When I learned that Oculus Rift was bought by Facebook last week, my reaction was something like this. But before the dust seemingly settled, word got out that Michael Abrash had joined the Oculus team as Chief Scientist. Some may write-off Abrash’s recent post, where he discusses the future of Virtual Reality (VR) as PR bullshit. But I’d disagree. His excitement is palpable:
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place on Tuesday. A lot of what it will take to make VR great is well understood at this point, so it’s engineering, not research; hard engineering, to be sure, but clearly within reach. For example, there are half a dozen things that could be done to display panels that would make them better for VR, none of them pie in the sky. However, it’s expensive engineering. And, of course, there’s also a huge amount of research to do once we reach the limits of current technology, and that’s not only expensive, it also requires time and patience – fully tapping the potential of VR will take decades. That’s why I’ve written before that VR wouldn’t become truly great until some company stepped up and invested the considerable capital to build the right hardware – and that it wouldn’t be clear that it made sense to spend that capital until VR was truly great. I was afraid that that Catch-22 would cause VR to fail to achieve liftoff.
That worry is now gone. Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus means that VR is going to happen in all its glory. The resources and long-term commitment that Facebook brings gives Oculus the runway it needs to solve the hard problems of VR – and some of them are hard indeed. I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can.
Oculus is building a bona fide dream team when it comes to VR. John Carmack, one of the brains behind Doom and Quake (who Abrash worked with on Quake 1) is working a Oculus as Chief Technology Officer. But there’s more! The team also has Atman Binstock, the brains behind Valve’s VR room at the Steam Dev Days in January 2014. I heartily recommend you read the last article linked, at least the section pertaining to the room, as it sounds fucking awesome.
Abrash’s excitement drips through the words of his post. And when I read that, and really thought about what he said, I couldn’t help but feel excited. Many gamers, myself included, scoffed at the idea of Facebook buying Oculus Rift. It just didn’t seem to make sense. But like Google. Facebook is spreading out. One of Facebook’s so called aims is to allow people to “share and connect.” And when you think about it, the possibility of Virtual Reality has the potential to do just that.
Whether or not Oculus goes under is irrelevant at this point as Facebook has the capital to fund the development of the tech. Furthermore, I think a lot of people who worry that Facebook may step on the toes of the Oculus team, though valid, are forgetting that the potential success of Oculus could eclipse that of its parent company. Just look at Justin.tv. Twitch.tv spun from it, and now that site is pulling in more revenue and unique users than its parent company.
We’re in a fascinating time with VR, as Abrash points out, because this concept was abandoned long ago. Now that doesn’t seem to be the case, and the possibility of a new technology, even a new genre in gaming or interactivity, is very real.
I think that what Oculus does from here on out will be laying the groundwork for others. I hope they maintain a good relationship with Valve, and that the two companies continue to collaborate (though I wonder if that will happen with Oculus’ acquisition and the fact that Abrash left Valve). Some people are talking about Sony’s Morpheus, but I wouldn’t bet the bank on those guys (see the catastrophe that was the PS3 and the supposed superiority of the cell processor). And though there seems to be others coming to the table, my money’s on Valve and the team at Oculus, especially the latter when you look at the brain trust those guys are building.
I think we’re looking at the birth of a new technology. The possibilities are simultaneously exciting and scary.
The future is now, and that singularity thing may be closer than we think, for good or ill.
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