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Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

reuters.com

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Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#81

Post by Otek »

silicon2401 wrote: post #68
rychco wrote: post #36

I despise ads in all forms, and the absolute worst offenders are ads built into a platform just like this. Windows 10 shouldn’t be advertising on my desktop, PlayStation/Xbox shouldn’t be advertising on my dashboard, cars shouldn’t be advertising on the controls/display, and Facebook shouldn’t be advertising in my virtual reality headset.

I understand the dislike of ads, but not so much the complaint. Companies are free to insert ads if they want to, and we're free to choose what media we consume. I hate ads and would be glad to see them outlawed like billboards in Vermont, but I don't stress about it. I accept it as a tradeoff for playing certain games, or I do ad-free things like reading old books or exercising.

You see, problem with this is that we don't have a choice. With Oculus Quest, I bought this headset and it didn't had any ads back then. I have to keep it connected to the internet to download and update games but we shouldn't accept state where they can just put ads on my hardware anytime they want.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#82

Post by recursive »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #62
serf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Take YouTube - a popular ad supported service with a premium tier. How many people are willing to pay to remove ads? Less than 1%. I think that's an inaccurate assessment of 'people who don't want to see ads', given that statistics put internet wide usage of ad-blockers at around 42%.[0]. Maybe it's just that no one wants to pay their captors for golden ear-muffs and blinders when they themselves are the ones respon…

> Maybe it's just that no one wants to pay their captors for golden ear-muffs and blinders when they themselves are the ones responsible for the poor user experience. I vehemently refuse to pay for YouTube Premium for that exact reason. I get ads that amount to something like "You know how we just stuff ads down your eyeballs constantly? You know how it's really annoying? For just X.99 a month, we'll no longer do tha…

I don't understand this. Would it be better if YouTube "Free" didn't even exist? No one's forcing anyone to use youtube. How is this different from any subscription service that has a hobbled "lite" version?

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#83

Post by CivBase »

rychco wrote: post #43
nuclearcookie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you consider a fair price for a game? Are you talking about games in general or just games on Oculus?

I’m definitely a minority in this regard, but I completely support increasing the price of games across the board. Development is more expensive & involves more people now. The cost of games has been $60 for what, 15 years? One additional problem is that everybody wants to cash in on subscriptions and micro transactions for continuous money, even when you’ve already paid “full” price.

> The cost of games has been $60 for what, 15 years?

Not really. $60 is an introductory price, but most games at that price launch with at least one $80+ special edition and are supplemented with $40+ of post-launch content with much higher margins than the original game. And that's before considering some of the more contentious monetization practices like micro-transactions and "loot boxes". In many cases devs and publishers slash the initial price of a game shortly after launch (usually a year or two) to increase player counts, because more players generally means more sales of post-launch content.

And that's something else nobody ever seems to bring up when discussing the stagnant price of video games - the ever-increasing sales volumes. The cost of producing additional copies of a game is negligible, especially with the rise of digital distribution, so each copy sold after breaking even is pure profit. Since there is basically no production cost, developers (in theory, at least) dump part of their profit into the development of their next title. This allows them to stay competitive and results in skyrocketing budgets. The high budgets are a sign of a successful industry, not a struggling one.

Despite the increasing budgets and seemingly stagnant launch prices, video game developers are more profitable than ever. It's because they are selling more copies than ever and have figured out plenty of ways to bring in extra revenue after the initial sale. If you ask me, things should go the opposite direction. A huge selection of cheap, high-quality indie titles have affected the relative value of "AAA" titles, to the point where I rarely consider spending full price on a game launched at $60. Either way, the industry has recently been dipping its toes in the water with a new $70 shelf price. We'll see if it sticks.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#84

Post by jonplackett »

shafyy wrote: post #39
rychco wrote: post #36

I despise ads in all forms, and the absolute worst offenders are ads built into a platform just like this. Windows 10 shouldn’t be advertising on my desktop, PlayStation/Xbox shouldn’t be advertising on my dashboard, cars shouldn’t be advertising on the controls/display, and Facebook shouldn’t be advertising in my virtual reality headset.

FWIW, the ads are not on the platform level, but inside individual games and apps. For now. (I also despise ads)

Still using platform-level data though.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#85

Post by tux3 »

silicon2401 wrote: post #68
rychco wrote: post #36

I despise ads in all forms, and the absolute worst offenders are ads built into a platform just like this. Windows 10 shouldn’t be advertising on my desktop, PlayStation/Xbox shouldn’t be advertising on my dashboard, cars shouldn’t be advertising on the controls/display, and Facebook shouldn’t be advertising in my virtual reality headset.

