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Comment by elohesra | Hacker News Reader

I can't honestly blame him here.

I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they do want Oculus Rift for.

I assume Notch is worried about those implications. Will Facebook start demanding that every Oculus Rift game have tight Facebook integration? Will Facebook do something strange, like have Facebook wall updates appear in the game world irrespective of whether it fits into the game? If I were a game developer, this'd creep me out too.

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>>I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out'

I think that's very much the issue.

Seriously, "virtual reality" and "Facebook" are two things I don't want to think about in the same context. The former is an extremely promising piece of technology that can change the way people work, talk and play. The latter is a gigantic online advertising engine. Put them together and there's only one direction virtual reality can go: a new way to advertise to Facebook users (once they "bring virtual reality to everyone" of course. /eyeroll ).

Okay, let me play devil's advocate:

Perhaps Facebook are thinking "What's the one thing that could truly set us apart from all other social media sites, and place a prohibitively high barrier to entry on this otherwise very easy to enter field?", and perhaps the conclusion they've reached is to take social media to the next level, and have it simulate life in virtual reality.

Perhaps Facebook are going to aim to have a FacebookVR some time in the future, where you can meet up with other avatars 'in person' in their virtual reality community?

... Or perhaps this is just a sleazy cash in where they think they can recapture the video-game-enamoured youth market by shoving Facebook into every Oculus Rift game.

I think so too. This 3d world environment would completely get rid of computers as we know it, and tablets too, if you could just put on the helmet and go to the internet/facebook, see all your friends, etc...

I am sure the advertizers would love to create 3d models of their products in this environment. Maybe watch some Ford trucks rumble up the mountain while you watch?

It'll fail.

The hard lesson over the coming decade or 2 is going to be that UI design for virtual reality tolerates much less intrusion then a desktop PC.

If you're remotely computer literate and organize your desktop the way you like, it hurts when you lose that and it already feels like an invasion when a program does something you don't want it to.

I suspect transposed to virtual reality, people are going to be even less tolerant of trying to force things on them because the experience is much more intimate.

> "... people are going to be even less tolerant of trying to force things on them because the experience is much more intimate."

Perhaps not if that's how you 'grew up with it' (so to speak). If you're clever enough and insert yourself into the system early enough then you get to shape all the 'norms' that will eventually emerge.

Except that's not what's happening. Virtual reality isn't an abstract interface to a complex piece of hardware - it's intended to mimic your everyday experience of reality.

A lot of UI paradigms will simply disintegrate against that issue. You'll be able to transpose existing ideas into virtual reality by projecting them onto things which are those abstract interfaces (virtual displays etc.), but you're not going to be able to expect to control how the user moves or interacts.

Sounds an awful lot like the VR world in Snowcrash.

This is a play by Facebook to create a unique App Store to compete with Apple, Google, and Microsoft using a unique piece of consumer electronics.

Facebook can't find a cheap smartphone manufacturer with a homegrown OS to buy, so they go with the next best thing that's also got a screen. I think the VR aspect is accidental/a nice to have.

I think anyone that was even mildly creeped out by Secondlife or Playstation Home will be about 10x more creeped out by VR versions (not even adding in the Facebook angle).

VR "Presence" cuts both ways.

Yes it massively amplifies virtual experiences but disruption, incongruities and annoyances are amplified to the same or perhaps a greater degree...

I think it will be more mainstream and captivating and thus effective than SecondLife. For one thing, you will be invited to join existing friends rather than jump in and deal with randoms.

Most likely will be firmware-level integration. Social media companies, and Facebook most of all, are about engagement, which means making it easy to use Facebook from every platform possible. Having your head inside an immersive virtual reality just put people too far from Facebook I'm guessing, so the new FB Oculus will have a stream from your newsfeed that the firmware kindly muxes into your display at all times. :)

Google does this same thing with Android and other pervasive Google platforms and services. Why is Google making a phone? So that you use Google services a lot more than you otherwise would, which gives them the opportunity not only to drive up their search and traffic numbers, but collect a lot of data that is useful in targeting advertisements.

