Hacker News Reader

Comment by shasheene | Hacker News Reader

One thing worth noting is all Kickstarter backers get a free Oculus CV1 from Facebook (that's of course in addition to the DK1 they received after backing in August 2012).

That decision takes away a lot of the "betrayal" of the Facebook acquisition - for backers it's an incredible return on investment (that was unlikely to happen if it weren't for Facebook)

View on HN

I don't share your conviction that ROI is far more important than any ethical consideration. I seem to recall the KS pitch was full of aspirational language about a democratized future of VR spearheaded by a close-knit team of diehards who wouldn't fall prey to Big Whatever.

You're suggesting that the majority of backers will be mollified by an artifact of the very forces that Oculus promised to avoid; I'm sure some of them will be.

Not sure you recall correctly. I checked the Kickstarter [1], and I didn't see anything along those lines in the video, the description (which doesn't seem to have been modified, per archive.org), or the first few updates. If Luckey talked about that, I think it was somewhere else.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-...

The video you linked has competing companies all taking about how good it will be to integrate (valve included)... you are right there is no line like "it will be an open platform" but they heavily imply it will be an open platform

I backed the Kickstarter with a friend, backing at the level to get two of the dev kits, because we happened to be living together at the time. After explaining that situation, I was told that I would not get a CV1.

I never expected to get the CV1 when I backed, so I'm not angry about that, it just sucks a bit to hear 'you are getting this for free' and then get told, no you are not.

Can't agree more, especially since the secondary market is quite good right now and you can very easily sell it and turn it into a free Vive. ;)

Can't agree more, especially since the secondary market is quite good right now and you can very easily sell it and get a Vive. ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com