I understand the dislike of ads, but not so much the complaint. Companies are free to insert ads if they want to, and we're free to choose what media we consume. I hate ads and would be glad to see them outlawed like billboards in Vermont, but I don't stress about it. I accept it as a tradeoff for playing certain games, or I do ad-free things like reading old books or exercising.

>Companies are free to insert ads if they want to, and we're free to choose what media we consume

I'd like to invite you to turn that around. The freedom that we all get to exercise cuts both ways, it is not exclusively for companies to be active and consumers to passively, quietly accept things they dislike.

Citizens are free to complain about ads if they want to, and companies are free to to respond to market pressure by relying on more or less advertisement.

As a company, you might dislike negative consumer feedback, but you should just accept it as a tradeoff for making certain unpopular business decisions, or you should offer ad-free platforms and avoid the problem entirely.

Complaints are not inherently bad. They're just an effective consumer practice.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#86

Post by phkahler »

cj wrote: post #25
prepend wrote: post #8

> Facebook said it will use the test to explore ways to help developers earn revenue on the Oculus platform. How about by just selling games? I hate this mealy-mouthed way of deflecting that it’s not about Facebook’s revenue, but about “helping developers.”

Aren't Oculus games typically $20-50? The price points for games always seemed very high to me. In an ideal world they'd offer a "no ads, full price" version and a "discount with ads" version. My guess is we'll probably just be left with "full price with ads" as the only option.

>> The price points for games always seemed very high to me. In an ideal world they'd offer a "no ads, full price" version and a "discount with ads" version.

How do you go into a shared VR environment and have ads appear for one user and not another?

I'm on-board with "just make everyone pay for apps" but it's very hard to decide what's going to be worth $30. My favorite VR game is free, but I went ahead and paid for the optional content (non functional) because I want to support the developers.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#87

Post by wincy »

tomjen3 wrote: post #70
wincy wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m getting close to paying, YouTube has figured out some clever way to keep AdGuard on iOS from properly blocking ads and it’s super annoying. But I mean when it’s trivial for a technical user to download a few adblockers why pay, right?

That is one of the reasons I love using a real computer. I can install firefox with ublock origin and sponsorblock. Bomm. No more ads, no more tracking and no more in-video ads. I would only get the first by paying, and I have found videos without ads so more more relaxing.

You also get the “bonus” of full quality videos on mobile. The safari version of YouTube is limited to 720p and music videos 360p.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#88

Post by thathndude »

serf wrote: post #32
nindalf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just you, but you are a tiny minority. You’ve expressed a sentiment that’s very popular on HN, but not among the general population. Take YouTube - a popular ad supported service with a premium tier. How many people are willing to pay to remove ads? Less than 1%. Even on HN I don’t think that number would be more than 10%.

>Take YouTube - a popular ad supported service with a premium tier. How many people are willing to pay to remove ads? Less than 1%. I think that's an inaccurate assessment of 'people who don't want to see ads', given that statistics put internet wide usage of ad-blockers at around 42%.[0]. Maybe it's just that no one wants to pay their captors for golden ear-muffs and blinders when they themselves are the ones respon…

Plenty of people will pay nothing to block ads (I.e. use a free ad blocker). But when it's time to pay, different story!

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#89

Post by amelius »

sneak wrote: post #12

Oculus cannot be used without a Facebook account. Facebook is an advertising company. It's simple: if you don't want ads, delete your Facebook account, and don't ever buy Oculus. I got an HTC Vive Pro 2 three days ago, and it's sweet. No Facebook required.

Or take action: buy an Oculus, open the package and return it. Make sure you state why.

This is one of the few ways to make big corporations actually listen.

Re: Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets

#90

Post by scrollaway »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #67
scrollaway wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling VR insubstantial is absurd. Just because VR helmets won't be as popular as mobile phones doesn't make them so. It's like calling an Xbox insubstantial. What VR lacks in game variety, it makes up for in how unique the experience is. VR consoles will be able to get new games and apps, while "regular" consoles won't get more unique without releasing new models. Gaming in VR is also a lot more beginner friendly.…

> Console Controllers are not intuitive, whereas VR controls almost always are. Almost all console controllers follow a similar control scheme for decades (minus the front buttons like "share" or the touchpads). I don't see them as unintuitive.

Billions of people have never held a console controller. For them, VR will be far more intuitive than controllers. VR is intuitive for all humans.

I invite you to watch this extremely enlightening video: https://youtu.be/nyJUza39ELE (it's also a good channel in general)

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