I agree that it's hard to think of any product tie-in with FB's extant line that wouldn't be disgusting. The only safe way to think of it is as a portfolio piece -- Facebook just wants to be associated with the next revolutionary name in computer input technology. It's hard to believe that it is so innocuous, though, and Zuck seems to put that idea to bed in his announcement.

As much as I'm also negatively shocked by the news, it is impossible to deny the huge impact Facebook has had in how people communicate.

Huge impact? Most Definitely. Huge positive impact? Unless you feel the need to keep tabs on everyone you've ever met, probably not.

You're right. It has noticeably, negatively impacted all of my real world friendships.

how/why? Facebook is how I connect with my friends and make plans to hang out with them in person later. Without it I wouldn't talk to a lot of people, online or offline.

In exactly the same way that heroin substitutes for many healthier goal-seeking behaviors in the junkie, Facebook seems to give many of my former friends a social fix, such that they seek other forms of interaction much less now. That includes telephone calls, nights out at the pub / dinner / billiards, and especially one-on-one conversations.

That's right! Facebook is the cause for more divorces and suicides than anything else. Everyone that works for them should hang their heads in shame.

Ah yes, HN. Where Facebook ads are both highly ignorable and therefore worthless, and at the same time incredibly intrusive and everywhere.

I don't think that's actually a contradiction as you imply.

The better people get at ignoring ads, the more effort you have to put into getting people to see them if your business is built around them. You can get into a bad feedback cycle where people try ever-harder to ignore your ads as you try ever-harder to make them un-ignorable.

It's almost as if different people have different opinions, and HN is a place we can come to discuss them. Or something.

> the way people work, talk and play

Um, that is also what Facebook did. Maybe not for work but definitely for communication and play.

And if you read the announcement you would know where FB wants to go with VR. Since neither WhatsApp nor Instagram require you to log in with your FB account, I doubt the first thing you'd see after putting on the Rift would be a FB login page.

> its intended purpose

Which is what, exactly? I always thought the "killer app" of true VR would be socialization and collaboration: a "virtual world" in the sense of Second Life, OpenCobalt, or Neal Stephenson's metaverse.

Facebook itself is the "casual" version of a socialization system. Facebook's biggest uncaptured market right now is people who prefer to socialize in a more "hardcore" fashion: in virtual worlds (e.g. MMO game-worlds) rather than on websites.

Facebook could probably capture some of this market by putting out the world's first massively-multiuser VR world. It wouldn't necessarily have to be a game, per se, although games could be built on top of it. Just a place, like Facebook itself is a place.

What on Earth would be the advantage of virtual reality over existing multiplayer games or skype?

World-of-Warcraft-like MMO games allow for "character customization", but on a moment-to-moment basis, character models are mostly static. You can read an explicit display of emotion if they choose to "emote" one, but there are no continuous subtle cues about how a person is continuing to feel about something.

Now, one of the interesting things about VR is that, provided your perspective is attached to an avatar, the only sensible place to put the "camera" is staring right out of the eyes of that avatar. This means that, whenever you're among other players in a shared VR environment, you're going to be constantly staring at up-close views of other people's avatars' faces, who are in turn staring back at you. So, if your VR equipment could read your facial cues, and replicate them on your avatar's face...

Basically: what are the advantages, over using Skype, of having meetings in a physical office? A VR office should be able to replicate those advantages.

Except you're face is going to be covered with virtual reality junk, and all it does is display something a normal monitor or TV can. Reading your facial expressions requires nothing more than a webcam. And the whole thing I think is just a gimmick that doesn't add much value (both VR and facial expressions.) Additionally video game characters look really creepy when they try to do facial expressions.

1. The face-reading parts would be inside and part of the virtual-reality junk. (And, helpfully, would also enhance eye-tracking.)

2. Modern graphics technology has all it needs to generate realistic expressions on characters. Modern video-game characters instead look creepy because they're replaying a small pre-made library of expressions that don't usually fit the situation very well. If the character's face just mimicked the tension in the muscles of your own face moment-to-moment, this problem would disappear.

3. The argument that facial expressions (or body-language in general) doesn't add value is refuted explicitly by the fact that people prefer meeting in person, to meeting over video-chat, to speaking over the phone, to having a text conversation. The only thing each rung of that ladder adds to the previous is body-language-based interaction.

