a whole section with failed gaming devices. Was pretty cool to see actually, it's funny to think about how many devices just totally flopped. But a lot of it has to do with being ahead-of-their-time as well... I think it's fair to say that VR tech has come a long way in the last 15+ years.
On March 27 2014 02:40 TheFish7 wrote: Well I hope they saved a place in the museum of failed gaming devices next to this guy
On March 27 2014 02:03 Badboyrune wrote:A social MMO if you will. Pretty much WoW without the actual gameplay.
cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional in the US
Actually there's a gaming exhibit at the IT museum in Stockholm where they pretty much have a whole section with failed gaming devices. Was pretty cool to see actually, it's funny to think about how many devices just totally flopped. But a lot of it has to do with being ahead-of-their-time as well... I think it's fair to say that VR tech has come a long way in the last 15+ years.
That's pretty cool, now I want to go to Stockholm. I'm sure we'll have VR tech at some point in the future, I just don't think facebook will be the company to do it. I could be wrong though who knows, maybe the Second Life crowd will be all over this. Either that or VR porn will take the world by storm
On March 27 2014 04:13 Animzor wrote: People still use facebook? I mean other than children.
Aren't the latest information that only old people use this while young people switched to other platforms? Anyway, I never used this garbage and I will also stay away from Oculus Rift.
On March 26 2014 08:07 Yoshi- wrote: So whats the logical reason to hate?
There really isn't any reason to believe that Facebook will do any harm to it
saves me from alt+tabbing in game. I can dig it.
i know it's satire but facebook devs are not daft enough to release a product with such crappy interface. also it's generally not a healthy marketing tactic to piss people off. I think it's more likely any ads in games/ VR will be done subtly, such as with instagram sponsorships: http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/03/the-beautiful-invasion-sponsorship-and-instagram/
I kinda think it's a win-win situation for both parties in this deal.
Facebook gains a way to make the vr a social platform and become a leader in technology in that field. Now they can be the first to utilize the vr for "video call" or even develop a virtual chat room, etc. Pretty much they can become a market leader in this field, and they do not have to touch any gaming side of Oculus at all.
Oculus gains capital and expertise to survive in the long run and access to better negotiation power to other parties, such as suppliers, etc. I don't really think that Facebook would be that stupid to force a direction on how Oculus should be developed to be honest, except maybe on making a software team that would integrated or write a new program for Rift to make it usable as a social platform.
On March 26 2014 11:47 Serejai wrote: I'm surprised so many people are still interested in occulus rift when Sony has a better version coming out sooner and are already developing their next gen games to work with it.
Assumptions. Deliver a source.
edit: about that "better" version
Assumptions? I tried them both at GDC. No need to fanboy for Rift - especially when every tech site on the internet says they are equal or the Morpheus is slightly better.
As a PC player, why should I be interested in Sony's VR headset? I bet there's a lot of people who don't have a PS4 and are waiting for Oculus Rift.
Sony has been putting gimmicky features like controller light which turns out to be very well implemented.
I personally think them being experienced in vr such as psvita and Sony mobile z1 etc and combine that with their recent path would make a very interesting product
God damn it, why of all companies did they have to sellout to FB...i bet they gonna implement a FB log in requirement... And i was soooo looking forward to play War Thunder with this...
Holy crap! I'm only 2 days late but I'm surprised I didn't hear about this sooner; I should get back on to IRC where all the cool kids are.
I don't know what to think aside from the fact that my initial impression of the situation is dreadful.
WTF about the fact Occulus was a Kickstarter project? That totally sucks for all those kickstarter supporters. Certainly nothing is likely breaking tort law, but it sure is a really underhanded move nonetheless (for 2 billion I can't say I wouldn't do the same though).
While I'm very cynical about Facebook, one still has to see how things go before getting too crazy.
Is this Facebook's first leap into hardware? It seems like a strange thing to buy into considering that VR isn't something that's used for this sort of stuff, and we seem to be a long way away from it unless you count Second Life sort of stuff. Second Life probably couldn't afford it but it would have made a lot more sense of they bought it, or EA, or something.
I dislike Facebook more than most people here I would guess, but you/I wouldn't initially know/think it based on many of these comments people are going on about FB. The issue I have with many of your comments is that you talk about this FB—Occulus thing as if similar stuff hasn't already occurred or that you aren't a part of it. Personally, I consider Steam to be a huge infringement on user freedom, and it's why I boycott Steam (the software) despite the fact I have no issue with their website (digital distribution and community), and that Valve makes great games.
Many of you say you wouldn't use a [somehow] Facebook-linked/related Occulus Rift but if Steam is any precedent I have my doubts. Am I crazy/mistaken to compare Steam to this? Yeah kinda, at least it would be to compare Facebook itself, but what Facebook does with Occulus might be very non-infringing and of low severity and hence somewhat comparable.
Also, if we are talking about selling out, then Oculus company actually sold out a long time ago when they got the second investment since those investors also hold the share and can place many constraints on the company.
So selling to facebook might be those VC call. Or maybe Luckey feels like he needs to jump to a better investor that can benefit more freedom in company's decision.
On March 27 2014 17:06 Bosu wrote: The kickstarter people have no reason to be upset. They payed for a dev kit and got a dev kit that works quite well.
People were so excited that they donated almost 10 times what Lucky Palmer said he needed to get this off the ground. For him to then take the product that we have invested in and were THAT excited about, and sell it to a company like Facebook, the unplanned pregnancy of the social media world, is a kick in the nuts to the backers, and everyone else who was excited about it.
If I had known that they were going to take my/everyones money, turn around and sell to a company that couldn't give two shits about immersion in gaming, (or privacy, but that's another topic) I would have kept my money.
If I had known that they were going to take my/everyones money, turn around and sell to a company that couldn't give two shits about immersion in gaming, (or privacy, but that's another topic) I would have kept my money.
see, people keep saying this, but nothing to back it up. if anything fb is all about making money, they wouldn't limit it's big chunk of OR's market by making it solely an social immersion device, when it could just as easily be translated to a gaming accessory, and make tons more money.
If I had known that they were going to take my/everyones money, turn around and sell to a company that couldn't give two shits about immersion in gaming, (or privacy, but that's another topic) I would have kept my money.
see, people keep saying this, but nothing to back it up. if anything fb is all about making money, they wouldn't limit it's big chunk of OR's market by making it solely an social immersion device, when it could just as easily be translated to a gaming accessory, and make tons more money.
Does Facebook have games? Yes. Are they fun? Sometimes, maybe. Did Facebook write any of these games? No.
The emphasis for the Rift was that it was For Gamers, By Gamers. Are you honestly trying to suggest that Facebook, all of a sudden, has the same fiery passion for this product that the backers of KS had?
On March 28 2014 02:58 HackBenjamin wrote: People were so excited that they donated almost 10 times what Lucky Palmer said he needed to get this off the ground. For him to then take the product that we have invested in and were THAT excited about, and sell it to a company like Facebook, the unplanned pregnancy of the social media world, is a kick in the nuts to the backers, and everyone else who was excited about it.
You didn't invest. You donated some money to a guy..
On March 27 2014 15:10 Samba wrote: God damn it, why of all companies did they have to sellout to FB...i bet they gonna implement a FB log in requirement... And i was soooo looking forward to play War Thunder with this...
While it will probably support FB integration, I honestly doubt it would require it. The idea behind FB integration is that they can link a profile/human to certain activities. With a unique device ID (which each OR will have) they already have this "static" factor to identify a profile/human - and can link your activity to that factor. I a world where your TVs collect data about your watching patterns (and the content of your USB media) you can suspect that the OR will probably phone home as well. Especially considering that FB is a company which gains money by user information.
