Oculus Rift - Development Kit 2

[mizzou]

With Sony however you'll get 10 layers of DRM, and the PS4 will be their first, and maybe only priority.

DRM vs. Logging into Facebook every time you want to play a game. :hmm:

Maybe another company will come along and create a 3rd choice.

I suppose all we have here is a display on your face with motion tracking technology.

Maybe TrackIR could partner with HTC or something like that...

 

[mizzou]

hahahahaha


Francis rages on FB buying Oculus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFx0p_8fXXQ&list=UU4_bwov47DseacR1-ttTdOg

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

With Sony however you'll get 10 layers of DRM, and the PS4 will be their first, and maybe only priority.

DRM vs. Logging into Facebook every time you want to play a game. :hmm:

Maybe another company will come along and create a 3rd choice.

Isnt Valve's VR rumored to be just as good as Oculus'? They have been doing a lot of work on VR, and I can totally see them doing it themselves now. Shit if they can do it as good or better than Oculus, then I can see them using that to sell a shit ton of steam boxes, and push linux gaming.

 

[Face2Face]

hahahahaha


Francis rages on FB buying Oculus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFx0p_8fXXQ&list=UU4_bwov47DseacR1-ttTdOg

Love that Francis


I hope Valve jumps on this opportunity.

 

[mizzou]

Isnt Valve's VR rumored to be just as good as Oculus'? They have been doing a lot of work on VR, and I can totally see them doing it themselves now. Shit if they can do it as good or better than Oculus, then I can see them using that to sell a shit ton of steam boxes, and push linux gaming.

not just as good, but better. Although their point was just to make it a proof of concept.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

not just as good, but better. Although their point was just to make it a proof of concept.

I think that was comparing it to the first dev kit oculus put out. Ive heard the newest (crystal cove?) is on par with valve, or better.

Either way, im hoping that Valve sees this as an opportunity and puts some money into this.

 

[QuantumPion]

Interesting discussion about some of facebook's fraudulent business practices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

 

[mizzou]

Interesting discussion about some of facebook's fraudulent business practices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

I have a friend that is furious with FB's small-business promotion policies. It's horrendous apparently.

 

[BladeVenom]

Your $2.4 million donations turned into someone else's $2 billion gain. That's a 100,000% growth.

Don't you wish Kickstarter was an actual investment, and not just a charity buy. Your $300 investment in Oculus Rift could have returned you $250,000.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

The NY Times has this to say

"According to a person involved in the deal who was not allowed to speak publicly because he was not authorized by either company, Facebook eventually plans to redesign the Oculus hardware and rebrand it with a Facebook interface and logo."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/t...l-reality-headset.html?hpw&rref=business&_r=0

 

[TidusZ]

Your $2.4 million donations turned into someone else's $2 billion gain. That's a 100,000% growth.

Don't you wish Kickstarter was an actual investment, and not just a charity buy. Your $300 investment in Oculus Rift could have returned you $250,000.

this guy gets it

 

[PliotronX]

this guy gets it

Is there anything in the KS fineprint that forbids pursuing action against project developers? Even though I'd never heard of it or donated, I was excited about the technology until I saw this news... didn't realize John Carmack joined until I saw Francis' video. Never thought I'd be a bigger Gabe Newell fan than Carmack fan.

 

[Super56K]

The NY Times has this to say

"According to a person involved in the deal who was not allowed to speak publicly because he was not authorized by either company, Facebook eventually plans to redesign the Oculus hardware and rebrand it with a Facebook interface and logo."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/t...l-reality-headset.html?hpw&rref=business&_r=0

That was my first thought when I read this last night, and it was like a gut punch because I'd browsed over to reddit's /r/oculus to see what cool new things were being worked on...and was instead greeted with the subreddit imploding about the news. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth thinking that to use the Rift step one might be logging into your Facebook account (potentially always online). Ugh.

And as for Palmer Luckey, shame on him for trashing Oculus's reputation for a cash grab. The company never could have existed without its Kickstarter support from enthusiasts, and now with him selling out, and with those same enthusiasts reeling at the news, it may never reach its potential. Try to imagine where PC gaming would be today if Gabe Newell 'had a number' and dumped ownership of Steam to EA or some other mega corp who could then do whatever they wanted with it. If Palmer Luckey was really as crazy about VR as he's claimed, there wouldn't be a number high enough to let all his efforts and hard work and hard fought independence be overshadowed by Mark Zuckerberg throwing money at the wall with another acquisition.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

That was my first thought when I read this last night, and it was like a gut punch because I'd browsed over to reddit's /r/oculus to see what cool new things were being worked on...and was instead greeted with the subreddit imploding about the news. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth thinking that to use the Rift step one might be logging into your Facebook account (potentially always online). Ugh.

