Re: Facebook acquires Oculus, a letter of concern | Hacker News Reader

Re: Facebook acquires Oculus, a letter of concern

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67 pointsshazow41 comments

I believe that Facebook's acquisition strategy follows Microsoft's 1990s playbook, even if that's not the conscious intent.

Facebook's core product is now in a similar position as Windows was twenty years ago. The near term will require pleasing shareholders by milking the monopoly, but the company is worried about missing future trends. To avoid that, they buy interesting startups with promises of independence. For Microsoft, that included companies like WebTV, Hotmail, Softimage, Bungie...

Compared to Facebook's acquisitions, Instagram is more like Hotmail whereas Oculus is more like WebTV -- a bet on an emerging technology that holds a lot of potential even though it's not obvious how it will integrate into the parent company's core product. (Yes, there was a time when "web on a TV" seemed like a revolutionary idea not unlike "consumer VR" today.)

Bungie before Microsoft... thanks for reminding of those great game series like Marathon and Myth.

Oni was awesome though.

Bungie after Microsoft: Halo. Another great memory!

Except Halo was developed before Microsoft bought them.

Here's the most reasonable disaster scenario I can foresee: Zuckerberg is not personally invested in the technology, but believes a general audience can make it very profitable. Technical execution of version 1 is perfectly successful. Core gamers generally buy the product, but the larger market is uninterested because of usage limitations (headset size and portability and/or lack of compelling enough uses outside of gaming). However, the number of sales is not large enough to justify continued investment. Facebook needs to find a large buyer to divest themselves of the technology profitably.

If they do not, the patent cache they hold chills any potential competition for fear of developing a market being ripped out from under them.

That's depressing. I completely overlooked the importance of patents for VR.

I'd be interested in finding out the major VR patent holders other than Oculus and what they are sitting on; it has been argued here and elsewhere that the requirement for deep pockets for patent suits was one factor driving the deal with Facebook.

Rephrased for clarity

Well, one of the reasons we hear a lot about VR, like 3d printing is that key patents have expired.

What are they going to patent?

Having a gyroscope in your head? A screen attached to your eyes? low persistence screens(valve idea)?

I'm also worried about this outcome.

However, John Carmack is on the record as being an extremely outspoken opponent of software patents. He's also a smart guy. So, chances are a) he's already thought of and discussed the patent issue with FB, b) FB aren't intending to own the entire VR sector with patents (or at least, if they are, they did a damn good job of lying about it) and c) any attempt by them subsequently to patent everything that's not nailed down will have considerable internal resistance.

None of this rules out the "FB patents key elements of VR, VR is screwed" scenario, though.

a) 2 billion

b) Zuck lying about anything?

c) The hordes of FB employees who have quit over previous privacy violations

Out of curiosity, as I'm not aware of any patents that oculus actually owns on VR, do you happen to have any information on that?

I could very well be an anomaly, but I don't want to utilize a game device in which I have to associate my Facebook account (yes, I still have one). I don't care how fast you get it to market or how much lower it will cost. I don't want to login to anything with my FB credentials, there is too much personal information in the weight of that authorization. Way more than what I want to give to play a game (and I do love gaming).

And Yes, I have a hollow Hotmail account that is linked to my Xbox Live account - however I like to try to keep everything as segregated as possible. Its a constant battle to keep my information hubs segregated and this acquisition is one step closer to me just abstaining from certain tech that makes me cross hubs.

You could create a new account that you only use for playing.

Still no.

You probably have an Android linked to your Gmail account, huh?

Carmack says that he wants objective arguments, not emotional ones, and all this blog presents is yet another emotional argument. All that stuff about the community 'roaring' is avoidable hyperbole.

Oh you have to define what an objective argument is. In the real world, you can see where this is going. Do you believe that Zuck gives a damn about advancing any technology, or that he is trying to position himself as best as possible in the market?

All these concerns are valid concerns and not just many if's and if they are not addressed now, in the future will be (already is actually but anyway) too late to do anything.

