[HN Gopher] Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Ocu...
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Virtual reality ads make their way to Facebook's Oculus headsets
Author : shivbhatt
Score : 126 points
Date : 2021-06-17 10:08 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| jsnell wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27532243
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Oculus was an excellent product and the Quest was surprisingly
| successful but weirdly Facebook is being way too aggressive with
| trying to make the platform profitable like a traditional FB
| product before it's fully entrenched.
|
| Think this might eventually be their downfall, if Sony could ship
| a stand alone headset at Quest quality they'd probably be able to
| eat FB's lunch at this point because the push to force you to use
| an FB account and now pushing ads into it are making it far less
| appealing.
|
| Really they should have just let it fly for a few more years like
| how they allowed Instagram to be Instagram for a few years before
| they ruined it with ads and algorithms gradually.
| hbosch wrote:
| I think if VR had the same adoption curve that Facebook
| initially enjoyed, we would be able to wait longer for the
| inevitable ad push. Anecdotally speaking, I haven't seen VR
| "take off" like people online hope it will year after year.
| Seems likely that the VR market has quite some pressure on it
| to turn profits soon before it bleeds out.
| rychco wrote:
| I despise ads in all forms, and the absolute worst offenders are
| ads built into a platform just like this. Windows 10 shouldn't be
| advertising on my desktop, PlayStation/Xbox shouldn't be
| advertising on my dashboard, cars shouldn't be advertising on the
| controls/display, and Facebook shouldn't be advertising in my
| virtual reality headset.
| scantron4 wrote:
| And the physical roku stick I bought shouldn't be changing my
| entire theme to a disney plus ad.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Facebook is getting the blame, but it's actually game
| developers who are choosing to add these ads to their games.
|
| I'd be upset if these ads were on the Oculus hardware that I
| paid for in the games I bought, but if it's just going into
| freemium games then it's business as usual in the ad space. I
| haven't even heard of the "Blaston" game the article cites as
| one of the first games to adopt the ads.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Blame isn't a finite thing, and blaming facebook doesn't
| reduce the blame that can be giving to the developers. Blame
| is like the tension in a rope, equal along the length from
| cause to effect.
|
| Yes, facebook deserves blame. Yes, the game developers
| deserve blame. These can both be true at the same time.
| mattferderer wrote:
| Out of curiosity, I'm assuming most of the ads are giant in
| your face ones. Do they do any subliminal product placement
| type ads too & if so are any of them dynamic based on user
| data? Might as well go all out & have a variety of props you
| can exchange based on user data.
|
| I seem to be able to avoid ads quite a bit through tools &
| life style choices. I therefore ask this as someone whose
| personal opinion does not like the do anything for views to
| sell ads economy & avoids it as much as possible.
| [deleted]
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| They are really giant in your face ads yet.
|
| Imagine Billboards in the virtual worlds of your games for
| now. Image below if you want to see an example.
|
| https://cdn.vox-
| cdn.com/thumbor/tXt80SaN80Qsg6MdMlC4fvbHcUA=...
| shafyy wrote:
| FWIW, the ads are not on the platform level, but inside
| individual games and apps. For now. (I also despise ads)
| jonplackett wrote:
| Still using platform-level data though.
| BEEdwards wrote:
| That's worse...
|
| Can't even use escapist reality to escape from ads now.
| SaltyBackendGuy wrote:
| > but inside individual games and apps.
|
| IMO that's worse. You spend more time in game than on the
| menu screen. Sadly this is likely a pandoras box we will not
| be able to close.
| lawl wrote:
| > Sadly this is likely a pandoras box we will not be able
| to close.
|
| Valve has tried that a long time ago too and it wasn't
| successful. There's still some hope.
| tpxl wrote:
| Valve had ads in games?
| jonplackett wrote:
| Totally agree. I get the deal-with-the-devil that is the free-
| to-play game / website / email client / social network where
| I'm getting a service in return for my eyeballs.
|
| But I paid for my Oculus Quest, and then I just paid for a
| game. I do not therefore want my eyeballs rented out.
|
| Edit: I'd also much rather the Quest platform not become the
| cesspool that is the free-to-play ad-infested world the iOS
| AppStore has become. Please can we emulate the Nintendo model
| and encourage quality games you pay up front for.
| chaostheory wrote:
| I think there's something everyone is missing. Is this just
| limited to Oculus? Last time I checked ad platforms do not
| have a habit of staying voluntarily stuck on just one product
| line. This is will spread to all VR platforms.
| tyfon wrote:
| You paid for only a part of the Quest, it is the reason I
| have avoided it.
|
| It is vastly underpriced for the hardware it gives. Some is
| paid upfront and the rest is paid in data collection etc from
| facebook.
|
| They have a "unconnected" version for sale for 800 USD and a
| service fee of 180 bucks. You can see how much you have not
| paid for in those prices when you go with the ad version.
|
| If the Quest 2 was not associated with facebook I would have
| owned one a long time ago.
| NovaS1X wrote:
| >They have a "unconnected" version for sale for 800 USD and
| a service fee of 180 bucks. You can see how much you have
| not paid for in those prices when you go with the ad
| version.
|
| That pricing isn't for an "unconnected" version, that's for
| a business/enterprise version and yearly support. You can't
| use that figure and directly convert that into a value you
| place on your data or ad revenue.
|
| Your point still stands, the Quest is heavily subsidized by
| user data on the premise of future ad revenue. This has
| been a given from the moment Facebook decided merge Oculus
| and FB acounts into one. I'm just correcting a false
| assumption that the $800 model is just "Quest -facebook",
| it's not.
