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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

#181

Post by recursive »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #165
recursive wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's the sheer aggression in their advertising that they introduced recently. There are memes that you have 2 ads every video, and that is closer to reality than parody these days. My touchstone for excessive advertising is a Polish TV station called Polsat, which often had very good programming but also lots and lots of ads. We often joked that Polsat programming was "all ads, sometimes broken up by a few minutes of…

I wouldn't know. I've been a premium subscriber for longer than that.

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

#182

Post by fomine3 »

jnwatson wrote: post #60
cj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is $20 high? I'm continually amazed how much fun a $20 game can provide. For the price of a movie ticket and a coke, you can get a dozen hours of entertainment. That seems like a pretty good deal to me. And the $60 are AAA games where you'd easily get 30-40 hours worth. These have budgets of ~$70 million; they have to make their money back somehow. One of the secondary reasons I've avoided Oculus is that it is a…

I wish AAA games are thing in VR

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

nindalf wrote: post #22
philipswood wrote: post #2

Is it just me? I would rather just pay for stuff and be done with it rather than have my attention and sensorium sold to the highest bidder.

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%.

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by freeone3000 »

floatboth wrote: post #173
freeone3000 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube doesn't provide the content, the people I watch do. I send them money. A youtube subscription to them, of which youtube takes a cut, doesn't disable ads -- only a second service, paid to youtube itself , does. Apparently $15/mo gets rid of ads, but $5.99 a month (less 20%, thanks youtube) actually creates the content I care about watching. Youtube has inserted themselves in the middle, and are extracting rent…

> youtube subscription to them, of which youtube takes a cut, doesn't disable ads This is a really stupid oversight.. Twitch did subscriptions first and there they do disable ads on the channel you subscribe to (if it has them).

This isn't an oversight. YouTube allowed this from 2018-2020, but no longer allows creators to disable ads on their channel.

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

#185

Post by chandra381 »

d3nj4l wrote: post #20
StevenWaterman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember they put out a statement saying it would never require a FB login, and that you were ridiculous to suggest it would ever have ads. Had an oculus rift DK1 at the time - deleted my accounts, unsubscribed from everything, and bought an HTC vive shortly after it came out. Wasn't buying that at the time, and I feel vindicated now.

I don't think they ever put out a formal statement (I'd love to be corrected on this). What I do remember is Palmer Luckey saying that, but then, it's really on the Oculus community to have believed the words of a 22 year old about to make millions.

I'm not personally a big fan of Palmer Luckey but he really shat the bed with that statement. Just completely destroyed his credibility.

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

#186

Post by rijoja »

floatboth wrote: post #177
rijoja wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At heart Occulus is really an android system right? It would be such a shame if they where to grab control over this ecosystem. Unfortunately their set seems to be the most viable path to mainstream adoption. Valve exists but Valve's alternative is way pricier and requires a computer right? Facebook would be able to mass-produce these devices at a low cost in a completely different way it seems. So since it is an and…

> they seem to be a bit more pricier as well Well, the only "new" headset is the HP Reverb G2 which is indeed in the premium segment. But if you consider the used market, Samsung Odyssey+ is an incredible value option. I hope Microsoft aren't completely sitting on their asses, they have everything they need to enter the standalone market and provide an alternative to Facebook. They have the Qualcomm partnership, they…

I think Lenovo has released Mixed Reality headsets in a lower price range that seems decent.

I think the problem with the PC ecosystem that it is difficult to find an open framework that covers all the different systems.

All in all I am quite impressed with the Microsoft effort. It doesn't seem to lock customers in. There seems to be a possibility to use them with Linux as well.

Also the Microsoft AR system seems quite well executed as well even though it is definitely to costly for mainstream adoption. This is probably by design though and will go down for sure due to economy of scale.

So there would be web technologies that covers most of the platforms, albeit at a performance cost. At the end of the day maybe this is all about which SDK that covers the most platform and is the best for the developers.

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

#187

Post by perryizgr8 »

I don't understand this obsession with ads. Let's see what a person has to spend to play one of these games:

1. A powerful PC (at least $1000)

2. The headset (at least $300)

3. The game (Beat Saber $30)

So after paying this much ($1330) why is advertising needed? Do AAA games need additional ad funding after selling their games? Do indie game devs need additional ad funding after selling their game?

The problem with ads is that is it inherently disruptive and annoying wherever it is inserted (billboards, movies, TV, youtube, webpages). Why do you want to annoy and irritate customers paying a premium for your next gen platform?

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

#188

Post by Mindwipe »

driverdan wrote: post #61
numpad0 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works for someone belongs to hard anti-Facebook cluster like I am. The situation is similar to hobby drones, the alternatives to problematic ones are years behind for higher prices.

They aren't years behind but are more expensive since they arne't being subsidized to eat up your data.

> They aren't years behind but are more expensive since they arne't being subsidized to eat up your data.

They are years behind. FB now has a significant patent library advantage, and nobody is even making standalone headsets with a strong software library.

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

#189

Post by nickik »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #114
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%.

> It’s not just you, but you are a tiny minority. No, everyone agrees that ads are annoying. I install uBlock Origin on every single browser I come across. Every single time, people take notice almost immediately. They always tell me the internet just feels so much nicer. Many times they can't explain why, they just know. Ads are a blight on the modern web. Everyone prefers the low-noise version.

They can't explain that they are not seening popups every 5s is better?

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

#190

Post by nickik »

paulcole wrote: post #9
philipswood wrote: post #2

Is it just me? I would rather just pay for stuff and be done with it rather than have my attention and sensorium sold to the highest bidder.

Personally, I don’t mind ads. I like buying things and like seeing things I don’t know about that I might want to buy.

I don't mind intrusive adds. I can control myself and if it helps the side its fine.

However, popups or videos in front of yt, no thanks. As long as it doesn't waste my time or plays sound go ahead.

That said, I have it blocked anyway.

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