Yesterday a landmark announcement was made that Facebook had acquired the company behind the Oculus Rift, Oculus VR. This has created an uproar on the internet, both good and bad. Some believe that this is simply forward-thinking on the part of Facebook, them getting in on the ground floor of what might be the next “it” device in the tech world. Virtual Reality has been around for a very long time now, but the Oculus Rift seemed to be the first device to really help evolve the concept using modern technology. The other side of the coin are people who were looking forward to the Oculus Rift and were supporting the company from the offset who are upset that this indie company has now become part of a publicly-traded social networking company.
The outrage has included Notch from Mojang announcing that anything Minecraft on Oculus Rift has been canceled because Facebook “creeps him out,” then it spilled over into the Oculus Rift Kickstarter page where people are asking for their money back. See, the Oculus Rift was kind of a thing that the internet got behind and raised up over their heads. It was something that they felt that they had a hand in. The Kickstarter asked for $250,000 and raised over $2.5 million. We’ve seen companies like Valve talk about supporting it, even saw John Carmack ditch out on id Software to work for Oculus VR.
There have been assurances that Oculus VR will remain independent, but the reality is that an internet giant has purchased it and that there is a sense of inevitable meddling coming in the near future. If that means ads, a VR-social network marketplace GUI to access games, who knows, but there are fears and if you head over to the Oculus Rift’s Kickstarter page you’ll get some solid laughs out of the outrage. [Source]
