Facebook’s new acquisition causes Rifts in the community

Facebook’s new acquisition causes Rifts in the community

Facebook announced yesterday that it has acquired the Oculus Rift for 2 billion dollars, sparking shock and outrage from the gaming community.

The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset unveiled at E3 2012 that managed to raise millions of dollars through Kickstarter and private funding, and garnered a huge amount of support from the community.

It allows for complete immersion into gaming, and was recently used more creatively for things like the Game of Thrones exhibition at SXSW 2014, something very exciting that people hoped would revolutionize the stale gaming market.

However, yesterday Facebook acquired the Oculus Rift for 400 million in cash, 1.6 billion in FB stock, and has the potential to pay 300 million more in cash if it hits performance goals.

The rationale behind the decision is that Zuckerberg sees the Rift as the future of human interaction, describing things like watching a sports game like you’re in the bleachers from the comfort of your own home, or meeting with your doctor face-to-face over the web.

However, Zuckerberg also mentioned that hardware sales were not the intended source of revenue now, instead wanting to use advertising revenue to recoup the investment.

This announcement divided the gaming community, with some being excited about the possibility of the Rift seeing use outside gaming, whereas others feared the influence Facebook will have, warning about the advertising and micro-transactions.

One Reddit user joked about having to buy DLC to see out of the left eye, and while it may seem like a joke, it’s not out of the picture given the state of the micro-transaction industry at the moment.

Notch has already cancelled his deal to bring Minecraft to the Oculus, stating that Facebook “creeps me out,” and it’s likely other developers will follow.