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

reuters.com

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

#51

Post by Agentlien »

croon wrote: post #23
Agentlien wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first response when seeing this article was that I'm, yet again, so happy I did not get an Oculus. I'm very happy with my Vive Cosmos and it works without a Facebook account and hasn't shown me any ads so far.

I get what you're saying, but honestly the Quest is in a whole other league, as a product. I had an original Vive, and understand that Cosmos has higher fidelity etc, but the Quest inside-out-tracking is good enough, and can be used with or without a PC, with or without a cable to said PC, the resolution is great, and the compression on the PC interfaces while noticable is, again, good enough. I sincerely don't miss…

I understand where you're coming from and ignoring the Facebook aspect the Quest would perhaps be the product for me, though I can't say I see much of an advantage of it over my current system.

Cosmos also has inside out tracking so no beacons and I honestly don't mind the cables. I never really notice them when I play. I did with the original Vive when I tried it at work, though. As for the PC, I'm an avid gamer and graphics programmer for a AAA studio. My VR is set up in my home office so I have access to a more than adequate PC, anyway.

What I really do mind is a lack of graphical fidelity. Cosmos was the first option I tried which really felt good enough for me (the original Vive always felt cool but not quite there) and I know Quest has very similar resolution. But noticeable compression artifacts sound like something that would really bother me.

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

#52

Post by hobs »

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%.

I paid, then they killed google music for no damn reason, so I stopped paying.

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

#53

Post by rightbyte »

bitL wrote: post #41

A little off-topic - does anyone know why Steam takes screenshots of VR content played in a headset? I've noticed multiple times that Steam's Screen Capture process ended up hanging with HP Reverb G2 and am wondering why do they need to take screenshots? I'd have expected that from Facebook (privacy lol) but don't understand why Steam bothers with it?

Is it a multiplayer game? I know eg. Battlefield 2 took screenshots for game server admins to look for cheaters. In the good old days where I wouldn't suspect the screenshots to be used for big data spying ..

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

#54

Post by neogodless »

lwhi wrote: post #24

I really believe in VR. I despise Facebook and advertising. We need an alternative.

https://www.cnet.com/news/best-vr-headsets-for-2021/

Oculus Quest is the least expensive, competitive, standalone headset. Least expensive option often pairs with ad-supported.

We bought a Quest before Facebook bought Oculus, and we're very disappointed with that turn of events. I think most people would be better off opting out of VR until there's a non-Facebook standalone headset under $400 (like the original Quest once was.)

EDIT: Correction - we did not buy the Quest before it existed. We bought it a bit before the announcement that you'd eventually need to use a Facebook account with it.

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

#55

Post by lawl »

SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #47
shafyy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the ads are not on the platform level, but inside individual games and apps. For now. (I also despise ads)

> but inside individual games and apps. IMO that's worse. You spend more time in game than on the menu screen. Sadly this is likely a pandoras box we will not be able to close.

> Sadly this is likely a pandoras box we will not be able to close.

Valve has tried that a long time ago too and it wasn't successful. There's still some hope.

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

#56

Post by numpad0 »

driverdan wrote: post #38
lwhi wrote: post #24

I really believe in VR. I despise Facebook and advertising. We need an alternative.

There are a bunch of other VR headsets. Buy a different one.

That only works for someone belongs to hard anti-Facebook cluster like I am. The situation is similar to hobby drones, the alternatives to problematic ones are years behind for higher prices.

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

#57

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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.

Facebook is getting the blame, but it’s actually game developers who are choosing to add these ads to their games.

I’d be upset if these ads were on the Oculus hardware that I paid for in the games I bought, but if it’s just going into freemium games then it’s business as usual in the ad space. I haven’t even heard of the “Blaston” game the article cites as one of the first games to adopt the ads.

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

#58

Post by Humdeee »

vlunkr wrote: post #34
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.

Or, in a worst case scenario, they will be free, with ads, and the ecosystem will turn into a trash fire like the mobile game market did.

The micro transaction and "pay to not wait" model is just an overall terrible experience. Mobile gaming has solidified itself as watching a series of software timers count down.

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

#60

Post by jnwatson »

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.

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 closed system; you can only buy from a single provider. You're much more likely to find sales on VR games on Steam.

Video games on Steam are the best ROI for entertainment period, right up there with a good pair of hiking boots.

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