Facebook buys Oculus VR
category: offtopic [glöplog]
i think a big part of the "problem" people have with it is that Facebook isn't exactly widely liked as a company. (I don't mean they're some kind of failure there, just that people might use the products but not like the company - just like a lot of people don't like MS but happily use windows :)
If you take the (often pretty huge) risk of putting money into a kickstarter, you might not be investing financially but you're very likely investing emotionally. You want to see the company succeed, but you don't want to see them taken over by some company you don't really like.
If you take the (often pretty huge) risk of putting money into a kickstarter, you might not be investing financially but you're very likely investing emotionally. You want to see the company succeed, but you don't want to see them taken over by some company you don't really like.
"I supported this kickstarter because I liked their project and wanted them to become moderately successful. But now they've taken my money and used it to become incredibly successful instead! BASTARDS!"
To be fair: Kickstarter's use of words like 'perks' and 'rewards' does establish (or at least, create a pretence) that what you're paying for is not the T-shirt or the prototype device or the dinner with the creators, but it's an (emotional) investment in the goal of the project. If they don't go through with their promise, you're entitled to be pissed off at them even if you get your T-shirt. However, in this case the project goal was "launch the Oculus Rift", not "build a self-sustaining company that fits the hipster-friendly narrative of plucky underdog against The Man", so they've delivered on their promise.
To be fair: Kickstarter's use of words like 'perks' and 'rewards' does establish (or at least, create a pretence) that what you're paying for is not the T-shirt or the prototype device or the dinner with the creators, but it's an (emotional) investment in the goal of the project. If they don't go through with their promise, you're entitled to be pissed off at them even if you get your T-shirt. However, in this case the project goal was "launch the Oculus Rift", not "build a self-sustaining company that fits the hipster-friendly narrative of plucky underdog against The Man", so they've delivered on their promise.
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If they don't go through with their promise, you're entitled to be pissed off at them even if you get your T-shirt.
You are 'entitled' to rant on the internet about it, but you really are entitled to nothing. Kickstarter is a terrible platform.
And next to the kickstarter OC got about 100 million from VCs, who did get a saying in the future of the device.
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Kickstarter is a terrible platform.
It really isn't. People are stupid and have no idea what they're sinking their money in, is all.
My understanding is that when you give money to a project on kickstarter unless it's explicitly stated you are essentially donating that money.
So yes there really is no recompense that the people who put money into oculus rift 'deserve' but surely seeing the company you just donated to sell the product for a hundred times what was raised for them kinda smacks of profiteering to me. If they had maybe sold the rights to produce a dev of the hw but retained the right to continue with their own dev they may have come out looking a bit less like sellouts.
But then they've just made a couple of hundred million dollars what do they give a fuck how they look!
So yes there really is no recompense that the people who put money into oculus rift 'deserve' but surely seeing the company you just donated to sell the product for a hundred times what was raised for them kinda smacks of profiteering to me. If they had maybe sold the rights to produce a dev of the hw but retained the right to continue with their own dev they may have come out looking a bit less like sellouts.
But then they've just made a couple of hundred million dollars what do they give a fuck how they look!
ringo: you know they've not just sold the thing to Facebook and walked off? They're continuing to develop it as before, with the same team. Facebook now own it, and we'll have to see how it works out long term, but now the same team is building the same product with a lot more funding in place (kind of important if they want to do this right, especially if they want to sell it in high volumes).
Looking at it the other way, consider what the alternative is. They continue working on it, have to use off-shelf parts because building say a custom screen for it would be too expensive. Then they start manufacturing, in relatively small volumes because they can't afford to order say a million at once at a cost of say $100. They sell out, naturally.
A big company then sees that. They throw money at it, get custom parts developed so it's better than the rift. Then they order a few million at once. That gives them a decent discount, plus they can afford to sell with lower profit margins because they're selling more of them. Suddenly the market is flooded with a better product at a lower cost, and OR go tits up.
So yeah, actually being bought out was probably the only way they could succeed. Presumably they'd been talking to various companies about it, and decided Facebook was the best deal on the table. Maybe it was because of the money, or maybe Facebook just see it as a good business bet, and will fund it but otherwise leave them alone, and it's a good deal for OR and everyone else. We'll see :)
Looking at it the other way, consider what the alternative is. They continue working on it, have to use off-shelf parts because building say a custom screen for it would be too expensive. Then they start manufacturing, in relatively small volumes because they can't afford to order say a million at once at a cost of say $100. They sell out, naturally.
A big company then sees that. They throw money at it, get custom parts developed so it's better than the rift. Then they order a few million at once. That gives them a decent discount, plus they can afford to sell with lower profit margins because they're selling more of them. Suddenly the market is flooded with a better product at a lower cost, and OR go tits up.