For me personally the OR went from "must buy as soon as the CV releases" to a "let's wait some months before tech savvy people can double & triple check it" interest. Maybe everything will really be optional, since it's the fist FB product which is actually hardware, where the consumer might not be the product.
On March 27 2014 17:06 Bosu wrote: The kickstarter people have no reason to be upset. They payed for a dev kit and got a dev kit that works quite well.
People were so excited that they donated almost 10 times what Lucky Palmer said he needed to get this off the ground. For him to then take the product that we have invested in and were THAT excited about, and sell it to a company like Facebook, the unplanned pregnancy of the social media world, is a kick in the nuts to the backers, and everyone else who was excited about it.
If I had known that they were going to take my/everyones money, turn around and sell to a company that couldn't give two shits about immersion in gaming, (or privacy, but that's another topic) I would have kept my money.
Unfortunately, Kickstarter is the business world equivalent of a crazy homeless person panhandling in the streets. If you plan on donating to anything through kickstarter, do not expect to see a return on investment.
If I had known that they were going to take my/everyones money, turn around and sell to a company that couldn't give two shits about immersion in gaming, (or privacy, but that's another topic) I would have kept my money.
see, people keep saying this, but nothing to back it up. if anything fb is all about making money, they wouldn't limit it's big chunk of OR's market by making it solely an social immersion device, when it could just as easily be translated to a gaming accessory, and make tons more money.
Does Facebook have games? Yes. Are they fun? Sometimes, maybe. Did Facebook write any of these games? No.
The emphasis for the Rift was that it was For Gamers, By Gamers. Are you honestly trying to suggest that Facebook, all of a sudden, has the same fiery passion for this product that the backers of KS had?
I think FB has fiery passion for money, like anyone else. Are gamers big ez money? yes. Is the OR an easy product to sell to gamers? yes. Does Facebook want to make money? Yes. How hard is that to understand?
On March 28 2014 03:38 Zocat wrote: You didn't invest. You donated some money to a guy..
in·vest /inˈvest/ verb: invest; 3rd person present: invests; past tense: invested; past participle: invested; gerund or present participle: investing
1. expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.
synonyms: put money into, provide capital for, fund, back, finance, subsidize, bankroll, underwrite; More
Do you even have a point? Or just shitposting to stir the pot? You can change the word I used, "invest" for "donate" and my point is still the same.
If I had known that they were going to take my/everyones money, turn around and sell to a company that couldn't give two shits about immersion in gaming, (or privacy, but that's another topic) I would have kept my money.
see, people keep saying this, but nothing to back it up. if anything fb is all about making money, they wouldn't limit it's big chunk of OR's market by making it solely an social immersion device, when it could just as easily be translated to a gaming accessory, and make tons more money.
Does Facebook have games? Yes. Are they fun? Sometimes, maybe. Did Facebook write any of these games? No.
The emphasis for the Rift was that it was For Gamers, By Gamers. Are you honestly trying to suggest that Facebook, all of a sudden, has the same fiery passion for this product that the backers of KS had?
I think FB has fiery passion for money, like anyone else. Are gamers big ez money? yes. Is the OR an easy product to sell to gamers? yes. Does Facebook want to make money? Yes. How hard is that to understand?
Excuse me, but did I at some point convey to you that I don't understand the motivation behind this aqquisition?
in·vest /inˈvest/ verb: invest; 3rd person present: invests; past tense: invested; past participle: invested; gerund or present participle: investing
1. expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.
synonyms: put money into, provide capital for, fund, back, finance, subsidize, bankroll, underwrite; More
Do you even have a point? Or just shitposting to stir the pot? You can change the word I used, "invest" for "donate" and my point is still the same.
What he means is that investing typically involves some sort of rate of return. If you backed the KS you got what they promised you, and have no right to ask for more of that, as you don't hold any share in the company like you would in a typical "investment".
On March 28 2014 03:38 Zocat wrote: You didn't invest. You donated some money to a guy..
in·vest /inˈvest/ verb: invest; 3rd person present: invests; past tense: invested; past participle: invested; gerund or present participle: investing
1. expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.
synonyms: put money into, provide capital for, fund, back, finance, subsidize, bankroll, underwrite; More
Do you even have a point? Or just shitposting to stir the pot? You can change the word I used, "invest" for "donate" and my point is still the same.
What he means is that investing typically involves some sort of rate of return. If you backed the KS you got what they promised you, and have no right to ask for more of that, as you don't hold any share in the company like you would in a typical "investment".
The point of not having a right to ask for more than what they got is irrelevant. I don't think people are asking for anything else; People are pissed, and they certainly have a right to be. If the gaming community had been informed that there was potential for this venture to be sold to Facebook, of all companies, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have made 2.4 million dollars in "donations".
On March 28 2014 04:46 Serejai wrote: It has now been confirmed that the Sony Morpheus will run on PC in addition to PS4. RIP Rift.
RIP is pretty premature since Rift pretty much already open up to wider target market. Also, there are a lot of gamers that still are very excited for Rift and don't care about Facebook acquisition.
What I see around the internet are pretty much kneejerk reactions without any rationale thought, this really make me feel embarrassed as a gamer... I would say that Nathan Grayson from RPS summed up my feeling the best here:
"At this point, we can speculate and knee-jerk all we want, but we can’t *know*. I personally am hoping for the best, but only time will tell. This could be VR’s greatest triumph or most crushing defeat. For now all we can do is strap on our goggles, take a virtual front row seat, and cross our fingers for the best."
I should probably don a flameproof suit before divulging my commentary, but here goes...
From my understanding of this, its simply a monitor that fits on your head and grants you vision to whatever direction your head turns to, right?
I feel like to really ramp things up, we would need to get new peripherals as well. And a standalone console to go with it. Like a suit you can recline in. Think of the APUs from the matrix revolutions and you guys got the same idea as me then.
Captions must be turned on to read the dialogue (lazy author I guess)
On March 28 2014 11:55 BreAKerTV wrote: I should probably don a flameproof suit before divulging my commentary, but here goes...
From my understanding of this, its simply a monitor that fits on your head and grants you vision to whatever direction your head turns to, right?
I feel like to really ramp things up, we would need to get new peripherals as well. And a standalone console to go with it. Like a suit you can recline in. Think of the APUs from the matrix revolutions and you guys got the same idea as me then.
It not just a monitor close to your eyes, but a "perfect" 3D monitor which envelops your entire vision so that it's MUCH MUCH more immersive and realistic —so much so that it causes people to lose their balance and fall over if they're watching something intense on the Rift while standing. You should watch some Oculus Rift reaction videos and reviews if you haven't heard about this before. Aside from the great 3D view that it gives, it also responds to your head's tilt and position so that you get very accurate feedback to make it even more realistic and believable. It ain't your grandma's 3D, but revolutionary VR, which is why so many people are/were excited, and are now upset, and why it sold for 2 billion dollar value.
Yes new peripherals are useful for the Oculus, but they're not really necessary; Many of them would be unnecessarily unwieldy for many games/purposes. That said, such peripherals do exist already and are cool in their own right; devices like the Razer Hydra, Leap Motion controller, and Virtuix Omni (omnidirectional "treadmill").
I would love to see a sequel/remake of Descent made, and I would especially love to play it in VR with the Rift (or perhaps something else like the Sony Morpheus now)
On March 28 2014 15:42 Xapti wrote: I would love to see a sequel/remake of Descent made, and I would especially love to play it in VR with the Rift (or perhaps something else like the Sony Morpheus now)
On March 28 2014 04:46 Serejai wrote: It has now been confirmed that the Sony Morpheus will run on PC in addition to PS4. RIP Rift.
RIP is pretty premature since Rift pretty much already open up to wider target market. Also, there are a lot of gamers that still are very excited for Rift and don't care about Facebook acquisition.
