Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

While I was Gone…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 27, 2014

Man, I’m out of it for a couple of days, and crazy stuff happens.

First of all, if you haven’t heard… Facebook is buying Oculus VR (best known for their still-in-prototype product, Oculus Rift), for a total price – if they hit their targets – that could be valued at around a cool $2 billion. And – while it’s older news (by a whole week) – Sony’s got their own VR device they announced during GDC.

This has a lot of people who backed Oculus during their Kickstarter a little up-in-arms. I don’t pretend to follow all the details, but there’s some natural concern about the tiny little startup that could suddenly becoming one with the Borg. Facebook’s reputation is hardly virtuous, and they don’t have the kind of focus on gaming as Oculus VR has had. So… I guess we’ll see how this shakes out.

Raph Koster has some pretty intriguing musings on what this signifies, and where the trends are going.

Secondly – the nasty little company that’s been snatching popular gaming terms and trademarking them to hell and back had its initial public offering. I will admit that I’ve got a bit of schadenfreude-y pleasure in seeing that their IPO was somewhat lackluster. As of this morning, it’s down even further, although it is bouncing slightly off of its lows, now at 18.70.

The games business remains busy.

UPDATE: Apparently everybody’s favorite (not!) anti-videogame state senator from California, Leland Yee – the same guy who sponsored the anti-videogame law that was later struck down as unconstitutional – famous crusader against guns and violent videogames – has gotten nailed for … get this… GUN RUNNING and corruption. Yeah. My schadenfreude is going off the charts here.  So according to this guy, law-abiding citizens owning guns or playing games with guns or violence in them is a terrible, terrible thing. But selling guns to known gangsters? Apparently he doesn’t think that’s such a big deal.

Hypocrisy much?

I guess we’ll have to see if he’s convicted, but it sounds like they’ve got some pretty overwhelming evidence.


Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 7 Comments to Read



  • Tom W said,

    The Oculus Kickstarter promised a development kit as a reward and, eventually, delivered on that promise. Oculus VR never promised a stake in the future of the company. Add to this the fact that Facebook has changed very little about Instagram and Whatsapp, and I think that the internet nay-sayers are just shocked, surprised, and panicking unduly. No, Facebook isn’t exactly gaming-focussed, but it does know about getting a product out to the mass market. In my opinion, that’s exactly what VR in general needs right now.

  • Cuthalion said,

    This is certainly likely to help the Oculus Rift, but I expect Facebook being the one to do so will have some nasty consequences.

  • Anon said,

    > Add to this the fact that Facebook has changed very little about Instagram and Whatsapp,

    What should they change? They were after the data anyway… 😉

    > Facebook isn’t exactly gaming-focussed, but it does know about getting a product out to the mass market.

    So does Coca-Cola…

    Oculus getting under the Facebook hood simply means that it vanished from my radar even quicker than WhatsApp from my phone…

    The problem with the Sony glasses on the other hand is that it very likely is only for the PS4 only and not be supported by anything else (even Sony products).

    I think all current concepts of “3D” – whether it’s 3D-TVs with glasses (shutter or passive) or those VR-glasses – simply stink.

    As long as I can’t sit in my comfy chair without glasses or anything that prevents me from enjoying a movie or game like *I* want (for example, taking a drink or a snack – or chatting with my friends) I’m not buying.

    Of course: The new tech is better than the old red-green-glasses for sure – but it’s still not there, yet, by a long mile.
    It’s like the first “space ships” from private companies that may get you up there – but are still far from actual “space travel”.

  • Tom W said,

    > So does Coca-Cola…
    As far as I’m aware, Coca-Cola didn’t offer Oculus VR $2Bn.

  • Anon said,

    > As far as I’m aware, Coca-Cola didn’t offer Oculus VR $2Bn

    True.

    But the $2Bn for Oculus is only the entry fee. If they actually want to get something to the market they will have to invest again.

    Here’s another competitor, BTW:
    http://www.trueplayergear.com/

  • Tom W said,

    Without a prototype, or a price for that matter, it’s hard to see the True Player device as anything more than a wishlist right now. It looks like I’m not the only one to think that.
    http://time.com/42162/like-it-or-not-virtual-reality-is-big-business-now/

  • Tom W said,

    I forgot to add to my previous post: I would say that the CastAR is Occulus’ biggest competition right now.

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