| zeta0134 wrote:
| What's frustrating to me is that all of these platforms _have a
| store_! When I open the store, I downright _expect_
| advertising; it's really helpful in that context to see
| featured, curated, maybe promoted stuff that I'd otherwise
| miss. If the ads would simply stay put, I would not mind them
| one bit, but it seems no platform can resist stuffing them in
| places that they do not belong.
| miej wrote:
| I agree of course, but I dont think that merely stating ones
| dislike on an internet forum will be an effective way to effect
| change.
|
| So I pose the question: What actions may we take in order to
| help ensure a future of non-implementation of "the user is the
| product" systems, with a specific focus on those actions that
| are most likely to be the most efficacious at accomplishing the
| stated goal in an expedient and lasting manner?
| rijoja wrote:
| So how efficient are for instance the EFF on conveying
| messages like this to a broader public. I bet that the gaming
| community for instance would have the technological
| understanding needed to understand how this is bad for them
| as consumers.
| rijoja wrote:
| Yeah so what can we do to prevent this? I would say that the
| main risk here is that Facebook would be able to get control
| over the whole VR ecosystem. In worst case so that the top apps
| only would be usable if you had a Facebook account and with a
| Facebook device.
| freeflight wrote:
| That's pretty much already the case. By now Occulus only
| exists as a brand inside the Facebook ecosystem, only legacy
| Occulus accounts are allowed, everybody else uses their
| Facebook account to login and tie purchases too.
|
| The same Facebook account that FB can at any time arbitrarily
| block and demand the owner properly ID themselves.
|
| A situation that originally was deemed as "will never happen"
| when Occulus originally got acquired by FB.
|
| At least there is also Valve to offer an alternative that's
| more privacy minded. But this makes their hardware offerings
| more expensive by default, as the device prices can't be
| subsidized by monetizing their users.
| rijoja wrote:
| At heart Occulus is really an android system right? It
| would be such a shame if they where to grab control over
| this ecosystem. Unfortunately their set seems to be the
| most viable path to mainstream adoption.
|
| Valve exists but Valve's alternative is way pricier and
| requires a computer right? Facebook would be able to mass-
| produce these devices at a low cost in a completely
| different way it seems.
|
| So since it is an android system under the hood it would be
| very possible to make VR apps that would work on all
| android systems. This would be so much better for the
| ecosystem as a whole.
|
| Surely there are WebXR standards that would basically be
| webapps so they would be totally platform independent
| however this will surely not cut it for all applications.
|
| Seeing how social media companies can manipulate politics
| and steer behaviour through ads imagine what happens in a
| VR only reality. This is a total nightmare scenario.
|
| Would it be possible to try to create some sort of campaign
| to make people more aware about the bad effects of this
| lock in. Perhaps by finding a suitable chinese device that
| remains open and try to favour that over facebooks
| versions. Sort of how Huawei managed to more or less copy
| devices at a lower costs and get into the market that way?
|
| Microsofts Mixed Reality standard deserves some attention
| as well obviously. Again this requires a PC and they seem
| to be a bit more pricier as well. These wouldn't require
| base stations as well.
| NovaS1X wrote:
| >So since it is an android system under the hood it would
| be very possible to make VR apps that would work on all
| android systems. This would be so much better for the
| ecosystem as a whole.
|
| The problem isn't technical, it's monetary. Facebook
| pours out tons of money to kickstart developers and get
| games out which is why they have a monopoly. There are
| few technical hurdles in the way of making Oculus games
| work on other headsets.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I understand the dislike of ads, but not so much the complaint.
| Companies are free to insert ads if they want to, and we're
| free to choose what media we consume. I hate ads and would be
| glad to see them outlawed like billboards in Vermont, but I
| don't stress about it. I accept it as a tradeoff for playing
| certain games, or I do ad-free things like reading old books or
| exercising.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Free to choose how? We can't know what ads are hidden inside
| until after we buy
| recursive wrote:
| I'm not against companies doing it. I'm just against me
| consuming it. This is why I subscribed to netflix instead of
| hulu.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| This is the logical thing, IMO. The fact that people don't
| even reconsider their consumption is a sign to me that the
| real issue isn't the ads, it's people not having anything
| better to do than play VR. I've been playing video games as
| long as I've been able to read and I'm happy to just go
| read a book or ride my bike instead if I don't want ads.
| baconator123 wrote:
| same with me...however, what i am annoyed is sometimes ads
| get in the way of your net activity and sometimes difficult
| to put it off...
| developer93 wrote:
| In my mind the limit is, if I paid for it, there should not
| be ads. I can understand using ads to fund a free service,
| but when I already paid, why am I paying a second time by
| watching ads? I mean pi hole sorts many of these problems
| out, but still.
|
| Also, cars? You get ads in your own car? Wow.
| Otek wrote:
| You see, problem with this is that we don't have a choice.
| With Oculus Quest, I bought this headset and it didn't had
| any ads back then. I have to keep it connected to the
| internet to download and update games but we shouldn't accept
| state where they can just put ads on my hardware anytime they
| want.
| rijoja wrote:
| So it becomes unusable if you don't keep it connected to
| the internet?
| NovaS1X wrote:
| This only works if there are equivalent choices without ads.
| We know from experience this is rarely the case. Choice is
| simply an illusion or a fantasy sold to people to placate
| them into accepting the current paradigm of business ad
| strategy.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I have a hard time understanding this kind of point of
| view. Do you not have a choice to just not play VR? Alcohol
| and other drugs can be fun, yet they're harmful and there's
| no choice of alcohol without health damage. You just have
| to choose alcohol and take the health damage or live
| without alcohol, ditto for VR.
| rijoja wrote:
| Yeah but you also have to factor in the ecosystem lock in and
| monopoly factor here.