What I see around the internet are pretty much kneejerk reactions without any rationale thought, this really make me feel embarrassed as a gamer... I would say that Nathan Grayson from RPS summed up my feeling the best here:
"At this point, we can speculate and knee-jerk all we want, but we can’t *know*. I personally am hoping for the best, but only time will tell. This could be VR’s greatest triumph or most crushing defeat. For now all we can do is strap on our goggles, take a virtual front row seat, and cross our fingers for the best."
I agree. I haven't backed the KS itself but I did get my sdk some while ago and I think this acquisition is a huge step forward. I would have been a lot happier if it were valve or google instead of facebook but we can't have everything can we . Yesterday I went to a classmates dinner and the opinions expressed were pretty much like on the internet. Some guys quickly saying the deal is going to kill OR and then listening to our opinions and actually conceding us some points. The discussion on Hacker news was a lot like this too.
I read somewhere (think it was even here few pages back) that facebook has no use for OR and will slowly kill it. This can't be more false. Facebook has a big $%& huge use for virtual reality. They're a social network, how can you not use a virtual reality headset to turn a social network website into a full social network virtual world?!
Also the news that Minecraft creator is giving up on OR because of Facebook is just a load of emo crap. That is the same guy that didnt wanted to release MC on steam because they controlled too much market. Anyone gonna argue that Valve is a bad company and/or killed projects? (except for hl3 ofc)
On March 28 2014 04:46 Serejai wrote: It has now been confirmed that the Sony Morpheus will run on PC in addition to PS4. RIP Rift.
RIP is pretty premature since Rift pretty much already open up to wider target market. Also, there are a lot of gamers that still are very excited for Rift and don't care about Facebook acquisition.
What I see around the internet are pretty much kneejerk reactions without any rationale thought, this really make me feel embarrassed as a gamer... I would say that Nathan Grayson from RPS summed up my feeling the best here:
"At this point, we can speculate and knee-jerk all we want, but we can’t *know*. I personally am hoping for the best, but only time will tell. This could be VR’s greatest triumph or most crushing defeat. For now all we can do is strap on our goggles, take a virtual front row seat, and cross our fingers for the best."
Also the news that Minecraft creator is giving up on OR because of Facebook is just a load of emo crap. That is the same guy that didnt wanted to release MC on steam because they controlled too much market. Anyone gonna argue that Valve is a bad company and/or killed projects? (except for hl3 ofc)
Facebook doesn't exactly have an exemplary track record when it comes to things like privacy, transparency, or even listening to its user base. I wouldn't call Notch's reaction "emo", especially when he gave the OR guys $10,000, only to have OR turn around and sell themselves to Facebook inside of a week.
Note: this was posted before the whole Oculus—Facebook news. I am also well aware that it isn't necessarily true, but the stuff which I read sounds extremely reasonable/probable. Based on the assumption that most of that info is correct, I'd take my chances with Oculus over Sony — namely since Sony's product will be PS4-only and they'll probably have it difficult to work for the PC (I don't see it being impossible though, but maybe that's too naive of a thought?). Sony's always been pretty proprietary and controlling about things, much like Apple, and that's something I do not appreciate.
Whether Facebook acts "evil"/insidious, or relatively nice, I don't see how they will earn significant profit/power with the 2 billion dollar move they made — so I don't know what to think. I do think that at the least, power users will not have any problems with the Oculus whatsoever since they will be able to control the hardware without having to deal with junk that Facebook might bundle with the Rift drivers.
Note: this was posted before the whole Oculus—Facebook news. I am also well aware that it isn't necessarily true, but the stuff which I read sounds extremely reasonable/probable. Based on the assumption that most of that info is correct, I'd take my chances with Oculus over Sony — namely since Sony's product will be PS4-only and they'll probably have it difficult to work for the PC (I don't see it being impossible though, but maybe that's too naive of a thought?). Sony's always been pretty proprietary and controlling about things, much like Apple, and that's something I do not appreciate.
Whether Facebook acts "evil"/insidious, or relatively nice, I don't see how they will earn significant profit/power with the 2 billion dollar move they made — so I don't know what to think. I do think that at the least, power users will not have any problems with the Oculus whatsoever since they will be able to control the hardware without having to deal with junk that Facebook might bundle with the Rift drivers.
I'm curious if you think they are interested in turning a profit from Oculus at all, at least in the near future. To me it feels like Zuckerberg saw an opportunity to secure a cutting edge technology that could have huge applications in the future (VR that is, not necessarily Oculus). The engineering breakthroughs and patents that could come out of the company may end up being worth it moving forward 5-10+ years ahead. A 2 billion dollar "Make sure this technology comes to fruition, heres the money to do it" if you will.
To be noted, I'm still holding out hope that Facebook hasn't bought this to further its own service, and that their endgame isn't simply a VR Facebook chat lol.
That reddit "leak" is pure bullshit. Morpheus was demoed on PCs at GDC ( and you couldn't tell the difference between the ps4 version) and Sony said months ago it will be available for PC at the launch of EQN in early 2015.
On March 30 2014 21:53 Serejai wrote: That reddit "leak" is pure bullshit. Morpheus was demoed on PCs at GDC ( and you couldn't tell the difference between the ps4 version) and Sony said months ago it will be available for PC at the launch of EQN in early 2015.
Really? I didn't hear anything about PC use from GDC; I thought it was on PS4. I would think that they would keep it —at least for a while— exclusive to the PS4 to encourage sales.
What sources have said that they used PCs instead of PS4s for the demos, as well as that they will work for PC?
On March 30 2014 19:30 AC3 wrote: I'm curious if you think they are interested in turning a profit from Oculus at all, at least in the near future. To me it feels like Zuckerberg saw an opportunity to secure a cutting edge technology that could have huge applications in the future (VR that is, not necessarily Oculus). The engineering breakthroughs and patents that could come out of the company may end up being worth it moving forward 5-10+ years ahead. A 2 billion dollar "Make sure this technology comes to fruition, heres the money to do it" if you will.
To be noted, I'm still holding out hope that Facebook hasn't bought this to further its own service, and that their endgame isn't simply a VR Facebook chat lol.
It's very likely for profit but it seems almost certainly a very-long term thing. It perplexes me why they'd make such a huge purchase so early on before VR is really established and before there's ANY VR social software running around — let alone pretty/quality ones open to casuals.
I'm not a marketing expert at all but from basic maths it seems impossible for them to recoup their money for a very long time. Presuming the Rift has like a 30% profit margin (I have no idea what it would be), You'd need to sell tens of millions of Rifts before breaking even.
The Rift itself is a piece of hardware so it's not like they can make money off software from it alone (well there's bundling, but that won't necessarily impact many people) such as VR Facebook or data mining. It's why I'm so perplexed at what they're doing. It seems like something really long term, but even then I don't see the justification for starting now, when you don't even have a VR software development team.
If it's not really for profit, then that explains everything; but it's hard to imagine that it's not for profit when you consider how seemingly greedy Facebook has been traditionally.
Eve Valkyrie and Thief were both running Morpheus on PCs at GDC. You can Google about it on various tech blogs, though I'm not sure why major websites aren't picking it up yet. I mean the Sony reps at GDC were happy to confirm it was using a PC so it's not like it was some insider secret.
I'm also not sure why so many websites say it won't be on PC when John Smedley himself has stated in a reddit ama that it will be available on the PC version of EQNext. Journalism apparently isn't what it used to be.
Nice. (although both thief 4 and EVE Valkyrie can both run on PS4) Yeah, apparently. Lots of casual reporters now I think — taking words from others and playing the telephone game.
On March 28 2014 04:46 Serejai wrote: It has now been confirmed that the Sony Morpheus will run on PC in addition to PS4. RIP Rift.
RIP is pretty premature since Rift pretty much already open up to wider target market. Also, there are a lot of gamers that still are very excited for Rift and don't care about Facebook acquisition.