Say you are developing a game (which is the case here) or a 3D application based on OR. Now you might be ready for a bunch of AppStore-like rules to kick-in. This could make your product obsolete in no-time.

I don't think that the concerns of the community are irrational, quite the opposite... The community is concerned out of experience and knowledge of Facebook's prior policies.

Exactly, lots of emotional arguments. For the ecosystem argument i would like remind that there are IPO scale companies emerge from FB ecosystem. This post have lots of 'what ifs' type of arguments. I am not for or against FB, its just kind of Bezos acquisition of Washington Post: lots of hard to figure it out.

Well said. The key point here is autonomy. It is no small matter to relinquish decision making power of your company to an entirely separate set of executives. I would argue that, by definition, you are no longer even the same company. If critical decisions are why executives are so heavily compensated, then doesn't it follow that randomly replacing your entire executive team will change the company irreversibly?

As much as we'd love to believe that the Oculus team will still be there to stop terrible decisions from being made, they will soon realize that autonomy the most important currency in any business, project, or venture. Employees have little to no say in big decisions, which is why they do start-ups.

TL;DR: "I don't have any rational reasons why I don't like this acquisition, but... Facebook!"

TL;DR: Community felt betrayed and this damaged the ecosystem. Wish I had more advice for how to make acquisitions more successful, but this is a huge challenge every acquirer faces which remains largely unsolved (success rates are not very high).

TL;DR: Those who are leaving will not be missed. Others who see legitimate business opportunities in this space will fill the void by those that have departed and reap the rewards.

Business isn't the only perspective to take on IT. There's social impact, personal and cultural ethics, art and creativity. Different rewards, different goals.

> Those who are leaving will not be missed. In other words, let's not acknowledge that people might have legitimate gripes, reservations and reasons for disliking this event. Let's not assume that they may have identified real problems and risks involved that we could address or consider.

No, they're just simply wrong in all respects and we're better off without them. They can be ignored.

If they are unwilling to commit capital, research or development then stuff them.

Sounds like the type of thinking that makes for revolutionary and wonderful new experiences.

For me the explanation is much simpler: I do not trust Facebook.

Bring on the competitors to Oculus.

FB might buy them too. It is sometimes hard to see why big companies buy smaller companies, no matter what you may hear from their "founders" or CEOs, VR is certainly a threat to FB (even if it's a long way away from what it promises)just the same whatsapp was. FB is nothing but a "website" on the "internet" for the mainstream, VR promises to render " websites" and the "internet" completely obsolete and irrelevant. zucky may say that his goal is to have a more connected world, I believe right now that his goal is more to not have the world "disconnect" Facebook and render it/him obsolete. Either that or he just likes to buy expensive toys!

CEOs of multibillion dollar corporations do not spend millions acquring other companies so that they can make friends or support a vision. Anybody who thinks Zuckerberg wants to make quality VR headsets is delusional.

> Mark Zuckerberg may feel like he is making a benevolent investment in society by advancing the roadmap of the Oculus Rift today

Give me a break.

What do you suggest he acquired the company for, then? To keep it out of the hands of Microsoft, as has been suggested?

A more plain concern is how Zuck works with new platforms. There is the prior example of their own Facebook Platform, which took off really fast, creating a new niche with hundreds of thousands of developers, only to be crippled a few years on, alienating developers with constant shifting technologies, choking of communication channels and exclusive contracts with certain companies.

Value is created in win-win situations, when both parties benefit. If developers fear they will not get their part of the win, it's unlikely the value will be created at all.

Numerous game developers abandoned their Oculus projects, the community roared in anger and disappointment.

I'd like to know more specifics about this. I know that Notch canceled plans for Minecraft on the Rift (though the Minecrift mod of course still exists), but besides him what projects have been canceled as a result of the Facebook news? I've been following news on Reddit's /r/oculus pretty closely, and while I saw some posts by users mentioning that they were no longer developing, I didn't see info in their post history indicating just what it was that they were working on that they were stopping. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I would have thought that if "numerous" devs were ending their Rift development that there would have been more noise about the projects specifically.