Reddit is very telling right now, Palmer answered loads of questions and is being dishonest by essentially promising that stuff like facebook logins won't happen. Obviously he's no longer owner of the company, he's merely CEO who can be let go by the majority share holders (facebook).

He's ducked all the questions about facebook branding right now, and he's been very active otherwiser, so it's fairly safe to assume that this is in the works. He did answer questions regarding advertising and said that's up to the developer and they would have to suffer the consequences if they wanted to put ads in their games.

This all leads me to the prediction that software will become closed source, they'll integrate an advertising technology into the software and develop an API for it, now when game developers are looking to develop games with Oculus support and they're looking through the API documentation, see that they can enable ads by simply setting:

Facebook_ads = True

Facebook will supply ads across their ad network, credit the game developers their share and take their own cut. It will mean huge incentives for game devs to just sell out...

I say all of this because Oculus isn't just a piece of hardware, it can't be, simply by how it works, you need to pre-deform the games rendering so it looks correct through the Oculus lens', that means you'll be required to use their software to get this working and all the ad networks, spying and other rubbish they'll cram in there.

 

[KidNiki1]

in light of the recent FB news, i thought this was funny

http://www.dorkly.com/article/60870...-why-facebook-actually-bought-the-oculus-rift

 

[KentState]

Between Sony and Valve, I think that VR will only get better.

 

[norseamd]

Your $2.4 million donations turned into someone else's $2 billion gain. That's a 100,000% growth.

Don't you wish Kickstarter was an actual investment, and not just a charity buy. Your $300 investment in Oculus Rift could have returned you $250,000.

how could they do this

there are laws pertaining to any investments right

could you have a site that those looking for investment could come to and there would be ads and lists just like kickstarter and you would somehow confirm your investment securely like maybe meeting with a financial advisor and signing some paper that he would send to that company or something

 

[manko]

how could they do this

there are laws pertaining to any investments right

Project CARS did this in the UK and ran into hassles from regulators, but I think they worked things out. It sounds much more complicated to run crowd funding as an investment, but it would be nice if more of these crowd funded projects would share profits with the little guy backers and not just the big VC investors. Especially considering that in many cases the bigger money might never come along without the initial community backers.

 

[KentState]

how could they do this

there are laws pertaining to any investments right

could you have a site that those looking for investment could come to and there would be ads and lists just like kickstarter and you would somehow confirm your investment securely like maybe meeting with a financial advisor and signing some paper that he would send to that company or something

Would be the same as owning private stock in a company.

 

[cmdrdredd]

This is why I do not like the kickstarter model. It puts all the risk on the consumers and if the project gets bought up you feel like you wasted your money and they should have just gotten funding from the company that bought them. It could also fail and the project is abandoned.

 

[leper84]

Does Kickstarter explicitly state any money given is a donation?

Common sense to me would say if you didn't explicitly donate the money then you own part of the company. But then again, common sense doesn't apply to corporate crap like this.

Edit- apparently it says on Kickstarters website that they don't allow any money used as an investment or for financial return. So people are screwed.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I have never given any kick starter money or looked into it because I disagree with it's usage. So I dunno if they say anything like that.

 

[Super56K]

Does Kickstarter explicitly state any money given is a donation?

Common sense to me would say if you didn't explicitly donate the money then you own part of the company. But then again, common sense doesn't apply to corporate crap like this.

Edit- apparently it says on Kickstarters website that they don't allow any money used as an investment or for financial return. So people are screwed.

Yeah I was about to say the same after poking around Kickstarter's site. People aren't buying into companies, they're pledging support at different levels. So even though the company was sold out from under the backers for $400 million cash with the rest in Facebook stock, the backers already got their own return based on their pledge level. That's the dev kits, shirts, warm fuzzy feelings, or whatever else they were offering. It reminds me why I've never supported a Kickstarter, or even game alphas and other vaporware or unfinished products.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I have never given any kick starter money or looked into it because I disagree with it's usage. So I dunno if they say anything like that.

Probably a separate thread in itself, but I'm curious why you disagree with it?

 

[xantub]

I use kickstarter all the time, backed like 20 projects. You need to understand you are not investing in a company. In my case I treat it as a 'pre-purchase', usually you get the product for a steep discount (the drawback is that you can't see the product before you buy it, you just have promises).

I see nothing wrong with Kickstarter. I do have a problem with IndieGoGo's variable campaigns, in there you put your money and it's gone, regardless if the project reaches funding or not. But Kickstarter isn't like that.

In the case of the Oculus Rift, those who put money in there got what they were promised, they got the development headset, plus any other incentives according to their pledge level.

And those blaming the creators, can you really blame them? Honestly would you not have done the same with a $2 billion offer in front of you? I know I would, in a nanosecond.