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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

#141

Post by gfodor »

avar wrote: post #138
gfodor wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not listening to the person you are responding to. Nobody is going to argue that kickstarter backers are entitled to equity in the company, or that they have legal rights beyond what is guaranteed in the kickstarter. What the person is trying to get across is that in any financial transaction there are non-legal aspects involved. There are human relationships. The world runs on favors as much as it runs on co…

I'm listening. Are you? The parent of this thread quoted: "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." If you didn't chip in ten grand of seed money for that purpose why didn't you make that part of the deal then ? There are no non-legal aspects of financial transactions. When you give someone money they're going to try to retain that money and not give…

I mean, we're going to disagree on this:

> There are no non-legal aspects of financial transactions. When you give someone money they're going to try to retain that money and not give it back to you to the best of their legal ability. There really isn't a non-legal aspect involved in it unless you're a sucker who's willing to get screwed over.

This isn't really true, if you plan on doing business for more than one transaction. If you put a poison pill in a contract, guess what, you are blacklisted and can't do any deals in the future because nobody trusts you.

A similar thing is here. People chipped in money with the general expectation that Oculus was not going to sell out on the drop of a hat. It wasn't in the terms obviously but that was the expectation for many people. As such it's pretty much guaranteed for example that Palmer will never be able to do a kickstarter ever again (not that he cares at this point.) But it's a very real consequence, and so even though it was not in the deal in terms of legal consequences it is a very real outcome.

If you look at negotiations and transactions as if they are strictly independent events completely detached from human relationships you're probably a terrible negotiator slash businessperson. It's the difference between law and politics. I'll happily do a deal that isn't exactly a home run for me if I want to be sure I'll have a good relationship with that person for future opportunities.

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

#142

Post by clarky07 »

blhack wrote: post #108
baby wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nice to see Notch take a stand taking a stand against Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and now Oculus ? I know that Notch wants to develop games with passionate people, but he has to understand that this acquisition was the best thing that could happen to both VR and Oculus. Anyway, Notch has been infamously known for his quick rants (see the "youtuber he insulted" issue)

The best thing? There is really no other company you could think of who would be a better partner? Like google? Or Microsoft?

Google wouldn't be any better, and I might argue worse. They are more likely than not to just shut it down. Microsoft or Apple would be better though IMO. Alternately Valve might have been nice.

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

#143

Post by cwyers »

blhack wrote: post #108
baby wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nice to see Notch take a stand taking a stand against Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and now Oculus ? I know that Notch wants to develop games with passionate people, but he has to understand that this acquisition was the best thing that could happen to both VR and Oculus. Anyway, Notch has been infamously known for his quick rants (see the "youtuber he insulted" issue)

The best thing? There is really no other company you could think of who would be a better partner? Like google? Or Microsoft?

Google would buy Oculus to integrate it with existing product lines, either Android or wearables. Microsoft would buy it for the Xbox. Apple would buy it to make it part of the iOS line. Facebook by far seems like the weirdest of the possible major buyers, because they have by far the fewest obvious complements to Oculus, but by the same token, that makes them the most likely company to be buying Oculus to expand into an entirely new space, in other words to let Oculus set their strategy rather than their strategy dictate the future of Oculus. It's a double-edged sword.

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

#145

Post by maxden »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #130
skore wrote: post #3

> "Facebook creeps me out." Whether or not you agree with his decision, having Notch pull away from talks with you creates an instant credibility "situation". It's also noteable that Notch had been meeting with the Oculus team just two weeks ago[0], was tweeting about them in rather gushing terms[1] and seemed incredibly inspired to work on VR ideas[2]. He is now the personification of the a near universal feeling of…

Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR. Glad to see Carmack is still being Carmack. EDIT: By the way, if anyone is wondering why people are having a negative reaction to this Facebook deal, I think one way to understand it…

edit: To clarify, it was from reading this, which I originally read as 1 month, until I read the tweet. "Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481"

ah.. 1 minute? I thought there was 1 month old tweet that mentioned FB (and obviously overlooked)

