From the Oculus VR Blog:
A few months ago, Mark, Chris, and Cory from the Facebook team came down to visit our office, see the latest demos, and discuss how we could work together to bring our vision to millions of people. As we talked more, we discovered the two teams shared an even deeper vision of creating a new platform for interaction that allows billions of people to connect in a way never before possible.
Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve joined forces with Facebook to create the best virtual reality platform in the world.
Lots of people unhappy with this decision. Check out the comments in the blog article. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too. Notch (creator of Minecraft) has announced he’s cancelling the Oculus Rift version of Minecraft.
Notch goes on to elaborate in a blog post:
I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook. Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven’t historically been a stable platform. There’s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.
And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition.
Ouch.
Part of the Oculus Rift’s original appeal was that it was an independent, rag-tag bunch of hackers, crowd-sourcing funds and bringing an impossibly grand vision to life. Being acquired by Facebook runs completely counter to that narrative.
It also means that all the seed capital investors in Oculus VR get rich, and the original Kickstarter backers (who got the company off the ground) get nothing.