FTC Sues to Block Meta’s Virtual Reality Deal
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The acquired company [0] appears to be a VR content+game studio, developing experiences for a variety of VR consoles, and the acquisition would effectively make them a first-party studio.
Don't video game console manufacturers make these kinds of acquisitions regularly [1]?
[0]: https://www.with.in/
[1]: For example, Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000 after seeing early versions of the first Halo game, and making its future outputs into Microsoft-exclusives. Previously, they'd developed games for PCs and [mostly] Macs. Ironically, Halo had been publicly announced at Macworld Expoo 1999 by Steve Jobs.
A successful acquisition will put it in control of two top apps in fitness, the other being Beat Saber (which though more game-like, is often included in fitness app lists).
I would be surprised if meta allowed either company to release a version optimized for Apple's headset (or Samsung or Snap etc), whereas an unaquired Within would likely target availability on any and all platforms it can reasonably compile for and support.
All that being said, I think Facebook has a massively uphill battle to climb in VR versus Apple and they need Supernatural to bootstrap their fitness and music licensing effort.
And beyond that Supernatural as a product (while the best right now) still lacks a lot of professional finish in its content and software design.
Ultimately, Meta bought an application developer for their walled garden device, not a competitive platform in itself. Purchases of this nature seem to happen fairly regularly in the b2c space without attracting regulatory scrutiny (Apple buying Siri/Shazam, Microsoft buying Minecraft).
Am I harmed as a consumer because Siri is not compatible Android, or because Halo is not compatible with the PlayStation? I guess so, but it doesn't feel meaningful enough to merit FTC censure.
Maybe the FTC is changing it's mind, and thinks that acquiring neutral studios and making them platform exclusive is now anti-competitive? But I don't see that in their press release -- I just see claims that Meta is going to make the "VR fitness" niche anti-competitive, unless the FTC steps in.
Basically, I guess my question is: is this niche big/important enough for the FTC to be allocating resources towards after?
Personally, I'd rather see them shooting at bigger targets.
Maybe they have leaked information about Meta executives' detailed motives for the purchase, akin to the WhatsApp emails/memos, that will make this an open and shut case that doesn't require much attention.
And I do appreciate that they're trying to keep Meta from dominating VR the way they dominated social.
However, I can't help but feel like it'd be more impactful to prosecute Meta for refusing to support non-Meta Oauth identity providers for creating a headset account, for example. Tear down the walls in the garden, rather than tsk-tsk the garden constructor for imprisoning some company inside the garden.
FTC files to block Facebook-parent Meta from buying a VR company: https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_4bcb8a532be33291f8543a8cf3... .