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

#146

Post by avar »

gfodor wrote: post #141
avar wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm listening. Are you? The parent of this thread quoted: "And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition." If you didn't chip in ten grand of seed money for that purpose why didn't you make that part of the deal then ? There are no non-legal aspects of financial transactions. When you give someone money they're going to try to retain that money and not give…

I mean, we're going to disagree on this: > There are no non-legal aspects of financial transactions. When you give someone money they're going to try to retain that money and not give it back to you to the best of their legal ability. There really isn't a non-legal aspect involved in it unless you're a sucker who's willing to get screwed over. This isn't really true, if you plan on doing business for more than one tr…

Don't get me wrong. I'm disappointed in Oculus too, and I'd be even more disappointed if I'd actually invested in them.

I'm just saying that people need to learn the hard lesson that when they're "investing" in something like Kickstarter they're not actually "investing" in the general sense. They're making a donation with little or no string attached, at best it's a "you give us money and we send you some doodad in the mail" investment.

So they're effectively donating money with no string attached.

So if you donated money to the company thinking they were going to do X and they actually do Y they can and will fuck you over if they think they can make more money doing Y than they can doing X, accounting for all the alienation from their existing customers from doing not doing X.

So please everyone, if you want to invest in something and you want to have the expectations of an investor make sure you're actually investing, not just donating.

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

#147

Post by Houshalter »

derefr wrote: post #137
Houshalter wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on Earth would be the advantage of virtual reality over existing multiplayer games or skype?

World-of-Warcraft-like MMO games allow for "character customization", but on a moment-to-moment basis, character models are mostly static. You can read an explicit display of emotion if they choose to "emote" one, but there are no continuous subtle cues about how a person is continuing to feel about something. Now, one of the interesting things about VR is that, provided your perspective is attached to an avatar, the…

Except you're face is going to be covered with virtual reality junk, and all it does is display something a normal monitor or TV can. Reading your facial expressions requires nothing more than a webcam. And the whole thing I think is just a gimmick that doesn't add much value (both VR and facial expressions.) Additionally video game characters look really creepy when they try to do facial expressions.

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

#148

Post by lstamour »

maxden wrote: post #145
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481 For the record, I am coding right now, just like I was last week. I expect the FB deal will avoid several embarrassing scaling crisis for VR. Glad to see Carmack is still being Carmack. EDIT: By the way, if anyone is wondering why people are having a negative reaction to this Facebook deal, I think one way to understand it…

edit: To clarify, it was from reading this, which I originally read as 1 month, until I read the tweet. "Heh, from Carmack's twitter 1m ago: https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/448629403740692481" ah.. 1 minute? I thought there was 1 month old tweet that mentioned FB (and obviously overlooked)

Today's March 25. That's when that tweet was posted. FYI. ;-)

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

#149

Post by EpicEng »

benched wrote: post #67

I hope that this illustrates for some that the distaste over this deal is more than a few "irrational" / cynical malcontents on Hacker News. A lot of people have a serious problem with Facebook the service, the cultural shift, and the company. On another note, I was so looking forward to Minecraft on Oculus. I sincerely hope that Valve picks up the torch here.

Anecdotal data point; I just informed my girlfriend of this deal. My girlfriend, who knows of Oculus as "that virtual reality thing you were talking about." She also uses FB. Her response, verbatim; "that's not good."

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

#150

Post by TaylorAlexander »

cwyers wrote: post #143
blhack wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing? There is really no other company you could think of who would be a better partner? Like google? Or Microsoft?

Google would buy Oculus to integrate it with existing product lines, either Android or wearables. Microsoft would buy it for the Xbox. Apple would buy it to make it part of the iOS line. Facebook by far seems like the weirdest of the possible major buyers, because they have by far the fewest obvious complements to Oculus, but by the same token, that makes them the most likely company to be buying Oculus to expand int…

Yeah, Facebook is one of the few major tech companies who can buy Oculus and let them operate independently, since they don't have a stake in anything much related to gaming or VR. This means they are one of the companies least likely to screw with the Oculus vision, and I see that as a very good thing for virtual reality.
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