| tux3 wrote:
| >Companies are free to insert ads if they want to, and we're
| free to choose what media we consume
|
| I'd like to invite you to turn that around. The freedom that
| we all get to exercise cuts both ways, it is not exclusively
| for companies to be active and consumers to passively,
| quietly accept things they dislike.
|
| Citizens are free to complain about ads if they want to, and
| companies are free to to respond to market pressure by
| relying on more or less advertisement.
|
| As a company, you might dislike negative consumer feedback,
| but you should just accept it as a tradeoff for making
| certain unpopular business decisions, or you should offer ad-
| free platforms and avoid the problem entirely.
|
| Complaints are not inherently bad. They're just an effective
| consumer practice.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| > Citizens are free to complain about ads if they want to,
| and companies are free to to respond to market pressure by
| relying on more or less advertisement.
|
| I agree, but I wasn't commenting at a societal level. I'm
| saying that at an individual level I see it as a waste of
| energy to get stressed out about something like ads in
| video games. There are so many ways to enjoy life, and
| stress is so bad for health.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| If this behavior is normalized, consumers won't have a
| choice. That's the problem.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Companies are free to insert ads if they want to
|
| They shouldn't be.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| The problem is that I bought a machine and several games and
| at no point were any ads involved. Only after they money has
| changed hands, I'm then told that I need to allow ads into my
| system.
| mtnygard wrote:
| If the same practice was applied with physical goods, it
| would be a clear bait-and-switch. (And therefore illegal.)
| chandra381 wrote:
| > Facebook added that Oculus users will be able to hide
| individual ads or choose not to see ads from a certain
| advertiser.
|
| Very interesting. The Oculus is quite a good deal at 299 USD
| given its technical specifications. I suspected that they were
| selling them below cost and subsidising them through stuff like
| this.
|
| The issue is that, as a data-driven organisation I am certain
| that they would have assessed the likely impact of including ads
| on turning away users and made that the decision.
| vyrotek wrote:
| Well, that's annoying. I just purchased Blaston.
|
| I don't regret my purchase quite yet though. It's been an amazing
| device for our whole family. The VR bar has been set in eyes of
| my kids and they want more.
|
| I wonder if my PiHole will block these ads?
| bitL wrote:
| A little off-topic - does anyone know why Steam takes screenshots
| of VR content played in a headset? I've noticed multiple times
| that Steam's Screen Capture process ended up hanging with HP
| Reverb G2 and am wondering why do they need to take screenshots?
| I'd have expected that from Facebook (privacy lol) but don't
| understand why Steam bothers with it?
| rightbyte wrote:
| Is it a multiplayer game? I know eg. Battlefield 2 took
| screenshots for game server admins to look for cheaters. In the
| good old days where I wouldn't suspect the screenshots to be
| used for big data spying ..
| june11 wrote:
| Its for the in vr steam overlay to display your desktop. Steam
| compositor also takes a copy of the vr view to display within
| the little steamvr window, in the PIP view.
| philipswood wrote:
| Is it just me?
|
| I would rather just pay for stuff and be done with it rather than
| have my attention and sensorium sold to the highest bidder.
| terlisimo wrote:
| Amazon recognizes this :) Kindle with ads: 120 EUR. Kindle
| without ads: 140 EUR.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That's a very anti-capitalist statement of you, do you even
| want others to get rich? Would you deny them their wealth? I am
| shook.
|
| /s of course
| haxiomic wrote:
| Support the companies that offer this an encourage others to do
| the same - I worry about a future where VR is monopolized by
| Facebook and held there by network effect
| bogwog wrote:
| > I worry about a future where VR is monopolized by Facebook
| and held there by network effect
|
| That's why it's awesome that Valve is so heavily invested in
| VR to counter that. They might not have more money than
| Facebook, but they have more than enough to compete with
| them. Plus, they have the expertise in video games that
| Facebook doesn't.
|
| It's just a shame that Valve is by all accounts a highly
| dysfunctional company.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| The problem any competitor will have fighting FB is entry
| price -- FB is the only player right now that sells a
| standalone unit and that unit is one of the cheapest, if
| not the cheapest, headset on the market with a $300 MSRP.
| Everyone else is far more expensive and requires a PC with
| a discrete GPU (or game console, in the case of the
| PlayStation VR), so the total cost of entry ends up being
| far higher.
|
| What Valve is doing with the Index is really cool, but
| they're still operating as if they're trying to sell to VR
| enthusiasts, while Facebook is cornering the market by
| trying to sell to the general public.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Oculus Quest 2 is the most popular headset on Steam's
| hardware survey, and that's only counting the ones who
| have it hooked up to their computer
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-
| Softw...
| bogwog wrote:
| > The problem any competitor will have fighting FB is
| entry price
|
| I don't think that's true. The main problem right now is
| that VR is still (even after all these years) an
| unproven/experimental consumer product.
|
| It's like buying a game console in the 70s-80s compared
| to buying one today. Back then, video games were still
| largely experimental and you were more likely to get
| garbage than gold. Today, designers know what
| works/doesn't work, and consumers can be confident in
| their purchases.
|
| VR is not like that yet. A "VR Game" is still a vague and
| uncertain term, and consumers can't have confidence in it
| yet. There are some great VR experiences out there, but
| there are many _many_ more garbage ones.
|
| I think that a company focusing on finding a good fit for
| VR is going to be better off long-term than one just
| trying to corner this early market.
|
| Example: If Valve figures out the "secret sauce" for VR
| games (much like Nintendo did in the early console wars),
| it's not going to matter how cheap Facebook's headsets
| are. People (including Oculus owners) will flock to Steam
| for the superior experiences while Facebook scrambles to
| make clones. With a failed "platform", Facebook will
| ultimately lose.
