The guys behind Oculus Rift who got about 2.4 million for their project, an immersion headset to be used for video games have sold out to Facebook for- Stop thinking it's two billion dollars- $400,000,000 dollars and 2.3 million in Facebook shares plus bonuses of about $300,000,000.
(Thank for the correction, Miles.)
I have no idea what's happening to the people who donated money towards the Kickstarter. Presumably shafted. Unfortunately, that's what seems to have happened.
So let's get a few things out of the way. Zuckerberg didn't do this because he wanted everyone to be using his website. He has little or no motivation to get in the way of its development to that extent.
He's certainly not the sugarplum fairy in terms of business ethics, but it seems as if Zuckerberg is throwing himself behind the project just so he could catch on the wave.
The parties, concerts, publicity, fun. He doesn't necessarily think it's a good product, but he knows it's a lucrative project just from the hype generated. There's a difference.
However, the Oculus Rifts days as a game machine might very well be over.
Sony is probably having a mini-panic attack right about now. Project Morpheus (pictured below) was Sony's own Virtual Reality (VR) machine that they'd suddenly decided to throw on the table earlier this month.
Now suddenly the Oculus has much, much, much, much, much, much more money behind it than Sony's Project Morpheus.
The Oculus was designed to be a peripheral for the hardcore videogamer. Mark seems to have other plans for the deigned machine. (I love that word. Deigned.)
http://www.businessinsider.com/zuckerberg-why-facebook-bought-oculus-2014-3
He wants it to be a social hubpoint with advertisements and virtual purchases.
Dead. Called it.
It's dead. Gone. Completely ruined.
Palmer Luckey took to Reddit to assuade the people about how the project is going to get much better with its increased funding and insists that he still has full control of the startup. I don't go on the site myself, but I saw screengrabs of people who had dropped up to seven hundred bones on the project only to have their investment go up in smoke.
Palmer even said that the Oculus would have been abused when it went to market if it wasn't taken by Facebook. I can believe that, but you've screwed over the people who invested. On an indie project. Which is now owned by a multinational corporation.
I mean Jesus. Is there any hope, Notch? After all, you were the top backer for this project.
"We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out." - Notch.
(Embedding tweets seem to be impossible, but by darn it's there.)
http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual-reality-is-going-to-change-the-world/
Oh, someone who has no qualms making money in just about any way has hit his moral limit.
Nope. It's fucked. Abandon ship.
No comments:
Post a Comment