They have Michael Abrash and John Carmack working at the same company. I don't see how 'games people' won't be super excited.
You think Facebook spent $2bn to stop Occulus working on VR??
Personally what I want is something that once I buy is completely free from the company that I bought it from. I.e. an open system that I can control. I don't see such a product coming from a company like FB, but I could be wrong.
Can you imagine how much Facebook would like a recording of your facial expressions while you have a private talk with your friends? Or when you look at ads?
The standard things Facebook does with their data.
Not only does the Oculus positional tracking camera not work like that (and can't work like that since you know, you have an Oculus Rift on your face) but no one has managed to give a statement on what they think the value of that data would be.
Both to characterize the feelings associated with relationships (which is data that Facebook would like to know), and sentiment analysis for various adverts or other things.
For example, Facebook could use a virtual room for people looking to interact, and then place ad objects within the room - and rate your responses to them, in order to profile you for advertisers, and figure out what kind of placements generate the least interruption or most positive association.
Further, you're only talking about the current gen Oculus technology, and not anything about what Facebook might (speculatively) deveop going forward.
The obvious path (seeing other virtual worlds) is to generate some method of putting realistic gestures in to the experience, which I highly doubt they'll never attempt to do.
I'm much more okay with a stand-alone thing doing that, than anything tied to Facebook's environment, because I believe Facebook is a fundamentally exploitative company.
I'm nervous that in the long run this sets up VR to be a closed platform, but I guess we'll see. Maybe a closed platform is better than no platform at all, which might have been the outcome if someone with deep pockets never bought oculus.
In this case "you" means "video game enthusiasts." Most non-gamers that I know are not even aware of Oculus and they're not even thinking of VR. The gamers were the people behind these projects. The gamers are the ones who don't want to be spied upon in order to be served targeted adds that they don't care to see.
Perhaps, years from now, my wife will be logging onto FB, buying Farmville credits, and shopping for home decor with her Oculus Rift, but that's not what its original supporters envisioned. It's certainly not something that will be mainstream next year.
I don't know, I can't say what FB intends to do with VR, but I can reason that they want to please their shareholders, that they only know one way to make money thus far, and that money is what drives them. That's fine, nothing wrong with it, it's just not (as you say) the outcome we wanted.
>no platform at all, which might have been the outcome if someone with deep pockets never bought oculus
That seems like a leap or, at least, an assertion made in such non-comital terms as to be rendered meaningless. I'm with you on the fear (anticipation) of a closed platform, I just don't buy the addendum. If you couldn't tell, the whole FB acquisition issue is not sitting well with me.
With the announcement of Facebook buying Oculus, I can see the concern. With this announcement though, I would take it to be a great sign that things are better for Oculus.
Sure why not, Carmack has always focused on tech for tech's sake. ID's games are almost always panned for everything but the tech. Abrash is similarly oriented. I have no doubt they will produce great VR hardware and software, but that still leaves FB in charge of the artistic direction. Throw in a couple of patents and it will be 2030 before another company can get really competitive.
I mean, Carmack was rich enough to fund his own space program.
Id (and Carmack) made most of their money from engine licensing. As Abrash mentions in this post, even Valve licensed the Quake engine code -- you can imagine how that must have made them so much more money than the couple hundred thousand copies of Quake 4 sold if they had any decent licensing business model.
A vast majority of capital-class game companies over a decade old that are still alive now, make/made almost all their money from anything but the games they designed/developed -- but instead from engines (Valve, Epic, Crytek, Id), sales platforms (Valve), publishing (EA, Activision), etc. Blizzard is more or less the only exception surviving almost solely on direct revenue from the games they've developed (mostly just WoW, although all their games are very well-loved).
So please don't jump to the conclusion that people like Carmack make the money to launch rockets from selling Doom sequels. The game design industry is not nearly that lucrative, even if the game tech one is moderately so.
How does that work?