|
| If anything, Facebook's investments to flood the market
| with cheap headsets (possibly even subsidizing them)
| could end up helping Valve in the long term, since it
| just means more potential Steam customers, and it gives
| Valve the opportunity to experiment with the high-end
| stuff without worrying about the market completely dying
| in the meantime.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| It's absolutely not just you. Those people would put ads under
| our eyelids if they could get away with it. We need to actively
| fight against this by somehow blocking all these ads with no
| exceptions. Drive their return on investment as close to zero
| as possible.
| nindalf wrote:
| It's not just you, but you are a tiny minority. You've
| expressed a sentiment that's very popular on HN, but not among
| the general population. Take YouTube - a popular ad supported
| service with a premium tier. How many people are willing to pay
| to remove ads? Less than 1%. Even on HN I don't think that
| number would be more than 10%.
| perryizgr8 wrote:
| > How many people are willing to pay to remove ads?
|
| For me, I'd rather not watch Youtube at all if I have to pay
| to use it. I have found that it is an incredible time-waster
| and really adds very little value to my life. If I had the
| self control I would stop using it on my own.
| Folcon wrote:
| My biggest bugbear with youtube premium is that there's very
| little way to control your youtube recommendations other than
| being in incognito / a new browser session.
|
| I constantly find that youtube's algorithm just recommends me
| less interesting stuff over time. If I could have some decent
| controls on it, paying for an ad free experience would be
| worthwhile.
| thrwaeasddsaf wrote:
| You're oversimplifying, because the question isn't about
| paying to remove ads vs not paying and seeing ads, but about
| paying and getting the product or not paying and not getting
| the product.
|
| People's behavior depends on the circumstances they are
| given, and if "free (with ads)" is one choice, then indeed a
| lot of people will choose it over paying. However, if option
| is not given, it doesn't mean everyone who would've picked
| free are not going to pay at all.
|
| There are some highly popular freemium/ad supported games but
| also lots of very popular games that you simply must pay for.
| Applying the 1% number from products where the choice is ad-
| free-or-paid to must-pay-for games and assuming they'd get
| 99x more users if given for free with ads is just completely
| wrong.
|
| In general, people seem quite willing to pay for games (this
| may be less true in mobile, that's a rather different
| market). The challenge isn't that people don't want to pay,
| it's that the market is extremely saturated and it's hard to
| stand out from the crowd & produce a game that everyone wants
| to play over all the other choices.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > It's not just you, but you are a tiny minority.
|
| No, _everyone_ agrees that ads are annoying. I install uBlock
| Origin on every single browser I come across. Every single
| time, people take notice almost immediately. They always tell
| me the internet just feels so much nicer. Many times they can
| 't explain why, they just know.
|
| Ads are a blight on the modern web. _Everyone_ prefers the
| low-noise version.
| wincy wrote:
| I'm getting close to paying, YouTube has figured out some
| clever way to keep AdGuard on iOS from properly blocking ads
| and it's super annoying. But I mean when it's trivial for a
| technical user to download a few adblockers why pay, right?
| tomjen3 wrote:
| That is one of the reasons I love using a real computer. I
| can install firefox with ublock origin and sponsorblock.
| Bomm. No more ads, no more tracking and no more in-video
| ads.
|
| I would only get the first by paying, and I have found
| videos without ads so more more relaxing.
| wincy wrote:
| You also get the "bonus" of full quality videos on
| mobile. The safari version of YouTube is limited to 720p
| and music videos 360p.
| hobs wrote:
| I paid, then they killed google music for no damn reason, so
| I stopped paying.
| serf wrote:
| >Take YouTube - a popular ad supported service with a premium
| tier. How many people are willing to pay to remove ads? Less
| than 1%.
|
| I think that's an inaccurate assessment of 'people who don't
| want to see ads', given that statistics put internet wide
| usage of ad-blockers at around 42%.[0].
|
| Maybe it's just that no one wants to pay their captors for
| golden ear-muffs and blinders when they themselves are the
| ones responsible for the poor user experience.
|
| [0]: https://backlinko.com/ad-blockers-users
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > Maybe it's just that no one wants to pay their captors
| for golden ear-muffs and blinders when they themselves are
| the ones responsible for the poor user experience.
|
| I vehemently refuse to pay for YouTube Premium for that
| exact reason. I get ads that amount to something like "You
| know how we just stuff ads down your eyeballs constantly?
| You know how it's really annoying? For just X.99 a month,
| we'll no longer do that!"
|
| These enrage me to the core. Now that I have NewPipe and
| other methods of watching YouTube without ads and
| artificially freezing the stream when I switch away from
| the app, the official app is useless.
| recursive wrote:
| I don't understand this. Would it be better if YouTube
| "Free" didn't even exist? No one's forcing anyone to use
| youtube. How is this different from any subscription
| service that has a hobbled "lite" version?
