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janrinok writes:
MaximumPC has a story that explains why Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR has sparked an amount of animosity from virtual-reality enthusiasts, most notably from the original Kickstarter backers.
The article explains:
Is the hate unwarranted? Perhaps some of it, but many of the Kickstarter backers have a right to feel betrayed.
Take a moment and imagine that you've always dreamt of going sailing, but never had the means to obtain a boat. One day you meet and befriend a passionate and intelligent boat builder, Ted, who shares the same dreams of sailing as you do. Ted says that once he builds his boat, you'll be able to go sailing on it, whenever you please. Sounds perfect, doesn't it? But because Ted needs funds to build the boat, he asks you for a donation. Because you fervently believe in his vision, capabilities, and promise, you comply. After several months, Ted takes you out on some test runs. You find the ship to be shaping up nicely and can already imagine yourself sailing the seven seas with it. Then, all of a sudden, some rich executives walk by and throw a boatload of cash at Ted to acquire it.
Ted, by textbook definition, just sold out. And in doing so, crossed the boundaries between the trust and vision that you guys shared together. Still, Ted assures you that once he's done building the boat, you'll still be able to take it out on joyrides whenever you want, but deep down inside, you know the execs hold the keys to the ship, and you can't help but fear that they may wreck it.
This is analogous to how Oculus says no changes will be made to their original vision, though it's difficult to imagine a future where Facebook won't try and integrate their services into it, pester you with annoying ads, or steer VR away from its original open-source/mod-friendly gaming intention. If that's not an infuriating situation, I don't know what is. Is what Oculus did illegal? No, but Oculus did break a gentleman's agreement. They violated an unwritten rule. It's like a friend who asks to borrow five bucks, wins the lottery, and doesn't pay you back.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by umafuckitt on Sunday March 30 2014, @10:44PM
The boat analogy is bad. In that case there is just one boat and you are lending the builder money with the expectation that you will be allowed time on it when it's finished. When the rich executives buy the boat, they are taking away your ability to use the boat. These things aren't the case with a Kickstarter project that's "sold out"
The purpose of the Kickstarter project is to develop a product which will then go on sale. In many cases, such as OR, certain contributors have already received a unit in return for their cash. Smaller contributors have not received a unit, but have funded the project with the understanding that without many people contributing a small amount, the final product would not be available to purchase at all. Together, all of these small contributors have provided sufficient cash for OR to develop a product that appears interesting and viable. However, despite this, there have been problems with ramping up supply and development has taken longer than expected because of feature-creep.
So enter Facebook, which "buys out" OR. Unlike the boat analogy, this buy-out does not mean there will be no final product for the Kickerstarter contributors to eventually purchase. On the contrary, the cash injection will be used to rectify manufacturing issues and increase speed of development. So a better product should hit the market sooner. Why, then, is everyone so pissed off? They are pissed off because they don't like Facebook and they don't trust it not to fuck up the final product. Whilst the fucking up is a concern, it has not yet occurred and may not occur at all. So I don't reckon this is the real beef they have.
The real beef, I think, is that the Kickstarter contributors feel marginalised by Facebook's buyout. After all, Facebook have just come along and given the OR developers almost 1000x as much cash as the Kickerstarter campaign raised. Suddenly the Kickerstarter, which begun everything as a warm and fuzzy labour of love, has become insignificant. What was a community-driven product is now a faceless corporation product. That is what people don't like. I don't think it matters which company purchased OR, the reaction would have been more or less the same towards any company injecting that much cash into the mix.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 30 2014, @11:48PM
It's not a very good analogy, true, but it is in a sense also correct. From a certain point of view, there is only one boat here: the vision of the product as a whole. Who's to say that Facebook will not suddenly force the final retail version of the Oculus Rift to have draconian DRM that makes it harder for the community to do interesting things with it? Or put in a dozen hooks into their systems that are enforced by similar DRM? Or if they make other changes to the final retail version that the community that got there first wanted? Facebook certainly has the power to do that now if they wanted. Before Facebook got involved, I doubt that even the original developers of OR would have had the clout to be able to do something similar. Yes, there may indeed be a final product available for those who contributed to the Kickstarter, but whether it will still be the project that they were told they would get when they were convinced to contribute is not clear. It will now become the product that Facebook wants, which is probably not the same as what the original Kickstarter contributors wanted.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Monday March 31 2014, @12:01AM
(to add to what I accidently posted as an AC earlier)
It's not a very good analogy, true, but it is in a sense also correct. From a certain point of view, there is only one boat here: the vision of the Oculus Rift product as a whole. Who's to say that Facebook will not suddenly force the final retail version of the Oculus Rift to have draconian DRM that makes it harder for the community to do interesting things with it? Or put in a dozen hooks into their systems that are enforced by similar DRM? Or if they make other changes to the final retail version that the community that got there first wanted? Facebook certainly has the power to do that now if they wanted. Before Facebook got involved, I doubt that even the original developers of OR would have had the clout to be able to do something similar. Yes, there may indeed be a final product available for those who contributed to the Kickstarter, but whether it will still be the project that they were told they would get when they were convinced to contribute is not clear. It will now become the product that Facebook wants, which is probably not the same as what the original Kickstarter contributors wanted.
It will be a "better" project by Facebook's standards, not by the standards of the contributors.
This is Facebook we're talking about. Their watchwords are big data and advertisement. You are hopelessly naïve if you really believe that two billion dollars will not distort the final product's vision in any way. Ask yourself why Facebook would pump in so much cash into Oculus Rift if they didn't believe that they could leverage the technology being developed for its own purposes.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Monday March 31 2014, @01:08AM
Ask yourself why Facebook would pump in so much cash into Oculus Rift if they didn't believe that they could leverage the technology being developed for its own purposes.
I certainly have asked myself that and, TBH, the answer isn't obvious to me. It's an odd investment for them. In fact, it's mainly for this reason that I'm not concerned about the buy out. I think I'd be more concerned if it were Sony or Microsoft were buying it, since in that case I'd expect the Oculus to turn into a hard to hack console-only device. With Facebook buying it things are more mysterious. Only time will tell, I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 31 2014, @05:11AM
That doesn't matter. The whole point is that the community which contributed to the Kickstarter no longer has any influence whatsoever in the direction the product is going to take. Facebook now owns it body and soul, and they are now well within their rights to alter the product in whatever way they see fit, up to and including cancelling the project completely, and no one will be able to gainsay them for it. Admittedly it's unlikely that they'll do that, because no one pisses away two billion without at the very least trying to make part of it back.