Welcome to capitalism. Of course they did it to get rich. Why does 99% of the sane population do anything except for money?

Well, I wouldn't say that everyone does everything for money, but I would say that if anyone is making a big song and dance about what they are doing, then it's most likely for money.

Ahah, fair point. That is positivism !

And they did become rich. As well as the founders of Whatsapp.

But if the Facebook shareholders become rich... is still in doubt.

For us the only interesting thing is if innovation will be encouraged or slowed by such moves. I guess that there are enough attempts at VR that Oculus is not staying the only one for long. And Oculus will on short term profit from Facebook buying them by getting more resources.

But in the long run if Facebook maybe possess a monopoly...

It happens cyclically: every now and then a good part of the industry finds something that it thinks it's the future of everything, then it flops so bad that people don't talk about it anymore with their peers.

Case in study: Second Life. IBM (the motherfucking IBM) wanted to turn that shitty 3D engine into a "new way to communicate" for schools, companies and everything. Where is Second Life now? Oh right, no one talks about Second Life anymore (even though it still exists somehow, somewhere).

Whoever thinks that VR is "the future" is a dumb idiot, in my not-so-humble opinion, as much as whoever thinks that "social" piles of shit like Facebook are something more important (or more interesting) than a glitch in the always-changing Internet Matrix.

No really, stop pushing for this to happen: this WILL NOT happen.

Samething as when people say: "Tablets are the PCs of the future, Desktops and Laptops will be obsolete"

Just because they can use an internet browser :P

You're wrong. ZE CLOUD is the future.

So when's Mark Zuckerberg going to buy GOG? :P

I know. I'm not worried though. If they were to buy a gaming company, they would probably buy steam for an even larger user database. Might be a good move for GOG too. All the angry users on steam will be coming to GOG.

On the topic of Facebook buying the oculus rift, I can understand the backer's reaction, but the sad truth is that they're not investors. They were just donators.

Like youtube, paypal...

They already doubled their money.

I just don't see this tech taking off. The barriers to purchase as a consumer will always be too high for most people i.e. too expensive with too few game support. Too much of a novelty idea, in my opinion.

Uh-oh, that was some bomb. Then again, that's the sort of things to be expected when investors have a vote on your board.

The community certainly is upset, and understandably given that FB couldn't be more far away from (dedicated) PC gaming.

What I don't get are the "poor Carmack" comments here - he publicly stated that he's not a "serious" gamer, but an engineer who wants to work on VR which was the reason he left id Software/ Zenimax and joined Oculus VR in the first place.
Reading about his interests, I don't get the impression that he's strictly and exclusively interested in VR in gaming, i.e. it doesn't seem to make much of a difference if it's FB providing the funds and resources - though I admit that it is kind of funny and ironic that he doesn't even have a FB account (yet).

Why do people think that he voted against the deal as CTO of Oculus VR?

Well, my "poor John Carmack" post was certainly largely sarcastic. Actually I didn't expect that he was very opposed to the Facebook acquisition. In fact I don't think that this whole event is going to have a major impact on his job, he's probably just gonna continue to make sure that Oculus Rift and its software implementation are gonna be top-notch.

I think the reactions (including mine) were rather about who we imagine John Carmack is and whom we want him to be. To many he's that legendary almost godlike figure, the guy who made Doom and Quake! A mastermind capable of writing amazing technology but who ended up in a place where his work isn't put to good use, where he doesn't get the recognition he deserves. In our minds he left iD Software to do something more meaningful, he went to a place where his amazing skills will be put to great use - after many many years finally a chance for him to seriously contribute to gaming culture, finally a company that will make perfect use of his talents. And now that company was bought by Facebook, the exact opposite of where we want to see John Carmack. For the Carmack worshippers the acquisition by Facebook instantly sounds like a new low in his career - even if in reality Carmack may be very happy where he is now.