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| It's the sheer aggression in their advertising that they
| introduced recently. There are memes that you have 2 ads
| every video, and that is closer to reality than parody
| these days.
|
| My touchstone for excessive advertising is a Polish TV
| station called Polsat, which often had very good
| programming but also lots and lots of ads. We often joked
| that Polsat programming was "all ads, sometimes broken up
| by a few minutes of actual TV". It wasn't quite that bad,
| but it was true that you would get just under ~10 minutes
| of adverts per every 15-25 minutes of programming.
|
| YouTube exceeds that ratio, these days. And when that
| happens, I'm almost positive it's time to start packing
| your toys and looking for a different source of
| entertainment.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| YouTube doesn't provide the content, the people I watch
| do. I send _them_ money. A youtube subscription to them,
| of which youtube takes a cut, doesn 't disable ads --
| only a second service, paid to _youtube itself_ , does.
| Apparently $15/mo gets rid of ads, but $5.99 a month
| (less 20%, thanks youtube) actually creates the content I
| care about watching. Youtube has inserted themselves in
| the middle, and are extracting rent from both sides.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Precisely. I want to compensate content creators for
| their content, and YouTube for their bandwidth, discovery
| and video storage with some markup on top. YouTube wants
| too much for what they do.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > No one's forcing anyone to use youtube.
|
| No one's forcing YouTube to send me the videos either. If
| it gives me ads, they will be deleted before they even
| make it to my screen. If they don't like that, they are
| free to return 402 Payment Required instead of giving me
| stuff for free.
| thathndude wrote:
| Plenty of people will pay nothing to block ads (I.e. use a
| free ad blocker). But when it's time to pay, different
| story!
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I think that's an inaccurate assessment of 'people who
| don't want to see ads'
|
| They made a statement about people who are willing to PAY
| not to see ads. People don't want to pay for anything. Give
| me free content! And then when they don't like the ads -
| give me a free ad-blocker!
|
| For me, I'm happy to pay a reasonable price for most things
| as long as I'm convinced I'll like it. But that's a problem
| with most content - uncertainty.
| paulcole wrote:
| Personally, I don't mind ads. I like buying things and like
| seeing things I don't know about that I might want to buy.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I too like to buy things, but interrupting me to offer me
| things I might like is really wasteful. Allow me to submit
| things I want to buy and then let companies suggest things
| based on that.
| paulcole wrote:
| I don't always know what I want to buy. Faster horses and
| all that...
| tomjen3 wrote:
| True enough. I guess maybe the site could be made to let
| me share my current pain points?
| croes wrote:
| Do you like being tricked to buy things you don't need?
|
| Ever heard of Edward Bernays?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
| paulcole wrote:
| Yeah, I don't mind it. Realistically I need almost nothing
| but yet I buy a lot of things. Probably got "tricked" a few
| times but don't particularly care.
| dncornholio wrote:
| This is true.
|
| But I don't like seeing the same ad over and over again. I
| don't like seeing ads of stuff that I've already bought and I
| especially don't like to watch a commercial for the
| thousandth time for a video I'm not sure even is worth
| watching.
|
| I can agree that ads are not necessarily bad.
| tempodox wrote:
| But then it would be so pointless to require an FB account
| before you can use it at all. Wouldn't that be a pity.
| Agentlien wrote:
| My first response when seeing this article was that I'm, yet
| again, so happy I did not get an Oculus.
|
| I'm very happy with my Vive Cosmos and it works without a
| Facebook account and hasn't shown me any ads so far.
| croon wrote:
| I get what you're saying, but honestly the Quest is in a
| whole other league, as a product. I had an original Vive, and
| understand that Cosmos has higher fidelity etc, but the Quest
| inside-out-tracking is good enough, and can be used with or
| without a PC, with or without a cable to said PC, the
| resolution is great, and the compression on the PC interfaces
| while noticable is, again, good enough.
|
| I sincerely don't miss the lighthouses and cables, and can
| make a new area in any part of the house, at any time.
|
| I just wish it wasn't owned by Facebook. But there's no
| competitor, unfortunately.
| Agentlien wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from and ignoring the
| Facebook aspect the Quest would perhaps be the product for
| me, though I can't say I see much of an advantage of it
| over my current system.
|
| Cosmos also has inside out tracking so no beacons and I
| honestly don't mind the cables. I never really notice them
| when I play. I did with the original Vive when I tried it
| at work, though. As for the PC, I'm an avid gamer and
| graphics programmer for a AAA studio. My VR is set up in my
| home office so I have access to a more than adequate PC,
| anyway.
|
| What I really do mind is a lack of graphical fidelity.
| Cosmos was the first option I tried which really felt good
| enough for me (the original Vive always felt cool but not
| quite there) and I know Quest has very similar resolution.
| But noticeable compression artifacts sound like something
| that would really bother me.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| But this doesn't satisfy the advertising industry's greed.
| jokoon wrote:
| Most consumers are okay with it and tolerate large doses of
| advertising.
| lwhi wrote:
| I really believe in VR.
|
| I despise Facebook and advertising.
|
| We need an alternative.
| driverdan wrote:
| There are a bunch of other VR headsets. Buy a different one.
| numpad0 wrote:
| That only works for someone belongs to hard anti-Facebook
| cluster like I am. The situation is similar to hobby drones,
| the alternatives to problematic ones are years behind for
| higher prices.
| driverdan wrote:
| They aren't years behind but are more expensive since they
| arne't being subsidized to eat up your data.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| Do you really think that data from the VR headset is
| worth $300 (or more)? I'm skeptical that it's worth that
| much unless they are jacked in every waking moment.
| shafyy wrote:
| There is no real alternative to the Quest, unfortunately.
| rijoja wrote:
| Hopefully some Chinese company will manufacture a similar
| system somewhat compatible with android. WebXR exists
| however that is probably not as performant however.
| lwhi wrote:
| There are a bunch of other independent social networks --
| join another one.
|
| There are a bunch of other independent online retailers --
| buy from another one.
|
| There are a bunch of other independent food delivery services
| -- order from another one.
|
| --
|
| When you really think about it, it's not really true though.
|
| Monopolies reduce choice.
| neogodless wrote:
| https://www.cnet.com/news/best-vr-headsets-for-2021/
|
| Oculus Quest is the least expensive, competitive, standalone
| headset. Least expensive option often pairs with ad-supported.
