Same.
My initial reaction is to hate this. After thinking it over briefly I still hate it.
I think I'm going to look to Carmack as my proxy. If he jumps ship, the whole thing is surely tainted.
My initial reaction is to hate this. After thinking it over briefly I still hate it.
I think I'm going to look to Carmack as my proxy. If he jumps ship, the whole thing is surely tainted.
No, I definitely have to reconsider if that idealistic picture of Carmack in my brain is correct. Not that I ever knew him, anyway…
He posted on twitter:
"I suppose I will get a FB account now, so that may lead to some writing a little longer than tweet length..."
Never signing up for FB account indicates to me that he's got as much disdain for Facebook as many people here.
He also tweeted:
"I have a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale."
Which hints to me that he's at least intrigued by the possibilities that partnering with Facebook will offer, and he sees some potential in this partnership.
Carmack has earned enough of my respect over the last few decades that if it turns out he's ok with the acquisition and stays with the company, then as much as I dislike Facebook, I'm going to trust his judgement and be confident that he's hard at work on something 'game-changing'.
Corporate title & organizition wise, they are different. Though I doubt Kurzweil worries too much about the current Ads, Search, Email, & Android platform. I would expect his role to be more forward thinking. I get the impression Carmack has a forward thinking role as well.
This is very, very different from what Kurzweil is doing at Google.
Though, we will see what a $2B valuation does to a "clearly defined" mission. The VR market has to be grown, after all.
Google is expanding it's efforts in new markets that require substantial technical vision. Same with Oculus.
Kurzweil is the "Director of Engineering" at a company without a CTO. Surely, there's some similarities in their roles.
Not a 100% match, but some interesting similarities.
Money is a real thing, no matter how awesome Carmack is (he's an idol of mine as well), it certainly can play a role in decisions.
All in all, a fair deal for Oculus, I think. Now the question is, will Facebook be able to get a ROI? To me, this looks like a lucky day for Sony, but maybe that's my geek-glasses fooling me.
Although they announced Carmack joining Oculus in August last year. Any idea how long the negotiations for this acquisition would likely take?
I too am disappointed the tech has gone into Facebook, I wonder what those game developers that currently support it are thinking, and how much integration there will be with Facebook login etc.