OCCULUS BOUGHT OVER BY FACEBOOK

Now here’s a piece of disappointing news. Occulus VR the company behind the Rift, a virtual reality kit has been bought over by Facebook for an estimated $2 billion.

Full news reported in the link to theverge.com below:

The Verge: Facebook Buying Occulus for $2bil

Personally, I’m quite not really down on this and it’s made me feel quite disappointed since the whole project was seen as a community darling.

I understand that they’ve done nothing wrong legally and maybe in their own minds (ethically). But the bottom line is that, a lot of people that backed them on Kickstarter didn’t envision that by doing so they would be helping a company sell out to a bigger corporation.

This was supposed to the success story that everyone wanted, the small underdog with the help of Kickstarter and it’s community investment would make it on it’s own without the help of the big players.

I can say I understand that Occulus VR did this to get more dough behind newer technology and they need more money to hire and purchase new technology to enhance the Rift.

But the major issue here is that it’s Facebook of all companies that have acquired them. Facebook doesn’t necessarily have any track record of being a grass-roots engineering or technology oriented company, it’s always seen as a Data mining company.

Here’s where the reality kicks in, Facebook might be willing to help Occulus VR make the Rift a better device, but at what cost? Will they add features or stuff that consumers already hate that’s in Facebook.

My god it’s full ads!

The possible scenario of usage is limitless in a VR Kit, it could range from virtual shopping malls to virtual real estate where real-tors can showcase the properties virtually. But on the flipside, will we be bombarded with ads, get annoying messages, or have privacy intrusion yet again? Would we need to link our VR kits to a Facebook account as a requirement?

All in all, it remains to be seen. But nevertheless, I can say understand both sides of the story, the backers and the fans’ disappointment in the acquisition and the logic behind the owners’ reason for selling out.