What I see around the internet are pretty much kneejerk reactions without any rationale thought, this really make me feel embarrassed as a gamer... I would say that Nathan Grayson from RPS summed up my feeling the best here:
"At this point, we can speculate and knee-jerk all we want, but we can’t *know*. I personally am hoping for the best, but only time will tell. This could be VR’s greatest triumph or most crushing defeat. For now all we can do is strap on our goggles, take a virtual front row seat, and cross our fingers for the best."
facebook isnt a charity and facebook paid 2b, so you can comfortably say that they will make at least that back through the VR. How is facebook making money? ads and data. do i want that? no. furthermore, the people who paid for the kickstarter are more or less hardcore gamers. whats facebooks target demographic? facebook users. facebook users play farmville and candycrush and what not. those games are HUGELY popular but do people who backed the kickstarter want to play those kind of games? fuck no.
On March 30 2014 21:53 Serejai wrote: That reddit "leak" is pure bullshit. Morpheus was demoed on PCs at GDC ( and you couldn't tell the difference between the ps4 version) and Sony said months ago it will be available for PC at the launch of EQN in early 2015.
Really? I didn't hear anything about PC use from GDC; I thought it was on PS4. I would think that they would keep it —at least for a while— exclusive to the PS4 to encourage sales.
On March 30 2014 19:30 AC3 wrote: I'm curious if you think they are interested in turning a profit from Oculus at all, at least in the near future. To me it feels like Zuckerberg saw an opportunity to secure a cutting edge technology that could have huge applications in the future (VR that is, not necessarily Oculus). The engineering breakthroughs and patents that could come out of the company may end up being worth it moving forward 5-10+ years ahead. A 2 billion dollar "Make sure this technology comes to fruition, heres the money to do it" if you will.
To be noted, I'm still holding out hope that Facebook hasn't bought this to further its own service, and that their endgame isn't simply a VR Facebook chat lol.
It's very likely for profit but it seems almost certainly a very-long term thing. It perplexes me why they'd make such a huge purchase so early on before VR is really established and before there's ANY VR social software running around — let alone pretty/quality ones open to casuals.
I'm not a marketing expert at all but from basic maths it seems impossible for them to recoup their money for a very long time. Presuming the Rift has like a 30% profit margin (I have no idea what it would be), You'd need to sell tens of millions of Rifts before breaking even.
The Rift itself is a piece of hardware so it's not like they can make money off software from it alone (well there's bundling, but that won't necessarily impact many people) such as VR Facebook or data mining. It's why I'm so perplexed at what they're doing. It seems like something really long term, but even then I don't see the justification for starting now, when you don't even have a VR software development team.
If it's not really for profit, then that explains everything; but it's hard to imagine that it's not for profit when you consider how seemingly greedy Facebook has been traditionally.
I'm pretty sure Zuckerberg said in his post purchase statement that investors shouldn't expect this to turn a profit for at least 3 years, and that it was for future applications purposes (his reasoning was VR will displace cell/tablets like cell/tablets displaced pcs which is meh but possible in like 20 years)
Also looking at the deal, only $400million of it was in cash, the rest of the payment was fluffed with FB's stock which was trading quite high before the buyout announcement.
“That worry is now gone. Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory. The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR – and some of them are hard indeed. I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can.”
Seems like Abrash is pretty much very positive about Facebook-Oculus deal. Of course, he might be wrong but the future of Oculus does not look as bad as many people think.
Also another old news, JooHung An, creator of VR Cinema joined Oculus VR too:
On March 28 2014 04:46 Serejai wrote: It has now been confirmed that the Sony Morpheus will run on PC in addition to PS4. RIP Rift.
RIP is pretty premature since Rift pretty much already open up to wider target market. Also, there are a lot of gamers that still are very excited for Rift and don't care about Facebook acquisition.
What I see around the internet are pretty much kneejerk reactions without any rationale thought, this really make me feel embarrassed as a gamer... I would say that Nathan Grayson from RPS summed up my feeling the best here:
"At this point, we can speculate and knee-jerk all we want, but we can’t *know*. I personally am hoping for the best, but only time will tell. This could be VR’s greatest triumph or most crushing defeat. For now all we can do is strap on our goggles, take a virtual front row seat, and cross our fingers for the best."
facebook isnt a charity and facebook paid 2b, so you can comfortably say that they will make at least that back through the VR. How is facebook making money? ads and data. do i want that? no. furthermore, the people who paid for the kickstarter are more or less hardcore gamers. whats facebooks target demographic? facebook users. facebook users play farmville and candycrush and what not. those games are HUGELY popular but do people who backed the kickstarter want to play those kind of games? fuck no.
People are too focused on what Facebook is today, when this is really an R&D project for where they want to move it in the future.
The fact of the matter is that OR is a long ways off from being a viable commercialized product, and the company probably needed to be bought (or have some type of major - not Kickstarter money - cash infusion) in order for it to survive. If it took too long to show signs of being a real business, the floor of investors would fall out from under it. Now it's protected from that risk for a long time, as well as connected to many more resources.
I don't know who else people think could've bought it. Google is even more data hungry and oblivious to customers than Facebook, Microsoft would've been a shit storm and Valve isn't a big enough company to commercialize this product, plus they're already engaged in a major risky hardware venture.
It wouldn't surprise me if OR failed, but that's always been a significant possibility. Maybe Sony picks up the slack, or maybe someone else gets in the VR game now that Facebook has shown interest. There's a whole lot of possibilities with the technology and I think the money was necessary for it to ever see the light of day. Facebook may not be the best company, but it's certainly not the worst.
Also, Facebook is hugely popular among hardcore gamers as well. It's not popular amongst the ultra-privacy crowd, but that circle is small and only has brief overlap with the hardcore gamer circle.
And no, if you paid money on Kickstarter, you do not deserve (nor can you legally claim) any bit of the money (which isn't actually cash, btw.) You may not feel that way but if you open up your eyes and brain, you'll see it explicitly stated in Kickstarters' terms that you get zero equity. You get a trinket and some good feelings, and that's it. The lovefest that rose around OR was no fault of their own. The people talking about being sold a "dream" sound like middle schoolers with a crush, experiencing nervous euphoria for the first time. You created that dream in your own mind.
"ZeniMax Media, which owns id Software and Bethesda Game Studios, sent formal notice to Oculus claiming key technology the virtual reality headset relies on, were developed by John Carmack while he was still employed by at ZeniMax. ZeniMax claims that only with its help, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey “was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality," and now it wants compensation."
"ZeniMax Media, which owns id Software and Bethesda Game Studios, sent formal notice to Oculus claiming key technology the virtual reality headset relies on, were developed by John Carmack while he was still employed by at ZeniMax. ZeniMax claims that only with its help, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey “was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality," and now it wants compensation."
Sad, and funny at the same time. Thoughts?
Was bound to happen since whenever some new technology hit the market and becomes popular someone always seems to have been "cheated" in some way. What would make this technology any different?
And no, I don't think they will get any compensation.
"ZeniMax Media, which owns id Software and Bethesda Game Studios, sent formal notice to Oculus claiming key technology the virtual reality headset relies on, were developed by John Carmack while he was still employed by at ZeniMax. ZeniMax claims that only with its help, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey “was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality," and now it wants compensation."
Sad, and funny at the same time. Thoughts?
Was bound to happen since whenever some new technology hit the market and becomes popular someone always seems to have been "cheated" in some way. What would make this technology any different?
And no, I don't think they will get any compensation.
Didn't Zenimax have plenty of time to do this in the 1st place? Seems like they just decided to claim rights once Facebook got involved with Oculus, and thinking they can get some moneys. Crazy world.
