Comment by jtfrench | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jtfrench | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I think it's awesome Carmack and Abrash are working together again. I read "Masters of Doom" back in the day, and it totally rocked my mind and took me back to a time when I was too young to realize just how impactful Carmack was on the industry that I enjoyed as a kid.

I just wouldn't have predicted that their comeback to the limelight would be working for Facebook. In my eyes, they were "bigger" than that (obviously not monetarily). They "meant" more to me. This is all subjective stuff I realize, and yes I've heard a zillion times "how good it is for VR", but it kind of indirectly gives a message that the best thing a genius who is already capable of changing the world can do is work for Facebook instead of do their own thing.

Call me a softy, but something just warms my heart when I see smart people stand out on their own, unswayed by the massive "power monoliths" surrounding them, and STILL kick ass. That's what Facebook did! And that was awesome! I just hope that spirit of entrepreneurship doesn't fade, and that geniuses know their power lies within themselves — not in deep pockets of any company.

Congrats to all involved though — I can only imagine what kind of crazy office days are ahead. The sequel to "Masters of Doom" is yet to be written.

Tesla worked for Edison, still made great things. Who you work for rarely changes who you are as a person if you already know who you are. Just now they have funding and lots of momentum. I think people fear Facebook owning it as scary because they know it will go somewhere with that much behind it rather than it not happening.

>>>" Who you work for rarely changes who you are as a person if you already know who you are"

Quite true.

>>> " I think people fear Facebook owning it as scary because they know it will go somewhere with that much behind it rather than it not happening."

I don't really understand this sentence. Also, to be clear, I don't fear Facebook owning anything (to me that seems pointless), I was just more surprised by Carmack's/Abrash's choice —but of course its only surprising when you don't know the details that occurred leading up to it, and the real thing that made their decision. Perhaps there was an offer they couldn't refuse, and so they jumped on it. People make it sound like Oculus wouldn't have continued without Facebook though, which seems odd to me.

>> "Just now they have funding and lots of momentum."

This is the point I don't get. I hear this echo'd by everyone, but correct me if I'm wrong, didn't they raise some $75M+? So is the point everyone is making that to properly do VR, we need more than that ? Did they not have enough resources before?

(I don't know the answer to this, just curious)

Agreed with your message sorry if it seemed contrary, just mentioning a couple different points.

On Facebook, it was intensely surprising, igniting the internet. However, when I looked at it further I saw it being red hot in gaming previously (I was a backer) with huge excitement but the last mile question still existed, how does VR become mainstream? Well Facebook is hugely mainstream now and after the announcement not only Facebook crowd heard about it but the financial community / wall street. So now we have some serious momentum behind VR that was always waning in the past and may have had trouble gaining in mainstream, now in full growth mode.

Everyone under 40-50 at least if not more has been dreaming about this since they were kids so the product base is untapped really but desired. Since Facebook bought it, I think people realize it is kind of going 'mainstream' and fear where it might end up. I say high tide rises all boats. All industries can benefit and it is now 100% mainstream backed/aware with Facebook, and investors interested, the gamers and developers were already on board.

$75m for something like a mainstream culture change and the many products, apps, games etc that need to be funded to make it happen is not enough. Plus you needed to pay the very talented people away from their already winning efforts to play. A game company can easily spend $50m on a single MMO or not even ship (well at least a few years ago).

I think hardware is only part of the picture. Who knows maybe even an oculus console / device / etc that Facebook will leverage into devices. I think people are still thinking small and not looking 5-10 down where billions will be needed... and billions more earned.

Facebook buying Oculus brought VR's groove back to the mainstream.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com