Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by wlesieutre » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

tempoponet wrote: post #71

jnwatson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Steam sales aren't what they used to be. Once they added refunds the sales got watered down, because you could just refund and re-buy if the price got lower at a later date in the sale. There's also a ton of free/discounted games on the Epic store, 3rd party key resellers, and subscriptions like Xbox Gamepass. These are all possible because the PC remains an open, competitive platform - so that point stands.

They also took away gift inventories, so you can't buy extra copies and send them out later.

Along with that they killed the four packs that used to be common for multiplayer games.

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

#112

Post by freeone3000 » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #82

selfhoster11 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

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 from both sides.

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

#113

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #96

jnwatson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> One of the secondary reasons I've avoided Oculus is that it is a closed system; you can only buy from a single provider I buy most of my Oculus games on Steam, not the oculus store. Half Life Alyx is a Valve game after all.

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:23 PM UTC

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%.

> 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.

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

#115

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #82

selfhoster11 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> No one's forcing anyone to use youtube.

No one's forcing YouTube to send me the videos either. If it gives me ads, they will be deleted before they even make it to my screen. If they don't like that, they are free to return 402 Payment Required instead of giving me stuff for free.

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

#116

Post by oehpr » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:44 PM UTC

recursive wrote: post #76

Duralias wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 20$ VR game is usually (if it is linear) about 3-6 hours long. "Superhot VR" (25$) 2-3 hours, if you are a completionist, about 6 hours. "Star wars: Tales from the galaxy's edge" (25$) 2-3 hours, if you are a completionist, about 4 hours. I think the longest single player VR game that exists now is "The Walking dead: saints & sinners" (40$) which is around 11-14 hours long, but it is barely linear, it is more like…

I'm at least 10 hours in on beat saber, and I feel like I'm just getting started.

You are just getting started. I've only now felt like I've hit the wall, and I'm at about 300 hours.

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

#117

Post by rijoja » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

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.

Yeah so what can we do to prevent this? I would say that the main risk here is that Facebook would be able to get control over the whole VR ecosystem. In worst case so that the top apps only would be usable if you had a Facebook account and with a Facebook device.

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

#118

Post by mtnygard » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #93

silicon2401 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that I bought a machine and several games and at no point were any ads involved. Only after they money has changed hands, I’m then told that I need to allow ads into my system.

If the same practice was applied with physical goods, it would be a clear bait-and-switch. (And therefore illegal.)

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

#119

Post by chaostheory » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #75

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.

Totally agree. I get the deal-with-the-devil that is the free-to-play game / website / email client / social network where I'm getting a service in return for my eyeballs. But I paid for my Oculus Quest, and then I just paid for a game. I do not therefore want my eyeballs rented out. Edit: I'd also much rather the Quest platform not become the cesspool that is the free-to-play ad-infested world the iOS AppStore has b…

I think there's something everyone is missing. Is this just limited to Oculus? Last time I checked ad platforms do not have a habit of staying voluntarily stuck on just one product line. This is will spread to all VR platforms.

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

#120

Post by freeflight » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

rijoja wrote: post #117

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.

Yeah so what can we do to prevent this? I would say that the main risk here is that Facebook would be able to get control over the whole VR ecosystem. In worst case so that the top apps only would be usable if you had a Facebook account and with a Facebook device.

That’s pretty much already the case. By now Occulus only exists as a brand inside the Facebook ecosystem, only legacy Occulus accounts are allowed, everybody else uses their Facebook account to login and tie purchases too.

The same Facebook account that FB can at any time arbitrarily block and demand the owner properly ID themselves.

A situation that originally was deemed as “will never happen” when Occulus originally got acquired by FB.

At least there is also Valve to offer an alternative that’s more privacy minded. But this makes their hardware offerings more expensive by default, as the device prices can’t be subsidized by monetizing their users.