There’s been quite a bit of fallout in the recent buyout of Oculus VR by Facebook. Supporters of Oculus Rift and the virtual reality movement have been vocal about their worries concerning the deal.
Palmer Luckey thinks that the worries are unfounded, and the Facebook buyout won’t change the company.
“I won’t change, and any change at Oculus will be for the better. We have even more freedom than we had under our investment partners because Facebook is making a long term play on the success of VR, not short-term returns. A lot of people are upset, and I get that. If you feel the same way a year from now, I would be very surprised,” Luckey wrote over on Reddit.
Luckey also believes that having Facebook’s financial resources will allow for the company to be more agressive in their plans, which could be a big boon for indie development on the platform.
Indie developers are the ones driving this VR revolution
“This deal will definitely make things better. You are right, we have struggled to properly support indie devs because we had to focus our limited resources on our closest partners, that has been a failing that I want to fix. Indie developers are the ones driving this VR revolution more than anyone else, and one of my personal goals has been to support them in a much stronger way.
Our developer relations/publishing team is really small right now, just a few guys. That is one of the reasons Oculus Share applications have taken so long, they get backed up behind the hundreds of developers we talk to every day.
If anyone reading this is an indie developer who has a problem getting a response, email me at [email protected] and I will make sure things get moving.”
Luckey outlines a number of reasons why the Facebook deal makes sense for the long term viability of virtual reality, which you can find here.
Published: Mar 26, 2014 11:35 pm