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Comment by dstaley | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don't understand the doom and gloom from this announcement, which essentially amounts to "leading VR platform tests new way for developers to monetize applications with personalized ad service". People seem to think this is Facebook injecting ads into games all willy nilly, when in fact it's just a platform for developers to add ads to their VR apps/games. If a developer can't make ends meet with a full up-front purchase price for their app/game, I'm totally supportive of them trying the ad-supported route. At the end of the day, I'm glad that Facebook/Oculus is giving developers access to this so that they can make their own choices regarding the monetization of their software.

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I think the issue with this announcement is that Blaston isn't a free game. Its a game that you pay for and it will now also shows you ads.

That's a totally fair point, but the argument to that is "don't support this developer" not "sell your Oculus Quest". Getting mad at Oculus for this is basically like getting mad at Apple because developers are including ads in their paid apps.

So who should you get mad at then? Every single app developer?

That developer can probably hardly care less that I don't support them. Either the app is good enough that people will endure the ads (in which case they will always preser two revenue streams to one) or the app is not good enough in which case people will stay away on their own.

The incentive alignment is pretty clear: if Facebook and users let them, devs will show ads.

> So who should you get mad at then?

Developers who do the thing you don't like.

> Every single app developer?

No, just the ones who do the thing you don't like.

> The incentive alignment is pretty clear: if Facebook and users let them, devs will show ads.

Google and Apple pays devs show ads. Therefore all games have ads, right? No.

I don't buy games with ads. I have plenty of options.

> Either the app is good enough that people will endure the ads (in which case they will always preser two revenue streams to one)

Again you're arguing that all games that can have ads, do have ads. This is proven wrong by the world. We have two gigantic app stores with 5 million apps between them. None of the apps on my phone have ads.

I think this is the bigger issue. It's the double-dipping from both ends — getting money from the consumer and getting more money from advertisers. It's like cable television all over.

Why can't they: 1. Be less greedy 2. Raise the price so I can be guaranteed to see no ads

It would be even better if they didn't leverage their success in one industry (advertising) by publicly posing solely as another kind of company (social media) in order to buy up other companies (Oculus) to make a lateral entrance into VR, an industry unrelated from advertising, just to pollute it with more advertising.

This whole thing is shady IMO from top to bottom and just another aspect of 2021 tech which makes me think we really collectively failed to prevent the wonder of computing from just being another instrument to extract capital from the people and give it to the powerful

Based on the accounts in The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality[1], I don’t get the feeling Facebook had to “pose solely as another kind of company”. By the point Oculus was in conversations to sell to Facebook, their shadiness was already a concern.

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/34017056-the-history-...

Or have two price points, one ad-free and one ad-supported

They should focus on giving Blaston depth, but that’s a different discussion.

I totally agree with you, though it's important to remember that ship sailed long ago.

You pay for a TV, and it shows you ads. You pay for a train ticket, and the walls and platforms are plastered with ads. You buy the fancy surround sound option in your car, and it plays ads. You buy a magazine, and it's mostly ads. And so on and so on. Our entire world has been taken over by ads.

I think it's important to recognize this not so we let FB / Oculus off the hook, but so we can see it's an enormous problem overall that needs to be addressed.

Yeah, I wouldn't put this as "the ship sailed long ago" because this implies resignation. However, this stuff will just keep getting worse.

They're also basically captive eyeballs. We've never had an ad you literally could not look away from. You can't even look at something else while the ad plays; you'd need to take off the headset and put it back on a minute later, repeat for every ad.

Closing your eyes is an option.

Really? You buy an expensive VR headset to... not use it?

Also, not sure, but isn't there eye-tracking built-in? If yes, the headset could actually detect that you're closing your eyes and keep the ad there until you open them again.

Just like TV. Remember that?

> People seem to think this is Facebook injecting ads into games all willy nilly

Based on previous behavior, this isn't an unfounded line of thinking. Many of the statements made by FB in regards to Occulus, while true at the time of the statement, have been completely reversed.

It is completely fair to expect that, at some point in the future, FB will inject ads into any VR app on Occulus at will.

That's about as likely as Nintendo or Sony indiscriminately rendering ads on top of the viewport while a game is running on their consoles. It's never gonna happen.

I disagree. Nintendo and Sony don't earn the majority of their profits by selling ads. Facebook does. Nintendo and Sony customer base is people buying games while FB's customer base is advertisers. At the end of the day, each company will do what it must to retain/acquire customers.

Edit: fixing typos

Nintendo I agree with whole-heartedly. Sony, not so much. They sell consoles at a loss [0], and make up the difference with licensing and percentage-of-game sales from publishers.

Meaning I am Nintendo's customer, Epic Games (I... think(?) they make PS5 games) is Sony's customer, and assorted advertisers are FaceBook's.

[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/sony-is-selling-th...

About as likely as youtube interrupting a chamber music concert or classical symphony to show ads. It's never gonna happen... surely, right?

> It is completely fair to expect that, at some point in the future, FB will inject ads into any VR app on Occulus at will.

"Once we can roll back some of Halliday's ad restrictions, we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures [...]"

That book/movie was such a missed opportunity to say something meaningful about a VR future, but it just kinda doesn’t follow through. In part, it is what I noted before. It lacks any meaningful humanity. There is a narrative acknowledgment that poverty, personal reinvention, and power exist, but it’s paint on the wall. No choices were contingent on them. No sacrifices made in response to them. None of it matters.

Then also - there is little future in it. Immersive VR is almost entirely where the future starts and stops. Everything else is mined from pop culture.

Because at every point in Oculus's development since FB got involved they have made extremely user hostile decisions.

FB does not deserve the benefit of the doubt, at all.

> this announcement, which essentially amounts to "leading VR platform tests new way for developers to monetize applications with personalized ad service". People seem to think this is Facebook injecting ads into games all willy nilly, when in fact it's just a platform for developers to add ads to their VR apps/games.

This piece (along with others I've read) attributes the action only to Facebook and not to game developers, so readers are likely to miss that part.

I don’t mind ads I mind Facebook showing ads because they know what I had for breakfast and I can’t even remember it myself.

Oculus showing ads for monetization is fine. I suspect they’ll somehow try to tap into Facebook data to target these ads though.

And if you ate too much fat for say the last 10 years, the information is there, and someone could sell it to your insurance company.

As a user, I personally don't care a lot about the reasons behind it if the end result is that my VR experience will be plastered with ads.

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