"ZeniMax Media, which owns id Software and Bethesda Game Studios, sent formal notice to Oculus claiming key technology the virtual reality headset relies on, were developed by John Carmack while he was still employed by at ZeniMax. ZeniMax claims that only with its help, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey “was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality," and now it wants compensation."
Sad, and funny at the same time. Thoughts?
Was bound to happen since whenever some new technology hit the market and becomes popular someone always seems to have been "cheated" in some way. What would make this technology any different?
And no, I don't think they will get any compensation.
Didn't Zenimax have plenty of time to do this in the 1st place? Seems like they just decided to claim rights once Facebook got involved with Oculus, and thinking they can get some moneys. Crazy world.
That would be the only reason, yes lol. It prolly went something like this:
ZeniMax Media: "Hmm... someone is making VR technology, that's cute" **Facebook buys Occulus for 2 billion** ZeniMax Media: "2 billion? WE WANT MONEY AS WELL. QUICKLY, MAKE UP SOME BULLSHIT EXCUSE"
Regardless if they are entitled or not to the technology it's pretty obvious the only reason they started to give a shit was because of the 2 billion sale and nothing else.
"ZeniMax Media, which owns id Software and Bethesda Game Studios, sent formal notice to Oculus claiming key technology the virtual reality headset relies on, were developed by John Carmack while he was still employed by at ZeniMax. ZeniMax claims that only with its help, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey “was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality," and now it wants compensation."
Sad, and funny at the same time. Thoughts?
Was bound to happen since whenever some new technology hit the market and becomes popular someone always seems to have been "cheated" in some way. What would make this technology any different?
And no, I don't think they will get any compensation.
Didn't Zenimax have plenty of time to do this in the 1st place? Seems like they just decided to claim rights once Facebook got involved with Oculus, and thinking they can get some moneys. Crazy world.
That would be the only reason, yes lol. It prolly went something like this:
ZeniMax Media: "Hmm... someone is making VR technology, that's cute" **Facebook buys Occulus for 2 billion** ZeniMax Media: "2 billion? WE WANT MONEY AS WELL. QUICKLY, MAKE UP SOME BULLSHIT EXCUSE"
Regardless if they are entitled or not to the technology it's pretty obvious the only reason they started to give a shit was because of the 2 billion sale and nothing else.
It's actually not a bad business decision (ethics excluded). You just knowingly (or 'unknowingly') let other companies use your tech knowing it won't be hard to get a Lawyer to go after a chunk of a buy-out if it happens to be used in some successful design. You just keep your legal claim tidy (settlement worthy) and wait. If they make it big you get a chunk and if they don't you don't really lose anything.
Truthfully something like this should of been vetted by Occulus lawyers. Then before the purchase/interest goes public you verbally offer the person a large chunk of money (small by comparison to a potential settlement) to sell any rights they may have (to a hopefully long-forgotten tech/idea) through a plausibly deniable 3rd party source. If they agree you have them sign an obnoxiously long contract where the actual issue is buried deep under mountains of legalese.
Then when you get bought out like Occulus did and someone claims rights to a piece of it, you produce the contract they signed and they sit and feel dumb because they took pennies on the dollar of what they would of got if the had just hired someone to read the contract.
This seems to me to be more of a sign of new tech businesses not knowing how this kind of stuff works.
Currently at eve finest, playing with Valkarie and oculus. It's pretty cool as a man, to look down and suddenly see boobs when you are playing as a female pilot. Yes it is fucking seamless and yes it is fucking amazing!
On May 02 2014 08:51 Ramiel wrote: Currently at eve finest, playing with Valkarie and oculus. It's pretty cool as a man, to look down and suddenly see boobs when you are playing as a female pilot. Yes it is fucking seamless and yes it is fucking amazing!
#jelly
On the topic of Boobies though: This might be just the little blue pill the pr0n industry needed? Oculus based content would be a bit harder to find for free than just googling 'free pr0n' so it could result in a boost in actual sales and not just a diversion of consumption source.
However it will also be tied with the inevitable headline of someone fapping 'to death' in 'VR' and you know how they get when anything happens in proximity to digital entertainment.
"ZeniMax Media, which owns id Software and Bethesda Game Studios, sent formal notice to Oculus claiming key technology the virtual reality headset relies on, were developed by John Carmack while he was still employed by at ZeniMax. ZeniMax claims that only with its help, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey “was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality," and now it wants compensation."
Sad, and funny at the same time. Thoughts?
Was bound to happen since whenever some new technology hit the market and becomes popular someone always seems to have been "cheated" in some way. What would make this technology any different?
And no, I don't think they will get any compensation.
Didn't Zenimax have plenty of time to do this in the 1st place? Seems like they just decided to claim rights once Facebook got involved with Oculus, and thinking they can get some moneys. Crazy world.
That would be the only reason, yes lol. It prolly went something like this:
ZeniMax Media: "Hmm... someone is making VR technology, that's cute" **Facebook buys Occulus for 2 billion** ZeniMax Media: "2 billion? WE WANT MONEY AS WELL. QUICKLY, MAKE UP SOME BULLSHIT EXCUSE"
Regardless if they are entitled or not to the technology it's pretty obvious the only reason they started to give a shit was because of the 2 billion sale and nothing else.
The talks began like 6+ months before the Facebook announcement. So I think you're wrong.
ZeniMax began seeking compensation around August 2012, according to the Journal's source.
The takeaway from this for most of you is that if you work at a fairly established tech company, do not work on personal projects while doing your main job. It depends on the state it occurred in, but most companies will have you sign an agreement stating they own your work if you did it while with them, even if it's unrelated to what they're paying you to do (to a reasonable extent.)
On May 02 2014 08:51 Ramiel wrote: Currently at eve finest, playing with Valkarie and oculus. It's pretty cool as a man, to look down and suddenly see boobs when you are playing as a female pilot. Yes it is fucking seamless and yes it is fucking amazing!
#jelly
On the topic of Boobies though: This might be just the little blue pill the pr0n industry needed? Oculus based content would be a bit harder to find for free than just googling 'free pr0n' so it could result in a boost in actual sales and not just a diversion of consumption source.
However it will also be tied with the inevitable headline of someone fapping 'to death' in 'VR' and you know how they get when anything happens in proximity to digital entertainment.
The porn industry is actually doing just fine, somehow.
I'm not sure how they stay profitable, but as you can tell by 15 seconds of googling, there are millions of porn sites, probably hundreds of thousands of which charge for some content, yet they still succeed. And no DRM!
I wish Ubisoft would get in touch with Brazzers, maybe they could teach Ubi how to make money without DRM bullshit.
On May 02 2014 08:51 Ramiel wrote: Currently at eve finest, playing with Valkarie and oculus. It's pretty cool as a man, to look down and suddenly see boobs when you are playing as a female pilot. Yes it is fucking seamless and yes it is fucking amazing!
"ZeniMax Media, which owns id Software and Bethesda Game Studios, sent formal notice to Oculus claiming key technology the virtual reality headset relies on, were developed by John Carmack while he was still employed by at ZeniMax. ZeniMax claims that only with its help, Oculus founder Palmer Luckey “was able to transform his garage-based pipe dream into a working reality," and now it wants compensation."
Sad, and funny at the same time. Thoughts?
Was bound to happen since whenever some new technology hit the market and becomes popular someone always seems to have been "cheated" in some way. What would make this technology any different?
And no, I don't think they will get any compensation.
Didn't Zenimax have plenty of time to do this in the 1st place? Seems like they just decided to claim rights once Facebook got involved with Oculus, and thinking they can get some moneys. Crazy world.
That would be the only reason, yes lol. It prolly went something like this:
ZeniMax Media: "Hmm... someone is making VR technology, that's cute" **Facebook buys Occulus for 2 billion** ZeniMax Media: "2 billion? WE WANT MONEY AS WELL. QUICKLY, MAKE UP SOME BULLSHIT EXCUSE"
Regardless if they are entitled or not to the technology it's pretty obvious the only reason they started to give a shit was because of the 2 billion sale and nothing else.
