Will Anti-Facebook Sentiments Kill The Most Promising VR Platform?
Oculus’ community and developers around the world are angry about the acquisition. In a rare occurence, engineers’ emotions and personal vendettas may halt the advancement of technology.
I’m gonna get blasted for writing this, but it needs to be said.
Every once in a while, an amazing technology comes out of the woodwork. At first, there are but a few people who believe in the technology — these are the devoted fanatics who do their best even though personal return is not very clear. These are people like Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus. Over time the sheer potential is realized, the initial visionaries are validated, and people start to get really excited.
In many cases, people get so excited that they become personally attached. The human psyche is an interesting thing — attachment to an idea doesn’t only bring the opportunity to generate a powerful movement; it brings baggage.
People set expectations. They envision themselves with the technology and develop strong opinions. They want things to go according to the plan they think is best — features, operations, finances, company mission, etc. All of a sudden, people aren’t purely rooting for a technology anymore; they’re rooting for themselves.
Unfortunately, everything can change very quickly. People’s assumptions prove invalid, the plan breaks down, and people feel betrayed.
This is what happened yesterday when Facebook announced they were acquiring Oculus.
Being Informed
The reactions across the internet, both inside and outside of the Oculus community, shed light on the VR movement. This light has unveiled a dividing line between two groups: those who are true supporters of VR and those who only support VR when it aligns with their “perfect” mental model.
Here are some facts about the deal:
- Oculus now has more resources at its disposal. Facebook has proven the ability to scale to billions of people.
- Facebook understands its reputation and has taken drastic steps in the past couple years to build more rigorous privacy settings. Their reputation is due to both poor decisions and sensationalist journalism.
- Oculus has stated that they will remain independent, similar to Instagram. The team that believed in open VR principles and built Oculus into its current state is still building Oculus.
- This deal does not affect the technology. Oculus is still by far the most promising VR solution out there. It still has the best opportunity to change the world and it still deserves to succeed.
Backing up these facts is Palmer himself:
“You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift.”
“If I ever see ads on anything that I’ve already paid for, I’m done. That is a developer decision, not our decision. If someone wants to sell a game with built-in ads, they will have to deal with the natural consequences.”
“This deal specifically lets us greatly lower the price of the Rift.”
“Facebook believes in our long term vision, and they want us to continue executing on our own roadmap, not control what we do.”
“We can make custom hardware, not rely on the scraps of the mobile phone industry. That is insanely expensive, think hundreds of millions of dollars. More news soon.”
Emotions Lead to Overreaction
As of this time, it is completely unclear what this acquisition actually means for VR. None of us have all the answers. No one in the VR community knows what it takes to make the technology go mainstream since it has never happened, yet so many people seem so sure of themselves. Many are convinced that this deal will kill the VR they dreamed of with advertising and privacy violations.
These assumptions are entirely speculative. Even worse is the fact that most of the assumptions are highly sensationalist and short-sighted. These assumptions could have a terrible effect; they could kill the best VR technology to ever exist.
That fucking sucks!
With so much at risk, a true VR supporter would never give up on the best technology due to pure speculation and wait for hard facts to surface. If after one day you no longer support Oculus because it is part of Facebook, you aren’t a true supporter of VR. Sorry if that hurt, but it’s true.
Overreaction Leads to Nitpicking
Even Notch, the creator of Minecraft, has decided to abandon the best technology. Surely he must have a good reason, right?
“Facebook is a little creepy … I don’t want to work with social, I want to work with games.” — Notch
The VR platform of the future won’t be exclusively gaming focused — it will be generalized. Facebook is used by billions of people to manage close communication — of course it’s a little creepy. If a bit of innate creepiness can push you away from advocating for the best technology, why don’t the extremes? Notch talks about Facebook as something scary right after mentioning VR induced existential crisis! Pardon me, but that sounds quite backwards.
If this deal proves to be a killing blow to Oculus, it is not Palmer Luckey, John Carmack, or the Oculus team who will be at fault. It will be the fault of a manic development community that turned its back on technology in favor of personal, uninformed vendetta.
The Future of VR
The Oculus Team has the most information about the VR market and is in the best possible position to make an informed decision. They have proven time and time again that they stand for an open VR experience. Don’t get me wrong — it is entirely possible that time proves this deal to be terrible, but right now nothing is set in stone. If Oculus decided that Facebook was the best means to accomplish their mission, they deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Facebook could, over time, prove to be exactly what VR needed: a direct distribution channel to billions of people. That in of itself holds a lot of promise and I have high hopes.
VR will be a competitive space. Sony announced Project Morpheus, a competitor to the Rift a couple months ago. It’s quite possible that Oculus got spooked by Sony’s progress and decided it was time to focus on hyper growth. That’s good news since competition comes with choice. If Facebook makes a silly decision and fills their product with bloated ads or intrusive social features, the failure of Oculus will be their own doing. If Facebook plays nice, I believe Oculus is in the best position now more than ever.
