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

#131

Post by whywhywhywhy » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Oculus was an excellent product and the Quest was surprisingly successful but weirdly Facebook is being way too aggressive with trying to make the platform profitable like a traditional FB product before it's fully entrenched.

Think this might eventually be their downfall, if Sony could ship a stand alone headset at Quest quality they'd probably be able to eat FB's lunch at this point because the push to force you to use an FB account and now pushing ads into it are making it far less appealing.

Really they should have just let it fly for a few more years like how they allowed Instagram to be Instagram for a few years before they ruined it with ads and algorithms gradually.

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

#132

Post by NovaS1X » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

tyfon wrote: post #127

jonplackett wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You paid for only a part of the Quest, it is the reason I have avoided it. It is vastly underpriced for the hardware it gives. Some is paid upfront and the rest is paid in data collection etc from facebook. They have a "unconnected" version for sale for 800 USD and a service fee of 180 bucks. You can see how much you have not paid for in those prices when you go with the ad version. If the Quest 2 was not associated…

>They have a "unconnected" version for sale for 800 USD and a service fee of 180 bucks. You can see how much you have not paid for in those prices when you go with the ad version.

That pricing isn't for an "unconnected" version, that's for a business/enterprise version and yearly support. You can't use that figure and directly convert that into a value you place on your data or ad revenue.

Your point still stands, the Quest is heavily subsidized by user data on the premise of future ad revenue. This has been a given from the moment Facebook decided merge Oculus and FB acounts into one. I'm just correcting a false assumption that the $800 model is just "Quest -facebook", it's not.

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

#133

Post by whywhywhywhy » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #25

prepend wrote: post #8

> Facebook said it will use the test to explore ways to help developers earn revenue on the Oculus platform. How about by just selling games? I hate this mealy-mouthed way of deflecting that it’s not about Facebook’s revenue, but about “helping developers.”

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.

There isn't any point chasing customers like yourself. If it was even $10-$20 you'd probably be saying it should be $5, if it was $5 you'd say it should be 0.99c

We've seen this all before with the iOS App Store and the end game is just everything free with intrusive ads.

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

#134

Post by NovaS1X » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

silicon2401 wrote: post #68

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.

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.

This only works if there are equivalent choices without ads. We know from experience this is rarely the case. Choice is simply an illusion or a fantasy sold to people to placate them into accepting the current paradigm of business ad strategy.

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

#135

Post by zeta0134 » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:46 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.

What's frustrating to me is that all of these platforms _have a store_! When I open the store, I downright _expect_ advertising; it's really helpful in that context to see featured, curated, maybe promoted stuff that I'd otherwise miss. If the ads would simply stay put, I would not mind them one bit, but it seems no platform can resist stuffing them in places that they do not belong.

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

#136

Post by missedthecue » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

pazimzadeh wrote: post #91

One of the best features of AR is going to be the ability to detect real world ads and cover them up with a black box, or some nice wallpaper.

i find advertisements much more interesting than wallpaper. Not sure why that's going to be a good feature.

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

#137

Post by hbosch » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #131

Oculus was an excellent product and the Quest was surprisingly successful but weirdly Facebook is being way too aggressive with trying to make the platform profitable like a traditional FB product before it's fully entrenched. Think this might eventually be their downfall, if Sony could ship a stand alone headset at Quest quality they'd probably be able to eat FB's lunch at this point because the push to force you to…

I think if VR had the same adoption curve that Facebook initially enjoyed, we would be able to wait longer for the inevitable ad push. Anecdotally speaking, I haven't seen VR "take off" like people online hope it will year after year. Seems likely that the VR market has quite some pressure on it to turn profits soon before it bleeds out.

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

#138

Post by schmorptron » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:48 PM UTC

Duralias wrote: post #69

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…

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…

Be careful. By putting a lot of emphasis on length, you'll end up with ubisoft games, where 80% of it is filler content to get to the 100 hour completion time and only about 20% are actually fun and worthwhile. (I'm overexaggerating but you get the idea).

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

#139

Post by NovaS1X » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:59 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.

Well say goodbye to your life! I'm hundreds of hours in now and play 4 hours a week minimum.

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

#140

Post by cgriswald » Thu, Jun 17, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #133

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.

There isn't any point chasing customers like yourself. If it was even $10-$20 you'd probably be saying it should be $5, if it was $5 you'd say it should be 0.99c We've seen this all before with the iOS App Store and the end game is just everything free with intrusive ads.

That's not a customer problem. That's a platform problem. On a platform where ads are allowed developers stop being developers and start being eyeball farmers and their products suffer for it.

The point in chasing customers like me is that I won't watch ads, but I will spend money, even $20+ for an iOS game. Streaming services have figured this out and offer ad-free versions. Some iOS developers will allow you to pay for a game to remove ads. (The problem on iOS is there is no easy way to determine which games are like this, or to filter based on things like this in search.)