The talks began like 6+ months before the Facebook announcement. So I think you're wrong.
ZeniMax began seeking compensation around August 2012, according to the Journal's source.
The takeaway from this for most of you is that if you work at a fairly established tech company, do not work on personal projects while doing your main job. It depends on the state it occurred in, but most companies will have you sign an agreement stating they own your work if you did it while with them, even if it's unrelated to what they're paying you to do (to a reasonable extent.)
According to Oculus it was actually the 2 billion deal that made ZeniMax Media to go "official" about this and started sending legal letters for a direct claim.
I agree on that Oculus prolly could had dealt with this better though and there is a chance that ZeniMax Media might actually be right, but we will see.
On May 02 2014 09:11 GreenHorizons wrote: On the topic of Boobies though: This might be just the little blue pill the pr0n industry needed? Oculus based content would be a bit harder to find for free than just googling 'free pr0n' so it could result in a boost in actual sales and not just a diversion of consumption source.
However it will also be tied with the inevitable headline of someone fapping 'to death' in 'VR' and you know how they get when anything happens in proximity to digital entertainment.
On April 01 2014 13:17 Jibba wrote: I don't know who else people think could've bought it. Google is even more data hungry and oblivious to customers than Facebook, Microsoft would've been a shit storm and Valve isn't a big enough company to commercialize this product, plus they're already engaged in a major risky hardware venture.
I don't think Microsoft would be bad at all. They have pretty reasonable freedom and privacy laws compared to many companies, and because they already have a significant hardware division, it's far more logical for them as well. That said, I don't see how the committees involved in managing Microsoft could ever justify spending so much money to acquire such a small company so early on for such a huge amount. It will take a very long time to recover 2 billion (if ever), and there is so much free time that money could be spent on other things before investing into VR. I feel like it almost was [partially] a charity with Facebook's acquisition since I really don't see the financial logic.
really fucking weird application of the OR. I can only imagine how trippy that must be.
You could use this thing to have virtual sex with yourself, as the opposite gender! Truly we are about to enter a golden age. (and new lows in the birth rates of 1st world countries)
"Look into the nipples of the future!" - Really Really Big Man
On May 02 2014 09:11 GreenHorizons wrote: On the topic of Boobies though: This might be just the little blue pill the pr0n industry needed? Oculus based content would be a bit harder to find for free than just googling 'free pr0n' so it could result in a boost in actual sales and not just a diversion of consumption source.
However it will also be tied with the inevitable headline of someone fapping 'to death' in 'VR' and you know how they get when anything happens in proximity to digital entertainment.
VR porn? like what, Hatsune miku?
There are a lot of 3d sex games. They aren't adapted for VR yet, but that is something that will change.
Klub 17 allows scripting of events and 3 people in the same scene. Highly customisable characters with a lot of tools. Things like a seduction into threesome with various poses can be made to play out in it. Or just take control of the camera yourself.
The major thing will probably be having a doll so you can have feeling as well. We'll see I guess.
Edit,
An interesting application would be two humans seeing whoever they want to, though would probably take a bit of setup to adjust the differences in height and so on to match the real person.
However, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe just told an audience at TechCrunch Disrupt about one lofty possibility for the pair: building a massively multiplayer experience for one billion simultaneous users. "This is going to be an MMO where we want to put a billion people in VR," he told attendees.
"Here's Oculus' full statement on the whole sorry situation:
"We are disappointed but not surprised by Zenimax’s actions and we will prove that all of its claims are false. In the meantime, we would like to clarify a few key points:
- There is not a line of Zenimax code or any of its technology in any Oculus products.
- John Carmack did not take any intellectual property from Zenimax.
- Zenimax has misstated the purposes and language of the Zenimax non-disclosure agreement that Palmer Luckey signed.
- A key reason that John permanently left Zenimax in August of 2013 was that Zenimax prevented John from working on VR, and stopped investing in VR games across the company.
- Zenimax canceled VR support for Doom 3 BFG when Oculus refused Zenimax’s demands for a non-dilutable equity stake in Oculus.
- Zenimax did not pursue claims against Oculus for IP or technology, Zenimax has never contributed any IP or technology to Oculus, and only after the Facebook deal was announced has Zenimax now made these claims through its lawyers.
- Despite the fact that the full source code for the Oculus SDK is available online (developer.oculusvr.com), Zenimax has never identified any ‘stolen’ code or technology."
On May 02 2014 08:51 Ramiel wrote: Currently at eve finest, playing with Valkarie and oculus. It's pretty cool as a man, to look down and suddenly see boobs when you are playing as a female pilot. Yes it is fucking seamless and yes it is fucking amazing!
#jelly
On the topic of Boobies though: This might be just the little blue pill the pr0n industry needed? Oculus based content would be a bit harder to find for free than just googling 'free pr0n' so it could result in a boost in actual sales and not just a diversion of consumption source.
However it will also be tied with the inevitable headline of someone fapping 'to death' in 'VR' and you know how they get when anything happens in proximity to digital entertainment.
The porn industry is actually doing just fine, somehow.
I'm not sure how they stay profitable, but as you can tell by 15 seconds of googling, there are millions of porn sites, probably hundreds of thousands of which charge for some content, yet they still succeed. And no DRM!
I wish Ubisoft would get in touch with Brazzers, maybe they could teach Ubi how to make money without DRM bullshit.
Ubisoft just has to make a product that everyone wants, but most people wouldn't feel comfortable talking about/sharing with their friends/family.
This first consumer release is going to cost a mint and require a powerful system. But I am excited to see what they make for it. Although people who keep asking when Mirror’s Edge will add VR support don’t don’t seem to understand how quickly this thing can make you sick. I tried one at PAX and the dude straight up told me “If you feel sick, take it off, you can’t power through it and it will only get worse.”
Part of me kinda wants to try it and be with the first wave, but the other (probably more logic one) part says "wait till there's more stuff for it". I tried it few times at events and there's definitely potential, altho I'm not sure I want to throw ridiculous amount of money for it (and yes, for me that's a lot of money).
I think we need to see it for what it really is. This isn't just a piece of hardware, it is a tool for a whole new platform and this is going to be hard to sell.
It needs companies to create games and contents specifically for VR in order to convince people that this is the next thing.
They are aiming to make the platform entry spec remain the same until the next model. imo a lot of PCs that can run oculus minimal recommended spec now will need to have some upgrade in order to run some non-VR native games or sacrifice a lot on the graphics side after a few years, due to the refresh rate requirement for VR tech.
With the high price tag, I can see Oculus is going to suffer a few of its early years. What's next comes down to its competitors and if VR platform will ever take off. I think Oculus will lead the technological and quality front, but it will be the competitors that push for lower price, more but less high quality contents and easier on hardware, so the platform will grow; more developers, more awareness, more VR exclusive contents.
I got to test one of the kickstarter ones a couple of weeks ago. I had informed the owner that I get dizzy super easily, he assured me repeatedly I'd be fine.
Took a whole two seconds of movement to give me nausea.
It turns out that when you install the software to run Facebook’s Oculus Rift it creates a process with full system permissions called “OVRServer_x64.exe.” This process is always on, and regularly sends updates back to Facebook’s servers.
It turns out that when you install the software to run Facebook’s Oculus Rift it creates a process with full system permissions called “OVRServer_x64.exe.” This process is always on, and regularly sends updates back to Facebook’s servers.
It turns out that when you install the software to run Facebook’s Oculus Rift it creates a process with full system permissions called “OVRServer_x64.exe.” This process is always on, and regularly sends updates back to Facebook’s servers.
