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Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

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Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

#21

Post by yeukhon »

elohesra wrote: post #8

I can't honestly blame him here. I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they do wa…

Well instead of mobile games they may leverage the large console and desktop gamers out there and add FB accounts to those circles. Besides it may be a new revenue.

One kind of social events is gaming with friends. It's nice to compete with friends and show to your network what you and your friends are up to.

Undoubtedly at some point virtual reality is going to become the next "smartphone". Rift is a giant headset but in a decade or two it will get so small that we can enjoy virtual reality at home like we enjoy using a smartphone.

This feels more and more like getting your virtual character in SIMs to play virtual reality game.

Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

#22

Post by elohesra »

enraged_camel wrote: post #14
elohesra wrote: post #8

I can't honestly blame him here. I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they do wa…

>>I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out' I think that's very much the issue. Seriously, "virtual reality" and "Facebook" are two things I don't want to think about in the same context. The former is an extremely promising piece of technology that can change the way people work, talk and play. The latter is a gigantic online advertising engine. Put them together and there's only one direction virtual reali…

Okay, let me play devil's advocate:

Perhaps Facebook are thinking "What's the one thing that could truly set us apart from all other social media sites, and place a prohibitively high barrier to entry on this otherwise very easy to enter field?", and perhaps the conclusion they've reached is to take social media to the next level, and have it simulate life in virtual reality.

Perhaps Facebook are going to aim to have a FacebookVR some time in the future, where you can meet up with other avatars 'in person' in their virtual reality community?

... Or perhaps this is just a sleazy cash in where they think they can recapture the video-game-enamoured youth market by shoving Facebook into every Oculus Rift game.

Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

#23

Post by pera »

xendo wrote: post #10

I'm wondering, what's John Carmack take on this, he quit idSoftware to join Oculus, which was very open by that time. He always was proponent of openness... right now from a laik perspective it looks it was mistake to leave id.

Me too, I am sure he didn't expected anything like this :(

Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

#24

Post by gravity13 »

elohesra wrote: post #8

I can't honestly blame him here. I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they do wa…

> There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose

Facebook gets their hands in the less-casual game industry and also gains control over a platform for virtual experiences, I can see many reasons why Facebook would support continuing to build the Oculus for its originally intended purpose.

At least it's not Microsoft.

Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

#26

Post by venomsnake »

xendo wrote: post #10

I'm wondering, what's John Carmack take on this, he quit idSoftware to join Oculus, which was very open by that time. He always was proponent of openness... right now from a laik perspective it looks it was mistake to leave id.

His twitter is silent. Not something that shows overjoy of the big exit.

Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

#28

Post by elohesra »

yeukhon wrote: post #21
elohesra wrote: post #8

I can't honestly blame him here. I doubt the issue is Facebook 'creeping [him] out', so much as it is that it's uncertain what exactly Facebook is going to want out of the deal. Facebook isn't primarily a games company, and it's even less a 3D/desktop games company. There doesn't appear to be any obvious motivation for Facebook to use this tech for its intended purpose, so the question becomes what exactly they do wa…

Well instead of mobile games they may leverage the large console and desktop gamers out there and add FB accounts to those circles. Besides it may be a new revenue. One kind of social events is gaming with friends. It's nice to compete with friends and show to your network what you and your friends are up to. Undoubtedly at some point virtual reality is going to become the next "smartphone". Rift is a giant headset b…

> It's nice to compete with friends and show to your network what you and your friends are up to.

I've never understood this mindset in gaming. Maybe I'm just showing myself as an introverted curmudgeon, but I only game when I'm not programming, and I just game to try to unwind. Being forced to do something 'social' when I just want to relax is just annoying to me personally.

I'm not saying I hate other people (I do), or that I don't want to ever be social (I don't), but social situations -- while often fun -- do require more mental energy than just shooting bad guys, or scoring goals, or whatever else the game has you doing.

Maybe I'm very unrepresentative of the gaming market at large, but I don't understand why numerous gaming companies (Sony and Microsoft have both headed down this path) want to cram social aspects into games. I'm not sure what they think the business case for that decision is. I assume they think it'll make games something more essential to day-to-day life than they currently are, by connecting games to the people you love, but that just makes me want to play games less.

Re: Minecraft creator says he’s canceled talks for Oculus Rift version

#29

Post by jeffool »

xendo wrote: post #10

I'm wondering, what's John Carmack take on this, he quit idSoftware to join Oculus, which was very open by that time. He always was proponent of openness... right now from a laik perspective it looks it was mistake to leave id.

Consider that id Software sold to Bethesda about four years before he left it. He's a proponent of openness, yes. But he's been as much employee as employer since 2009.
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