So yeah, actually being bought out was probably the only way they could succeed. Presumably they'd been talking to various companies about it, and decided Facebook was the best deal on the table. Maybe it was because of the money, or maybe Facebook just see it as a good business bet, and will fund it but otherwise leave them alone, and it's a good deal for OR and everyone else. We'll see :)
^ furry muff. I guess it does come down then to what you were saying earlier about people's perception of fb and how that affects their view of the process.
Cheers.
Cheers.
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surely seeing the company you just donated to sell the product for a hundred times what was raised for them kinda smacks of profiteering to me
Why? That's exactly how companies and investment are supposed to work. They get the initial funding to allow them to do a thing, and then they use their technical and business expertise to create value. If they're amazingly good at it, they'll end up with something that's worth many times that original value. It would be a pretty crappy outcome if they raised a million dollars, put a year or two of work into it, and ended up being worth exactly the same million dollars (and they'd have to rename it from Kickstarter to Kick-stay-in-exactly-the-same-place-er).
If they were getting the money from venture capitalists then yes - good on 'em. But this money was donated you can call it all sorts of other names but at it's heart KS is about donating to a cause or project.
Maybe my leftwingism just kicked in for a moment but to me, seeing someone I donated to profiting MASSIVELY (by an order of magnitude in this case) from those donations it would I imagine kinda smart.
It is only my perception and not the reality of the situation and of course as someone who runs a business despite some jealousy and chagrin I have to say "Good on 'em and good luck."
Maybe my leftwingism just kicked in for a moment but to me, seeing someone I donated to profiting MASSIVELY (by an order of magnitude in this case) from those donations it would I imagine kinda smart.
It is only my perception and not the reality of the situation and of course as someone who runs a business despite some jealousy and chagrin I have to say "Good on 'em and good luck."
I'm glad you read the FAQ to Kickstarter, like, never.
^ Your purposeful, proactive and constructive comment has been duly noted.
Taken from my browser history from yesterday, I found the subtopic on accountability to be fairly pertinent.
over two thirds of all the donators got a devkit (for donating over $250) and of those who didn't, the majority pledged less than $25. so i don't even see a problem from that point of view. it isn't like you got nothing from it if you invested a respectable amount of money.
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Development Kit 2
$350.00
The Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 is the latest development kit for the Oculus Rift with a low-persistence OLED display and low-latency positional head tracking.
So they got a $100 discount on a devkit that's now obsolete.
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Q: I currently own the original Oculus Rift Development Kit. Can I trade it in or return it for an Oculus Rift Development Kit 2?
A: We are not accepting trade-ins or returns for credit toward a Development Kit 2 purchase. Note that you can still use the original development kit to create content for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift.
Woo, yay! Anyhoo I have more important things to be getting on with than arguing with strangers on the internet.
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If they were getting the money from venture capitalists then yes - good on 'em.
They did. As i said before, they got about a 100 million from VCs next to the kickstarter. And you never trade any devkit for a new one for free, you always pay for upgrades and for the consoles, those prices are much, much higher.
But we all know you literally know jackshit about anything and still can't stop posting your ill informed opinions on this site, so whatever.
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Quote:If they were getting the money from venture capitalists then yes - good on 'em.
They did. As i said before, they got about a 100 million from VCs next to the kickstarter. And you never trade any devkit for a new one for free, you always pay for upgrades and for the consoles, those prices are much, much higher.
But we all know you literally know jackshit about anything and still can't stop posting your ill informed opinions on this site, so whatever.
Well, we know this much: They had investors. The investors definitely wanted an exit (as that's their business), and Facebook offered a good one. I'm pretty sure the oculus devs had fairly little to say in the deal in the end.
It seems to me that when you give your money to a Kickstarter project you give them unwillingly, like "I like to support this even if it may never be delivered". Most Kickstarter project fail to deliver in time, I am just reading the comments on the Ouya disaster, and the GCW0 failing to deliver 100% at this time is still not that bad, hehe. And all those hobbyist projects (OpenPandora, etc) it's like you tell to yourself, I am gonna give my money because I believe in this but might not get something back soon, and when it's late it's gonna suck in various ways. So, I don't have expectation when I fund a KS, I am just "shut up and take my money and let's hope I'll get something good back". But I like the concept, we wouldn't have various innovative products if it wasn't for KS.
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Does any one of you remember a weird vga mode that did 256x256? it was very easy to do a get/put pixel using a 16bit register (al: x, ah: y that sort of thing). It looked like death (cropped) but worked!
Absolutely, I have fond memories of this "cubic" mode, 256x256 x 256 colors. I had made a tron-like game for 4 players in it (that was ten years ago but it seems I still have the source). The resolution was easily splitted in 4 :)
http://pastebin.com/sgQ1FKju for a sequence to set that mode
ponce: I'm pretty sure you posted that in the wrong thread. Here's the right one! :)