Spying what's running on your pc is something EA already tried (and got sued for iirc), not shocked to hear that FB does their usual thing. Especially since they are not yet doing it but just leaving the door open to do it later. Being able to legally link Porn vids as "watched" under people profiles is still pretty neat if you lack any conscience. Especially because the influential rich people get them first with this price tag.
If you create something with the Rift, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants, for whatever purposes: By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (i.e. lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sublicensable (i.e. we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services. You irrevocably consent to any and all acts or omissions by us or persons authorized by us that may infringe any moral right (or analogous right) in your User Content.
Basically, if you create something using the device, Oculus can’t own it, but the company can use it—and they don’t have to pay you for for using it. Oculus can use it even if you don’t agree with its use.
Oculus: learning nothing from any other early-adopter technology ever. Pissing off both your users and your second-party creators is a great way to prevent platform adopt.
So, i received my Rift on Friday and have been pissed to no end by the shitty Oculus Home. As i have understood, Oculus is now forcing developers to publish using that platform, if they use their development kit. Could someone with more knowledge as me explain what that means? What happens to titles like Warthunder or Star Citizen having Oculus Support? I guess they are too big for that? What happened to all the games already out since 2014, i can't seem to find them anymore? Have they more or less been taking off to prevent sueing? Stuff like Affected? All those small apps like the rollercoaster thing an so on?
Hey, for those of you not aware there is a big discount going on for the Oculus Rift headset, it's 400$ in the states with the touch controller (-200$ to what it used to be, the price should be 500$ for the bundle when the deal ends).
I caved in as the price was finally reasonnable (450 euros in france), and as my last experience with vr was with the original developper kit that was really exciting to see how far they've come. The hand controllers really improve immersion and the gameplay possibilities a lot, you really get games that would be impossible on a flat screen. I was also surprised to see that there is a good number of games that are high quality, Robot recall is insanely fun (similar to an old school arcade shooter but you're inside the machine ). The VR movies were also really moving, especially Dear Angelica, it really shows the artistic possibilies that are offered by the technology... You have to work around ways to avoid motion sickness so you cannot expect to play the same in VR than you would on a flat screen, but overall it really improved and positionnal tracking makes it confortable.
Any other VR enthustiast in TL? I'm surprised no one is discussing this!
All in all if you are interested I would strongly advise you to find someone or somewhere to get a demo, even if you dont plan on investing in a VR headset if think it's a great experience to try at least once! And if you have any questions i'll be happy to answer to the best of my abilities .
A friend of mine also bought it due to the deal is global so it's extremely "cheap" right now. He enjoyed it but it isn't anything i see myself doing, all we asked him about is if he tried out VR porn yet.... xD He said alot of Russian's in the pool game just go around throwing bottles at u though lol
I will wait until more things are "VR'able" say Football on TV or bigger RPG style games where i think it will be at it's best.
On July 17 2017 18:53 Pandemona wrote: A friend of mine also bought it due to the deal is global so it's extremely "cheap" right now. He enjoyed it but it isn't anything i see myself doing, all we asked him about is if he tried out VR porn yet.... xD He said alot of Russian's in the pool game just go around throwing bottles at u though lol
I will wait until more things are "VR'able" say Football on TV or bigger RPG style games where i think it will be at it's best.
He tried VR porn you can be sure of this xD To be fair that's quite impressive but at the end of the day it's still only porn, them titties look so close and real but you cant touch them that's more frustrating than anything ^^
On July 17 2017 20:11 Pandemona wrote: Seeing as your posting via Dota, will you watch the Dota VR at TI7? They did it for TI6, i would assume they are doing it for TI7 as well.
I will probably give it a go but it seems to be more like a novelty thing. The VR hub is actually still available now, i haven't used it yet but you can watch pub games in client, as well as streams.
On July 17 2017 20:11 Pandemona wrote: Seeing as your posting via Dota, will you watch the Dota VR at TI7? They did it for TI6, i would assume they are doing it for TI7 as well.
Did use it a bit for TI6, will probably try it for TI7 to see what's new.
For TI6, there was basically: - A lobby where you select a room (private/public) and a game to move to. - The streaming room, with a huge screen in the back displaying the game with commentary (automated camera moves), life size representations of the heroes on the sides (with their current inventory) and a minimap screen on the ground. You get to see/hear avatars of all people that selected the same room in the lobby (if public) - An inside view, where you move around on the map during the live action, either character-sized (for the scare when axe blinks on you), tree sized for a local view or giant sized, which gives the view you are used to when looking down. You could also see the other avatars of the people from the same room that had moved to inside view.
To be honest, the streaming didn't feel as comfortable to me as the 2D view (partly because I am used to the later). The inside view is quite impressive and fun for a game or two, but not so much to follow the action overall.
On July 17 2017 22:53 CrymeaTerran wrote: I will wait 1 - 2 years longer, it feels to early to buy that rift this year.
The big step would be to get rid of the cable.. hopefully for generation 2, in 2 years. But I probably wont have the time to enjoy VR by then so I'm doing it now while I can ^^ .
I'm looking at this discounted version too. I'm afraid occulus rift is now all locked in into facebooks ecosystem. Are any of the demos from the devkits still available? The games that were modded to run on occulus, do they work on this consumer version of the occulus?
On July 18 2017 19:26 Navane wrote: I'm looking at this discounted version too. I'm afraid occulus rift is now all locked in into facebooks ecosystem. Are any of the demos from the devkits still available? The games that were modded to run on occulus, do they work on this consumer version of the occulus?
You dont need a facebook account to access to the oculus store, you can also use the steamVR games so you're not locked into the Oculus store, and it's possible to use apps from external sources (it's just an option to check, similar to what you would do in Android to use Apk from other stores). Honestly that's not an issue at all I think, if anything the facebook deal means that they were able to fund a good number of high quality games that wouldn't exist on such a niche platform otherwise (for example Robot recall)
A list of "free games" that I tried so far (I excluded short demos): from Oculus store: games - Robot recall ( AAA game, super fun) - minecraft demo: i'm not really into minecraft..; it works but if you use immersive mode it a bit nauseating. - elite dangerous: no need to present it, I don't have a HOTAS but if you're into this kind of game VR is a perfect fit (no Touch support) - lucky's tale: oculus funded game, something like VR mario, nice introduction to the rift. - rec room: a bunch of multiplayer minigames, only tried the paintball one so far but it's really fun, simple graphics - dead and burried (shooter) - echo arena multiplayer: FPS rocket league in 0g? hard to describe!
apps medium: clay sculpting in VR, a bit complex but very powerfull quill : more like 3D drawing, simpler but still complex google block: the "paint" of 3D drawing, very easy to use google earth VR: sick
experiences: oculus story movies: Lost, Henry, Dear angelica (recommend the 2 last one ++++ ) fantasynth: music/visual experience
steam games or other palforms: StanfordCardioVR => medical training tool 3D Organon VR Anatomy: VR human anatomy atlas, mindblowing warthunder: P2P flight/combat simulator The lab: steam VR demo
As you can see i've used mainly things from the oculus ecosystem but that was mainly because they had good free contents.
With the Oculus Rift S announced, as well as the HTC Vive Pro on the market and a ton of WMR Lenses, when do you guys think this really takes of? I'm playing with the idea of finally buying in. Only thing holding me back right now is I don't wanna spend 500 bucks to be a better beta tester
I own a rift, so I can tell you my experience and comments.
I would say from a hardware point VR is out of beta for a while. All the major headsets (Oculus Rift, Vive, PSVR) work very well, with the caveat that PSVR has slightly worse hand tracking. I am not a fan of wand type controllers, more on that later. If you want to wait for greatly improved hardware, you will have to wait a few more years. I would love to have a greatly improved screen resolution, but that is simply not feasible yet. So reading a book in VR is not really possible. In games I hardly notice.