|
| We bought a Quest before Facebook bought Oculus, and we're very
| disappointed with that turn of events. I think most people
| would be better off opting out of VR until there's a non-
| Facebook standalone headset under $400 (like the original Quest
| once was.)
|
| EDIT: Correction - we did not buy the Quest before it existed.
| We bought it a bit before the announcement that you'd
| eventually _need_ to use a Facebook account with it.
| LeonenTheDK wrote:
| I don't think the Quest existed before the Facebook purchase.
| The Quest was announced in 2018 but Facebook made the
| purchase in 2014. Unless you mean before the Facebook login
| was forced upon Oculus users.
| neogodless wrote:
| Well damn. That flew under my radar. Or I put up some
| mental blocks because our family really wanted one while
| some from the older generation could still experience it.
|
| Now that I think back, I think we knew that, but it was
| still an "Oculus" account at the time, before the "Facebook
| account" requirement was announced. That seems to have been
| announced August of 2020... just weeks after we bought our
| Quest.
| LeonenTheDK wrote:
| Honestly I didn't think the purchase was until like,
| 2017. I'm just as surprised. It kills me that Facebook
| owns the entry level and stand alone market as well (said
| as an Index owner).
|
| (in response to the edit) I can see that, my first VR
| headset was the CV1 Rift and my logic at the time was
| similar. Sure Facebook owned it but everything seemed to
| be still fairly separated. None of what happened after
| was particularly surprising.
| mbank wrote:
| The saddest thing about these VR companies (or any other hyped
| yet insubstantial new thing for that matter) to me is the fact
| that they got acquired too quickly that one cannot short them on
| the stock exchange...
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Even if you could, you won't make money shorting on the stock
| exchange because you think stocks are more expensive than they
| should be. You can only make money shorting things on the stock
| exchange when you guess that other investors will think the
| price is too high relatively soon.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Calling VR insubstantial is absurd. Just because VR helmets
| won't be as popular as mobile phones doesn't make them so. It's
| like calling an Xbox insubstantial.
|
| What VR lacks in game variety, it makes up for in how unique
| the experience is. VR consoles will be able to get new games
| and apps, while "regular" consoles won't get more unique
| without releasing new models.
|
| Gaming in VR is also a lot more beginner friendly. Console
| Controllers are not intuitive, whereas VR controls almost
| always are.
|
| In short, VR is already very viable and its future is extremely
| promising. But if you want to short stuff, be my guest.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > whereas VR controls almost always are
|
| hold wand to chin to Doubt
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| > Console Controllers are not intuitive, whereas VR controls
| almost always are.
|
| Almost all console controllers follow a similar control
| scheme for decades (minus the front buttons like "share" or
| the touchpads). I don't see them as unintuitive.
| Duralias wrote:
| They are for someone who hasn't ever played a game, easier
| to get them to learn how to do stuff with vr controllers
| than with a console controller, vr incorporates far more
| normal movements that everyone already knows how to do,
| like picking stuff up or aiming a gun/bow, shooting is easy
| it is aiming it that is hard.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Billions of people have never held a console controller.
| For them, VR will be far more intuitive than controllers.
| VR is intuitive for all humans.
|
| I invite you to watch this extremely enlightening video:
| https://youtu.be/nyJUza39ELE (it's also a good channel in
| general)
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| The experience of VR gaming and desktop gaming is not
| interchangeable. I tried a modern VR headset very recently and
| I was blown away by the level of immersion. So many early
| teething issues from several years ago were actually solved
| problems. Living room space was a biggie, for instance.
|
| VR will be a strong niche for years to come.
| tuyguntn wrote:
| Time to find a buyer for my Oculus, why the heck I should pay for
| game and then see ads there?
| prepend wrote:
| > Facebook said it will use the test to explore ways to help
| developers earn revenue on the Oculus platform.
|
| How about by just selling games? I hate this mealy-mouthed way of
| deflecting that it's not about Facebook's revenue, but about
| "helping developers."
| cj wrote:
| Aren't Oculus games typically $20-50?
|
| The price points for games always seemed very high to me. In an
| ideal world they'd offer a "no ads, full price" version and a
| "discount with ads" version. My guess is we'll probably just be
| left with "full price with ads" as the only option.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Or, in a worst case scenario, they will be free, with ads,
| and the ecosystem will turn into a trash fire like the mobile
| game market did.
| sixothree wrote:
| Seems inevitable.
| Humdeee wrote:
| The micro transaction and "pay to not wait" model is just
| an overall terrible experience. Mobile gaming has
| solidified itself as watching a series of software timers
| count down.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Yeah, it's sad. I would like to play mobile games, but
| every time I check it out it's the same thing. There's an
| initial cool gameplay idea that's fun for ~1 hour that is
| then stretched into eternity, which makes it ultimately
| unsatisfying.
| [deleted]
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| There isn't any point chasing customers like yourself. If it
| was even $10-$20 you'd probably be saying it should be $5, if
| it was $5 you'd say it should be 0.99c
|
| We've seen this all before with the iOS App Store and the end
| game is just everything free with intrusive ads.
| cgriswald wrote:
| That's not a customer problem. That's a platform problem.
| On a platform where ads are allowed developers stop being
| developers and start being eyeball farmers and their
| products suffer for it.
|
| The point in chasing customers like me is that I won't
| watch ads, but I will spend money, even $20+ for an iOS
| game. Streaming services have figured this out and offer
| ad-free versions. Some iOS developers will allow you to pay
| for a game to remove ads. (The problem on iOS is there is
| no easy way to determine _which_ games are like this, or to
| filter based on things like this in search.)
