Rift’s First ‘Core-Game’ Loading Human Unaffected by Facebook Buyout: “VR is Not Just About Games”

PCGMedia turn to Untold Games seeking answers as to how Facebook's Oculus VR will change games development for the system.

[darthv72]

VR IS not just about games. But try explaining that on a gaming site and no-one will want to listen. They want it for games but that is just one medium to use it in.

I am looking at the bigger picture of virtual experiences that a person could never do in their lifetime.

Perhaps the evolution of these virtual experiences will be like the headgear used in the movie brainstorm (IMDB it). Nothing you wear over your eyes but you simply wear a headband that taps into your consciousness and you suddenly feel like you are really in that experience.

[SteamPowered]

Ok, let me be devils advocate here. Who else other than gamers would pay $400-$300 for a peripheral like that? Do you think casual facebookers would be on board? VR has many uses, but gaming is a huge demographic who aren't afraid to spend some money on tech. Games would sell VR. Chat rooms and social experiences probably won't.

[NegativeCreepWA]

Gamers are the people that will spearhead VR, But in the future it'll be more affordable as with any tech and the application possibility's are endless. VR will be like a TV, it'll have many uses. You plug it in and use it for what you want, like a monitor or TV.

[aliengmr]

Yet.

In the short term gamers are indeed the ONLY market, which is why they are focusing on that. To do otherwise would be suicide.

VR has many uses but you have to start somewhere, and that is gamers. Tech like this takes time.

[SteamPowered]

@negative & alien
You guys are right, VR will eventually move into other mediums, absolutely. Gamers will help usher in the VR movement, so lets make sure we get this VR thing done right.

[darthv72]

"Who else other than gamers would pay $400-$300 for a peripheral like that?" Gamers represent a very small part of the potential for this tech.

Imagine you are a realtor wanting to show homes to clients but they are apprehensive of walking into someone elses home. This tech can give them the virtual tour of the place with the exception of having to actually walk over someone elses stuff.

Or as the article eludes to, you can see a new attraction before its even unveiled to the public. I mean seriously there are the entertainment aspects of this tech but there is also the business side of it as well.

companies who can provide a virtual service to their clients without them having to set foot in an establishment means lots of potential.

[thehitman]

At Darth you just threw me 6-8 years in the future as an IT guy lol... Having to maintain and troubleshoot and work with all this shit lol.. VR could very well be the new "touch" if done correctly.

[starchild]

Oculus, as well as Facebook, knows that gaming is going to be the driving force behind the adoption of VR. They also know that game developers are uniquely positioned to create the highest quality and most compelling VR content. And they know that gamers are the only people that currently have the sort of PC hardware that can drive a good VR experience.

It's astounding to me that some people actually believe that using the Rift will require a Facebook sign-in when it is a piece of hardware and not even Facebook's other acquisitions like Instagram and WhatsApp require a Facebook sign-in and those are websites!

[Bimkoblerutso]

No, I understand that there are countless wonderful applications for VR...but I don't think Facebook is interested in any of that.

[ArmrdChaos]

Facebook's stake in VR is virtual storefronts.

[Kryptonite42O]

Sounds similar to Strange Days.
I recommend watching a movie called eXistenZ. Its about VR gaming.

[Summons75]

It may not be just about games but Facebook has made it fully clear they are going to refocus it. It's not going to have anything to do with games besides the godawful Facebook games, there will be ads popping up with every turn of the head, and microtransactions to do the simplest of tasks.

After the past day it seems like the RIft is dead in the water with all the interest nearly gone.

[aliengmr]

So FB dropped $2 billion on a device and for reasons unknown (likely evil) decided to NOT target the ONLY audience that will buy the Rift?

That's what you are saying? That a greedy corporation decided to waste $2 billion dollars for no reason at all?

You are wrong, just wrong.

[Summons75]

No they decided to spend 2billion and use it for their own purposes instead of having it do multiple focuses. Facebook focuses on social media look at the 'game' companies they invested in...they quickly shifted to a different focus and the things that barely qualified as a game became even less so and a lot of them were scrapped.

If you seriously think they are going to focus on gaming after they said they had NO INTEREST then you clearly missed something.