What you have to realise that the number of AAA games for VR is limited. There are a few high production value games for VR, but nowhere near what you get on PC. For this reason I would recommend Oculus over Vive/WMR, because they keep producing exclusive content. There are many good games from smaller developers, but they are of course more limited in scope. So less detailed assets, shorter games, etc. But still a lot of fun. Then there are ports from flatscreen to VR, for example Skyrim and Fallout 4. You can spend a lot of time in these, but you feel that they are ports. You don't activate a switch by pressing it with your hand, you point with your hand and press A.
For me, I enjoy VR because even the limited immersion from today's technology is much better than what I get from flat screen. A big factor is hand presence, which is why I don't like wands as controllers. I have more vivid memories from VR moments, even though I had only a few times of actual presence, i.e., the feeling of being actually there. Also, movies! Watching a movie in a virtual cinema is so much better that in front of your PC/TV. Especially in the evening after spending too much time staring at a screen at work, the fact that the focus point for the eyes is far away relaxes my eyes.
And if you are a sim fan (racing, Elite Dangerous, etc.), VR is great as well.
My prediction for the future: With the Rift S and Quest we will get 3-4 high value games this year, and hopefully the market grows so that more studios develop games for flat screen and VR simultaneously.
In terms of hardware, there are two big improvements I expect in the next 5 years: foveated rendering for high resolution where you look at, and full body tracking via cameras. But it could be 5 years to get that in the consumer market. You can get foveated rendering this year at a price point of 6000€ I believe.
So if you have a beefy PC and enough room for room scale, you would not buy a beta system. But of course 500€ is quite a bit of money. I am happy with my investment for what it is worth.
I have also been happy with my investment, it came at a time I had some money to spare. Working with an i5-4670 and a GTX 1080 allows me to put all graphics to maximum with 1.5 supersampling, on an Oculus Rift.
Some fun games, where you do not get sick : The Climb (well, can get a little motion sickness if you try to move too fast) Robo Recall Lone Echo (totally worth it, an awesome experience, a bit on the slower side) Beat Saber (so addictive) Superhot VR (short but sweet) Arizona Sunshine (didn't finish, I'm blocked in a mine with not enough ammo versus hordes of zombies a bit less polished than some other games) Bending the Light (nice little puzzle game) Dirt Rally (fun but only spent a few hours, it's kinda hard and I still get dizzy after 20min even with the cockpit supposedly being an anchor)
For instant points with your friends : Beat Saber is a killer, everybody gets confortable in a minute and starts slashing songs, they can easily spend half an hour inside before realising what happened (with custom songs !) Dreamdeck for a 5minute initiation without movement or hands theBlu for a 5minute wow effect without movement or hands Face Your Fears, for those sensitive to scares. Always fun to see them jump Robo Recall for more experienced gamers (need a pass at Oculus First Contact before, to get the hand movement)
My issue is there nothing really compelled that I saw coming out for the last year and a half. When the "weekly top 4" still includes 3 games that have been out for nearly 2 years, it's a bit sad. (Lone Echo, The Climb, Beat Saber)
I'd say it's a good buy, you will spend probably around 100 hours minimum if you explore a few games over a few monthes, and a lot of karma points if you have friends around to demo. Depends on your income, space available at home (I'd advise a good 4sqm to get a decent experience, 2 or 3 steps on each side and space to move your hands around).
It is definitely not beta, hand trackers are really accurate, very good for shooting games, and there is no delay in hand/head movement. My other issue is that I have excellent vision, and I can see all the pixels (I can also see the pixels on a 27" in fullHD at 60/70cm for reference). It's still a good experience, but I'm hoping it improves at some point. This is one of the reasons I'm not looking at movies inside the Rift.
Game-wise the choices that exist now is more than enough for me. I played Superhot at a friend of mine and it was awesome. I also played a simple "throw the football through targets game" and it was so addictive! Even got some sore muscles in my throwing arm lol
For now I'll wait until the Rift S releases and what the price tag will be. If by that time something really cool is announced from HTC, Google or whatever I may wait a bit more
I bought a Vive a few days ago. Fallout 4 VR was a bitch to play, the controls weren't at all intuitive. I ended up refunding it. Longbow in The Lab is great.
I refused to get the Oculus Rift due to my policy of not giving money to Nazis. I know Zuck already paid the Nazi who founded Oculus Rift but I'm still boycotting it because I think Nazi companies should be tainted by the Nazis and appropriately discounted. Hopefully in the future when a Nazi is selling a successful company they get less cash than anyone else would because the value is reduced by their negative association.
I impulse-bought the Oculus S (Nazis are everywhere anyways) after reading about No Mans Sky getting a VR mode. And while the current selection of games seems a bit limited I find myself spending a lot of time in the Unreal Editor. Love building stuff in VR.
Bump, because I feel an urge to share my experiences with the Rift S. Got one yesterday and I don't regret a single €. I love sim racing, with VR it's just... mind bending. I smashed my old Spa lap record in Assetto Corsa yesterday, because judging distances becomes much easier in VR. As I'm partially blind I was sceptical on how well it would work, so I tested a VR device first before ordering one. I can't see "3D" like most people, but VR works very well. Basically, I experience VR like I'm experiencing real life - with one major difference: In real life I'm very sensitive to light, which isn't that big of a deal in VR, because the screens aren't too bright. So I can see "more" than I'm used to. Funnily, I don't get motion sick at all due to my special condition.
It's simply amazing to witness such a technological breakthrough. There's plenty of room for improvement, but that will happen over time.
If theres any TLers that works with molecules/complexes i recommend nanome.ai its a workstation in vr that allows you to see proteins in 3d Theres a free version disponible on the oculus store + Show Spoiler +
On October 20 2019 23:08 virpi wrote: Bump, because I feel an urge to share my experiences with the Rift S. Got one yesterday and I don't regret a single €. I love sim racing, with VR it's just... mind bending. I smashed my old Spa lap record in Assetto Corsa yesterday, because judging distances becomes much easier in VR. As I'm partially blind I was sceptical on how well it would work, so I tested a VR device first before ordering one. I can't see "3D" like most people, but VR works very well. Basically, I experience VR like I'm experiencing real life - with one major difference: In real life I'm very sensitive to light, which isn't that big of a deal in VR, because the screens aren't too bright. So I can see "more" than I'm used to. Funnily, I don't get motion sick at all due to my special condition.
It's simply amazing to witness such a technological breakthrough. There's plenty of room for improvement, but that will happen over time.
Surprisingly, I have heard of several people not "seeing" 3D, that got a breakthrough in VR, suddenly their brain started to compute due to the different kind of stimulus, and they perceived 3D in real life as well afterwards. I am guessing it didn't work on you, or you would have mentioned it :-(
On my part, I have barely touched my rift in the last year, apart from demos to other people and playing a little Beat Saber. Fuel is giving me a run for my non-money, especially at coordinating between both arms.
And Through the Fire and Flames when I want to make my mind melt. Of course I've never finished it properly...
Still waiting for Lone Echo 2 or other similar games where moving is well made...
On the 3D thing: I can judge distances pretty well, because I've always only had one good eye. Stereoscopic vision is impossible, but I'm totally able to perceive depth. I'm pretty sure it's working differently for me than it is for people with two eyes. The 3D in VR definitely feels "real" for me, it's just like in real life, but it stays the one-eyed version, naturally.
On October 23 2019 00:54 virpi wrote: On the 3D thing: I can judge distances pretty well, because I've always only had one good eye. Stereoscopic vision is impossible, but I'm totally able to perceive depth. I'm pretty sure it's working differently for me than it is for people with two eyes. The 3D in VR definitely feels "real" for me, it's just like in real life, but it stays the one-eyed version, naturally.
Depth perception uses more than stereoscopy, one big aspect is also paralax related to head movement, you're probably depending more on this for 3D perception.