Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
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Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#2They're not actually that dumb, right?
"According to Mitchell, the company’s current goal is to educate people about the merge and why it is a good thing. He thinks this is working since the negativity is finally starting to cool down."
I assume this "gee, we had no idea there would be this reaction" thing is a subtle part of that education campaign.
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#3Keep an open mind. No need to get angry (yet).
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#4First off, they should've expected that reaction if they sold to anyone, because:
#1 it was too early, and they still had a lot of investment money
#2 they've implied many times that they wouldn't sell. I don't remember if they said it directly, but they certainly made it seem that way
#3 they basically decided to sell the company "overnight". That took everyone by surprise, and it made the move extremely suspicious (personally, I still think Mark Andreessen forced the decision, and Oculus was more like "ok, well I guess that could work", rather than enthusiastically try to sell the company themselves, prior to that)
#4 Facebook seems like one of the worst companies that could've bought Oculus, and no one would've even dreamed that would ever happen, from the community. A lot of people were like "WTF? Is this a joke?" when they heard it. And it's one of the worst, not just because people hated it for being so privacy-intrusive, but also because there's no connection between Oculus and Facebook, and usually when the cultures and visions are very different, the acquisition fails.
I don't believe them when they say they really din't expect the reaction to Facebook buying them. If they didn't maybe they aren't paying much attention to what's happening in the tech community lately. I think Oculus could've only done worse than Facebook if they would've been bought by Oracle.
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#5Strangely, they understand why people would be angry about selling out to Microsoft or Sony (which frankly, are far more legitimate platforms than Facebook. IE: Oculus on XBox or Oculus on PS4 would be great). However, selling out to a large company is almost always going to be seen as a negative when you bill yourself as an "indie company".
Facebook on the other hand, is facing a huge amount of negativity as well. Their stock price dropped by 15% this past week, as investors don't understand the purchase at all.
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#6Many people view Facebook policies as creepy and unethical, that is probably driving this negative response. We don't know where mainstream VR will take us in ten years, but we do know that there have been many assaults to our privacy and we don't want to create another keyhole into our private lives.
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#7They're not actually that dumb, right? "According to Mitchell, the company’s current goal is to educate people about the merge and why it is a good thing. He thinks this is working since the negativity is finally starting to cool down." I assume this "gee, we had no idea there would be this reaction" thing is a subtle part of that education campaign.
Interesting that they think the public is becoming more alright with the acquisition because the anger is slowing. It's like they don't understand that after all bad news, the stories and comments about it will wane over time.
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#8First off, they should've expected that reaction if they sold to anyone , because: #1 it was too early, and they still had a lot of investment money #2 they've implied many times that they wouldn't sell. I don't remember if they said it directly, but they certainly made it seem that way #3 they basically decided to sell the company "overnight". That took everyone by surprise, and it made the move extremely suspicious…
They are in a bad position overall however. Sony Morpheous looks like it has taken all the good ideas from Oculus.
And with Oculus selling out to Facebook, the "indie" community may not be as supportive of the platform.
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#9> Beyond our core community, we expected it would be positive.
> If you actually understand [Facebook’s] vision of letting us be who we’re going to be, just like they wanted to let Instagram be who they are.
The reason people don't get this -- or at least, why I don't get it -- and thus responded negatively, is because VR should have nothing to do with Facebook's vision, and Facebook -- or social gaming in general -- should have nothing to do with Oculus' vision.
Gamers cared about Oculus and Rift because they felt Oculus was innovating in the interest of gaming as a whole. But being bought out by Facebook makes it seem that Oculus is "selling out" to someone that is historically more interested in monopolizing innovation than they are in gaming, or at least the type of gaming that Oculus was originally innovating towards.
It's hard for many to see anything under the umbrella of Facebook doing a service to gaming -- look at the direction social gaming has taken us.
This is how I see it, in my admittedly limited view, anyway. And since the views of those "beyond their core community" are likely similarly limited, it makes sense that others may have a similar reaction.
So I'm baffled how Oculus is surprised by the reaction.
Re: Oculus Says They Didn't Expect Such Negative Reactions to Selling to Facebook
#10I think it's because nobody understands what FB is going to do with it.
Instagram definitely has location and social graph data to exploit.
But Oculus? What is FB going to do with that?
I think most people still think of FB as the site and advertising sales for the site.
But if you see FB as a conglomerate like Google, Apple, and Sony then it makes more sense. FB is diversifying, buying up promising technology with the hopes of leveraging new markets out of it.
Maybe they want to make the Gameboy of wearable gaming? They have had success in working with gaming companies (Zynga and King might have peaked, but FB still made money.) And they certainly have a enough power to make things happen.