VR isn't just about gaming but they clearly have very little interest in the tech form the sound of it. The OR devs probably got nervous with competition and had a bunch of offers on the table and just took the highest one without thinking of the consequences.

[aliengmr]

1. You are completely wrong about what was said and it has since been clarified a dozen times.

2. Who is going to buy a Rift? Gamers. FB users barely know of the Rifts existence. So exactly why would FB target FB users instead of the market that already exists to launch a tech device that hasn't even been accepted yet?

You have completely misunderstood what is going on.

There is no arena(VR) in which to compete. Its a gimmick until the mainstream picks it up. They won't hear about it if FB decides to NOT sell the thing to the ONLY market available to them.

FB may do all those evil things down the line, but in order to do that there has to be a substantial market for VR headsets. They aren't going to get that focusing on a market that does NOT exist and abandoning the ONLY one that does.

Once there is a market for VR FB and OVR can make Facerift to their hearts content.(though limiting such a device to a single purpose is absurd) By then the competition that is set to jump in the market will fill the void.

Again, you are wrong, seriously the doom and gloom scenario has been debunked by OVR and FB. What they do post-today is one thing, but as of right now nothing has changed, hence the Rift devs not jumping ship.

How is this so hard to grasp?

[starchild]

@Summons75

It doesn't matter. The Rift is a piece of hardware. Are you saying that Facebook will block developers from making games for the Rift? How would that benefit them?

Everybody knows that they are going to branch out into VR social media, but how would that change the qualities the Rift has as a VR gaming device? It wouldn't.

And even if Facebook was stupid enough to try to drop gaming somewhere down the road(which is absurdly far fetched in my opinion) they would only be shooting themselves in the foot.

Anybody can come to market with a VR headset and the only way Facebook would maintain a dominant position would be to give people what they want. Putting immersion-breaking ads in an experience that is ALL about immersion is the opposite of giving people what they want.

Not to mention, the Rift is just a piece of hardware and it would be easy for people to just mod it and rip out any Facebook stuff. People would just circumvent it and use it for their own purposes.

People who are interested how Facebook and Oculus are thinking about this should listen to the shareholders conference call here:
http://www.shareholder.com/...

"Oculus's mission is to enable you to experience the impossible. Their technology opens up the possibility of completely new kinds of experiences. Immersive gaming is the first big oportunity. And Oculus already has big plans here that won't be changing.

The beta version of the Rift is highly anticipated by the gaming community and Oculus has already received orders for more than 75,000 development kits...which is pretty crazy by itself. These developers are mostly gamers, so this is a strong signal of how much people want to develop games for Oculus and how excited they are about it as a gaming platform.

We're going to focus on helping Oculus build out their product and develop partnerships to support more games and accelerate their plans. And they'll continue to operate independently within Facebook to do this."

[NegativeCreepWA]

Dude, it's like a monitor. If you plug it in to play game you'll be doing just that without ads. If you use it for a facebook app you'll probably see ads, just like a pc monitor. It's not a hard concept to figure out. It's a piece of hardware people will make software for, games included. Technically it's like a TV or monitor. If facebook bought out TV manufacturer do you think you'd get ads while you watch a movie?

[Periphereality]

Facebook have their own USES for it.
Game devs have THEIR own uses for it.

It's a versatile little thing.

[NegativeCreepWA]

Good read. Glad to read something that isn't full of paranoia and conspiracies.

[Periphereality]

<3

[CocoWolfie]

vr in general yeah... but the oculus rift, that was suppose to be...

[jhoward585]

I agree VR is Not Just About Games. But VR has to start somewhere first...the core market of course.

If face book decide to go with the social market first instead of the core gaming market, it will probably cofused people like the nintendo did with its gamepad.

Smart bussiness reqiures a good structure. Core market should be the primary focus, and everything else should be secondary.

Social/casuals indiviusal doesn't have as much understanding about tech as core gamers does. so its smarter to start with core gamers frist because him or her can explain through "word of mouth" what VR is to someone who doesn't know what VR is.

Education is key. "Word of mouth" is how information get around. Its the basis of what make a porduct get known.