EDIT: To offer a counterpoint, I had seen this article that suggests that the ecosystem may not have been so broken by the news: http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/26/oculus-rift-developer...

“We are as dedicated as ever. We are certain that Palmer and the Oculus team is sincere; dedicated to doing what's best for VR in the long-term. We have some concerns, yes, but the news just broke yesterday. We trust that Oculus is motivated by doing what's best for VR community and VR developers,” Hrafn Thorri Thorisson, co-founder of Aldin Dynamics told IGN.

NexyMedia founder Alan Robinson is deep in development on Oculus-powered survival game Atajrubah. Robinson told IGN that, if anything, the buyout news has made him even more energized. “I am [now] more determined to stick with my development plans for the Rift… For myself and the other team members survival games are just as much about the interactions between players and the experiences they have in the game world.The news that they want to take the Rift beyond just gaming in the future and focus on changing how people interact with each other, the kinds of experiences they have and even how they're educated can only be good news.”

Robinson isn’t the only developer that remains highly enthusiastic. Titans of Space developer ‘Drash’ is equally bullish. “Despite the shocking news of Oculus being acquired by Facebook, I currently feel more motivated than ever to develop VR software. Having just gotten back from GDC and trying the new "DK2" Oculus Rift development kit (not once, but six times), there's nothing in the world that can stop me from being excited for the Oculus Rift and VR technology as a whole,” he told IGN.

Other developers have a more pragmatic opinion on how this will impact their ability to work on Rift, but remain optimistic.

“A lot of people in the community have reacted by assuming that all VR games magically turned into FarmVille and Candy Crush overnight, but my Rift dev kit works the same today is it did a week ago. So no, this hasn't affected my day-to-day Rift development. I look at the acquisition as positive reinforcement that VR tech is on the cusp of something amazing,” hobbyist Rift developer Holden Link explained to IGN.

We spoke to more than 10 independent Oculus Rift game developers, and only one indicated an intention to put Rift development on hold as a result of the Facebook news.

“We already have a working demo for the Oculus Rift, but this is such a big surprise to us and we're not quite sure what it means yet, so development is currently on hold. We need to know what kind of plans and ideas Facebook has for Oculus before making a final decision,” Mediocre co-founder Henrik Johansson, makers of Smash Hit, told IGN.

It's refreshingly honest to see someone described as a "mediocre co-founder" rather than "amazing" or "incredible".

(I know, I know...)

Very good attempt at evading the HN humour police!

"We need to know what kind of plans and ideas Facebook has for Oculus before making a final decision," - about what exactly? Facebook surely has control over what they want to do, and they could lie and make the current developers work on the project in good faith that they'll lead to what they want. They'd be promises only I imagine and Facebook as a company could change their mind whenever they want to suite their objectives. Sure they might piss off the core developers, though Facebook will already own the project, etc..

Re: 9/10 still developing for Oculus - They've already invested resources and time, and not sure there's a comparable competitor yet - though I imagine those are coming.

While I did see at least a dozen threads of people claiming to abandon various Oculus-related projects, you're probably right that they may have been just overreacting or trying to make this seem like a bigger deal. I didn't make the effort to verify their posting history like yourself, makes sense to do that.

Edit: Thanks for adding that. Really useful context. Upvoted!

It's understandable that developers aren't abandoning their current projects, but starting new ones suddenly carries the risk of developing for a platform that you have doubts that gamers will buy.

The core worry for me is that, Facebook represents the social gaming, Zynga, pay-to-grow-a-plant kind of gaming that is the antithesis of hardcore gaming which Oculus (especially with Carmack) represents. They are two fundamentally different modes of games and it will be difficult to integrate them into one company.

Honestly this all just seems like a bunch on neck beards who dont understand business. I fail to see how this is not a positive for consumers.

I see you've been downvoted to oblivion and I'm sorry for that, the short answer is: Facebook sees users as a product and users don't like that.

And many of us don't want to be just consumers.

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