| jnwatson wrote:
| How is $20 high? I'm continually amazed how much fun a $20
| game can provide.
|
| For the price of a movie ticket and a coke, you can get a
| dozen hours of entertainment. That seems like a pretty good
| deal to me.
|
| And the $60 are AAA games where you'd easily get 30-40 hours
| worth. These have budgets of ~$70 million; they have to make
| their money back somehow.
|
| One of the secondary reasons I've avoided Oculus is that it
| is a closed system; you can only buy from a single provider.
| You're much more likely to find sales on VR games on Steam.
|
| Video games on Steam are the best ROI for entertainment
| period, right up there with a good pair of hiking boots.
| Duralias wrote:
| A 20$ VR game is usually (if it is linear) about 3-6 hours
| long.
|
| "Superhot VR" (25$) 2-3 hours, if you are a completionist,
| about 6 hours.
|
| "Star wars: Tales from the galaxy's edge" (25$) 2-3 hours,
| if you are a completionist, about 4 hours.
|
| I think the longest single player VR game that exists now
| is "The Walking dead: saints & sinners" (40$) which is
| around 11-14 hours long, but it is barely linear, it is
| more like a fallout/far cry game but with far less
| interesting locations. Completionist have played it for 30
| hours in total.
| recursive wrote:
| I'm at least 10 hours in on beat saber, and I feel like
| I'm just getting started.
| NovaS1X wrote:
| Well say goodbye to your life! I'm hundreds of hours in
| now and play 4 hours a week minimum.
| oehpr wrote:
| You are just getting started. I've only now felt like
| I've hit the wall, and I'm at about 300 hours.
| NovaS1X wrote:
| What rank? I've felt a huge difference in competition at
| 2500+. 10k to 5k wasn't bad, but the moment 2500-3000 and
| consistent 300pp plays just to maintain it hit I felt the
| burn.
| recursive wrote:
| generally 100k to 200k if you're talking about
| leaderboard position.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Half Life Alyx definitely lasted over 20 hours for me.
| ohhhwell wrote:
| Asgard's Wrath took me about 40 hours for my first play
| through. And the internet seems to suggest about 29 hours
| just for the main story and up to 80 hours for the
| completionist
| tyfon wrote:
| Skyrim VR could beat that 30 hours :) And I've probably
| played 2-300 hours of beat saber.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Be careful. By putting a lot of emphasis on length,
| you'll end up with ubisoft games, where 80% of it is
| filler content to get to the 100 hour completion time and
| only about 20% are actually fun and worthwhile. (I'm
| overexaggerating but you get the idea).
| alasdair_ wrote:
| > One of the secondary reasons I've avoided Oculus is that
| it is a closed system; you can only buy from a single
| provider
|
| I buy most of my Oculus games on Steam, not the oculus
| store. Half Life Alyx is a Valve game after all.
| [deleted]
| tempoponet wrote:
| Steam sales aren't what they used to be. Once they added
| refunds the sales got watered down, because you could just
| refund and re-buy if the price got lower at a later date in
| the sale.
|
| There's also a ton of free/discounted games on the Epic
| store, 3rd party key resellers, and subscriptions like Xbox
| Gamepass. These are all possible because the PC remains an
| open, competitive platform - so that point stands.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| They also took away gift inventories, so you can't buy
| extra copies and send them out later.
|
| Along with that they killed the four packs that used to
| be common for multiplayer games.
| freeflight wrote:
| At least humblebundle still has the occasional good
| deals, but those also seem to get rarer.
| freeflight wrote:
| > For the price of a movie ticket and a coke, you can get a
| dozen hours of entertainment. That seems like a pretty good
| deal to me.
|
| Or maybe the movie ticket with overpriced coke is just a
| bad deal?
|
| A lot of it is also pretty relative down to a personal
| level and preferences: Some people can entertain themselves
| with a deck of cards, not even worth $1, for a nearly
| unlimited amount of time.
| nawgz wrote:
| > maybe the movie ticket ... is just a bad deal
|
| Think about entertainment options and name one that is a
| better deal than $60 for 20 hours worth. It's just not
| common, perhaps outside of books. Life is expensive and
| publicly available entertainment is far from an
| exception.
| dTal wrote:
| You can get a season pass to Six Flags for $60. What do I
| win?
|
| https://sf-static.sixflags.com/wp-content/uploads/ttic-
| sp_sf...
| pacifika wrote:
| Is 20 hours 2 times more fun than 10 hours? If you look
| at negative steam reviews for gamers having played 100+
| hours they would disagree
| [deleted]
| nuclearcookie wrote:
| What would you consider a fair price for a game? Are you
| talking about games in general or just games on Oculus?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The problem with selling games is that they depreciate --
| because Facebook doesn't control competition.
|
| The benefit of ads is that ad space appreciates -- because
| Facebook controls supply, and revenue follows inflation and
| demand.
|
| So as GP alluded to, this can be summarized as Facebook
| saying "We'd like to have bigger future profit margins on
| VR."
| rychco wrote:
| I'm definitely a minority in this regard, but I completely
| support increasing the price of games across the board.
| Development is more expensive & involves more people now.
| The cost of games has been $60 for what, 15 years? One
| additional problem is that everybody wants to cash in on
| subscriptions and micro transactions for continuous money,
| even when you've already paid "full" price.
| NovaS1X wrote:
| I don't know if I agree with this. Not that you're wrong
| but I don't think it's the full picture.
|
| 15 years ago games were still largely physical. That $60
| included the physical games, cases, manuals,
| distribution, warehousing, etc. These days everything
| being digital companies don't have to pay that anymore.
| Sure there's a commission you have to pay on Steam/EGS
| but I highly doubt it's close to what having a physical
| distribution method cost.