But these are all beside the greater point: the feeling of being in the same room with someone is necessary for the emotional regulation of your relationship with them. Skype doesn't give you that. VR, eventually, can.

And none of that requires virtual reality to do. You could have a video game with the characters matching your facial expressions. It would be just as pointless, but it could be done.

It doesn't explicitly require VR... but it does require having both "central vision" and "peripheral vision." Basically, to have the level of detail required to be able to read people's expressions off their avatars in a non-VR setup, you have to have their faces filling a large-enough degree of your vision that, in most setups, they're fullscreen on your monitor (you know, like Skype.)

To be able to interact with the world while talking to someone (because that's the reason you're in a virtual world rather than on Skype), you need to be able to see things going on around the person while focusing on them. So, you either need a grid of nine monitors, or this thing[1].

And you still can't have a natural conversation with more than one person (or especially express any status-regulation emotions involving looking at one person in preference to another) because tilting your head means you can't see the "central vision" part of your screen-wall any more.

If only there was some way for tilting or moving your head to just show you more of the virtual people and world around you, in a naturally-mapped way, you know?

[1] http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/illumiroom/

"Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company"

So what? What were you guys thinking back when Google was purely an Internet/search engine company, and tried to foray into other ventures (Android, self-driving cars, etc)?

Companies expand their markets, create new products. It is natural. Why does the Oculus acquisition seem to perplex the HN crowd?

I don't think the general consensus is perplexed at all. By the way, could you send me one of these driver-less cars you speak of? Maybe some other vaporware?

You have never heard of Google's research on self-driving cars? http://www.google.com/about/careers/lifatgoogle/self-driving...

In a similar capacity, the B&MGF/IV have a laser that blasts mosquitoes out of the air. However despite it actually existing, it would be perfectly reasonable to refer to it as vapor ware at this point. You'd even be excused for asserting that it was just a PR stunt and funding sink.

Your comment is irrelevant. My point is that Google is "trying to foray into other ventures" (my exact words). I never claimed self-driving cars are available to consumers right now.

You seem to be completely failing to understand o0-0o's objection.

Your example of another Google "venture" is, at this point, vaporware. Now we are told that Facebook is moving into a new "venture"? Why are we to believe that this will be any less vaporware? The only thing that matters to us, the potential consumer, is if they can ship. Everything else is irrelevant.

This is not vaporware. I work at Google and I can assure you there is a real team here working on real cars... Also, see qq66's comment.

I've seen driverless cars driving, without human input, on city streets and highways in the Bay Area for over a year. You can't possibly call it vaporware just because it's not being sold immediately -- with the risks involved, they'll probably need 10-20 years of validation before they hit the market. We need more companies thinking that far out, not fewer.

This is a good point.

When Google enters a brand new market, they seem aware and empathetic that the public might be confused as to why Google has made a step in that direction.

An example is Android "expanding" to the wearables market: http://developer.android.com/wear/index.html They relate the new market to what they can relate with. It's "for your existing Android apps" and adding more functionality "to your users".

What is Facebook's grand vision? Why should gaming companies not retreat from this announcement?

Well instead of mobile games they may leverage the large console and desktop gamers out there and add FB accounts to those circles. Besides it may be a new revenue.

One kind of social events is gaming with friends. It's nice to compete with friends and show to your network what you and your friends are up to.

Undoubtedly at some point virtual reality is going to become the next "smartphone". Rift is a giant headset but in a decade or two it will get so small that we can enjoy virtual reality at home like we enjoy using a smartphone.

This feels more and more like getting your virtual character in SIMs to play virtual reality game.

> It's nice to compete with friends and show to your network what you and your friends are up to.

I've never understood this mindset in gaming. Maybe I'm just showing myself as an introverted curmudgeon, but I only game when I'm not programming, and I just game to try to unwind. Being forced to do something 'social' when I just want to relax is just annoying to me personally.

I'm not saying I hate other people (I do), or that I don't want to ever be social (I don't), but social situations -- while often fun -- do require more mental energy than just shooting bad guys, or scoring goals, or whatever else the game has you doing.

