Of course anything Meta does is a bit worrisome. I just don't think we're in the same niche-- IMO Meta is fundamentally built on data collection, and VR is just a side effect.
Unless Meta decides to abandon that, I think we'll have a niche.
Unless Meta decides to abandon that, I think we'll have a niche.
Isn’t their whole Metaverse thing a gamble to get away from that? Why does data collection prevent creating a good VR experience. If anything it should align goals well (spend as much time in VR as possible, so as much in VR as possible). Besides, most DataCollection companies offer CollectionFree enterprise contracts… which is where the money for this probably is.
(Btw I’m a huge fan of this sort of product and I hope a respectful company wins.. I’m just skeptical that meta can’t fund their way to success. )
Many of us think Meta is trying to gain as much market as they can early, so they can leverage eye tracking and mm wave tech for very invasive biometric collection and ad targeting in the future. Reasonable minds can disagree on that.
It could be a gambit to track your eyes but that seems even harder with worse reward than taking a 30% cut as the next App Store.
No these are the same thing. Tracking pupil response to stimuli tells advertisers how a human is reacting to what they see. It lets Meta sell a platform to advertisers where they can target humans in particular emotional states, or at certain times when that individual is more likely to make a purchase.
Wish you the best of luck either way, this is an exciting area and more competition is great. They definitely are competition though.
I think Meta's strategy was the right one. The only execs who would even consider adopting a virtual work model would be gamers who are already familiar with the tool. Gaming was their way to get in the minds of their potential next phase enterprise customers.
We've had many people tell us (often on Hacker News actually) that they're not super interested in VR gaming, but are very interested in VR computing.
(I myself am one of these people BTW; despite working in VR for half a decade now, I have almost no interest in VR gaming, and wouldn't be interested in the field were it not for its enormous potential as a new thinking tool).
My point is that interest in sci-fi technologies and having some interest (prior or current) in gaming are highly overlapping demographics. Many games explore interactions with future technologies.
Additionally, from a technical perspective of an executive who is looking into VR, "if a headset can provide the fidelity to play games then that would mean it can likely do X and Y complex things my business does"