Maybe I'm very unrepresentative of the gaming market at large, but I don't understand why numerous gaming companies (Sony and Microsoft have both headed down this path) want to cram social aspects into games. I'm not sure what they think the business case for that decision is. I assume they think it'll make games something more essential to day-to-day life than they currently are, by connecting games to the people you love, but that just makes me want to play games less.

If you look at the size of Twitch.tv and lots of game-related subreddits, it's obvious that "social gaming" is a very big market with a lot of potential money to be made.

The trick is that "social gaming" does not mean what many seem to think it means.

Watch a live stream of Scott Manley having some beers and flying some kerbals to the Mun? Sure, I'm on board with that.

Receive a notification that my mother has topped her previous high score in [who cares]Ville? No. No not at all.

I've seen absolutely no indication that Facebook understands that "social gaming" should not mean "annoying your friends".

Why is what you want the only thing that is worth doing? What about the people who do care that their mom topped their previous score in [they care]Ville?

Whoever those people are, I don't want them in my "friends" list.

Nobody can be in your friends list without your consent.

Let's see, one involves spamming people who don't care, the other only involves people who do.. [shit]Ville spam games aren't social gaming, they are anti-social gaming.

Not to mention, what is the context of this discussion? Rift. What does Rift have to do with [shit]Ville spam games? Fuck all.

You have a valid point there, but you certainly can play by yourself and hopefully there is a way to opt-out or silent game update after integration.

make games something more essential to day-to-day life than they currently are, by connecting games to the people you love

Certainly. For example, friend quizzes on Facebook.

I don't know what game makes sense to people. I try to be open-minded and play as many type genres as possible, whether it is FPS, MMRPG or puzzles. Disclaimer: I love minecraft.

I imagine they might push social VR games similar to Google's Ingress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingress_%28game%29) further. This seems to be an increasing trend. I just read about NYC's Easter Egg hunt last week (http://www.easteregghuntsandevents.org/NY_Easter.php). Similar to Verizon's finding smartphone around the country and Ingress. Scavenger hunt, basically.

The only problem with my social network is that most people in my FB circle don't play games. Even if they do they don't play the games I play... That's always an unsolvable problem. Another problem is I don't want to download a 10GB game. We'd have to wait for super-awesome-cloud-gaming-infrastructure to deliver that to us. We are still early in that direction.

"want to cram social aspects into games"

Long term relationship because gaming can only happen at slow social speeds rather than fast individual speeds. That means more milking subscription money out.

Playing thru the Halflife story / drama with your friends sounds superficially interesting. Then you realize you can only go as fast as your slowest friends. Then you realize they want $15/month for six months while it plays out for everyone. Um, no thanks.

> There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose

Facebook gets their hands in the less-casual game industry and also gains control over a platform for virtual experiences, I can see many reasons why Facebook would support continuing to build the Oculus for its originally intended purpose.

At least it's not Microsoft.

>Facebook gets their hands in the less-casual game industry

Yeah, but I think this is what people like Notch fear, because it's not going to be of any use to just have their logo emblazoned on the device: they're going to want something more from it.

Given the way that they and Zynga worked together to drive casual gaming into the dirt, I'd actually rather Microsoft bought the device than them, because at least Microsoft have a major games wing which would benefit solely from using this device for its intended purpose (albeit by locking the device to Windows and Xbox exclusively).

Frankly, I'd have preferred Microsoft. At least they seem to have some ability to build platforms.

Facebook acquiring Oculus doesn't just creep me out, it also means the platform will fail. They don't have the experience, and developers won't be lenient with their failures.

Sorry, did I miss the part where Luckey and Carmack left Oculus?

Oh, they're cashing in right now. Look for them to exit in 6-12 months with millions.

Carmack does not seem like the type to be "cashing in" unless he felt that the engineering work were no longer compelling and interesting. It sounds like he still feels it's interesting work, so I don't think he's being driven by money.

Carmack has FU money twice over. This is about seeing his dreams made into reality.

They're probably thinking post-Facebook. They aren't dumb, they know what they have now won't last and when it dies out they can cash in their user data and go into the virtual reality business.

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