|
| So the way the $60 pie is split up today is totally
| different, and I imagine a much, much larger portion of
| that goes to the developers.
| CivBase wrote:
| > The cost of games has been $60 for what, 15 years?
|
| Not really. $60 is an introductory price, but most games
| at that price launch with at least one $80+ special
| edition and are supplemented with $40+ of post-launch
| content with much higher margins than the original game.
| And that's before considering some of the more
| contentious monetization practices like micro-
| transactions and "loot boxes". In many cases devs and
| publishers slash the initial price of a game shortly
| after launch (usually a year or two) to increase player
| counts, because more players generally means more sales
| of post-launch content.
|
| And that's something else nobody ever seems to bring up
| when discussing the stagnant price of video games - the
| ever-increasing sales volumes. The cost of producing
| additional copies of a game is negligible, especially
| with the rise of digital distribution, so each copy sold
| after breaking even is pure profit. Since there is
| basically no production cost, developers (in theory, at
| least) dump part of their profit into the development of
| their next title. This allows them to stay competitive
| and results in skyrocketing budgets. The high budgets are
| a sign of a _successful_ industry, not a struggling one.
|
| Despite the increasing budgets and seemingly stagnant
| launch prices, video game developers are more profitable
| than ever. It's because they are selling more copies than
| ever and have figured out plenty of ways to bring in
| extra revenue after the initial sale. If you ask me,
| things should go the opposite direction. A huge selection
| of cheap, high-quality indie titles have affected the
| relative value of "AAA" titles, to the point where I
| rarely consider spending full price on a game launched at
| $60. Either way, the industry has recently been dipping
| its toes in the water with a new $70 shelf price. We'll
| see if it sticks.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> I'm definitely a minority in this regard, but I
| completely support increasing the price of games across
| the board. Development is more expensive & involves more
| people now._
|
| But that's only one half of the story. The other is how
| tools, assets, hardware, knowledge and training have
| become much more affordable, streamlined and widespread.
|
| What used to be a somewhat niche industry with barely any
| formal entry ways, is now a massively formalized industry
| dwarfing even Hollywood.
|
| Just the publishing side alone saw a massive falling of
| gates with the emergence of the indie scene. IMHO there
| are very real economies of scale effects to this.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The price points for games always seemed very high to me.
| In an ideal world they'd offer a "no ads, full price" version
| and a "discount with ads" version.
|
| How do you go into a shared VR environment and have ads
| appear for one user and not another?
|
| I'm on-board with "just make everyone pay for apps" but it's
| very hard to decide what's going to be worth $30. My favorite
| VR game is free, but I went ahead and paid for the optional
| content (non functional) because I want to support the
| developers.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| Why not both?
| saddlerustle wrote:
| It's entirely up to developers whether to put ads in their game
| or not.
| corobo wrote:
| It used to be entirely up to the users whether they wanted a
| Facebook account with it too
|
| My bet's on menu ads being first
|
| Oculus 2025: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlGklt4BSQ8
| errantmind wrote:
| Of also used to be entirely up to content creators whether or
| not there were ads on their YouTube videos. We know how that
| went. Companies dependent on ads for the majority of their
| profit can't help themselves. What is one more ad? See
| Facebook's changes to ads on Instagram for an idea of what
| will happen on Oculus
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| One of the best features of AR is going to be the ability to
| detect real world ads and cover them up with a black box, or some
| nice wallpaper.
| missedthecue wrote:
| i find advertisements much more interesting than wallpaper. Not
| sure why that's going to be a good feature.
| rijoja wrote:
| I prefer wallpapper over advertisement every day so this
| would be a great feature.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Honestly I personally do not want an Oculus (mostly because it is
| owned by Facebook and tied to a Facebook login) but if ads allow
| them to make the platform even more affordable to consumers, this
| could be a boon to VR overall. Ideally, ads means cheaper
| hardware which leads to a larger consumer base which entices a
| larger developer base, and, hopefully, more and better VR games
| when the dust settles.
| sneak wrote:
| Oculus cannot be used without a Facebook account.
|
| Facebook is an advertising company.
|
| It's simple: if you don't want ads, delete your Facebook account,
| and don't ever buy Oculus.
|
| I got an HTC Vive Pro 2 three days ago, and it's sweet. No
| Facebook required.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| The Vive Pro 2 is absurdly expensive ($1400) compared to the
| Oculus offering.
|
| The Vive Pros are at its name implies, for pros, or for people
| with big budgets who want the best. You simply can't compare.
|
| I think that if you don't want to buy Oculus and have a
| reasonable budget (~$400), WMR headsets are the only
| alternative.
| sneak wrote:
| > _The Vive Pro 2 is absurdly expensive ($1400) compared to
| the Oculus offering._
|
| Letting ads and Facebook behavioral surveillance into your
| life is way more expensive yet.
| driverdan wrote:
| That's like saying you can't compare a top of the line
| MacBook to a $300 HP laptop. The Pro 2 hardware specs are
| significantly better than the Oculus and the price isn't
| being subsidized in exchange for feeding your data into
| Facebook.
| pokot0 wrote:
| There is still no competitor for the standalone headset (Quest)
| which seems to be a more likely candidate for mass adoption. I
| own all of the (Oculus, HTC, Valve, several models for each)
| and I can tell you that convenience seems like the key more
| that quality of graphics.
| [deleted]
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| When Facebook bought them, I remember part of the delusional
| gaming crowd saying crap like "no don't worry guys, FB will
| respect the Oculus, they won't ruin it! FB login? They won't
| require it! Ads? No they won't!"
| StevenWaterman wrote:
| I remember they put out a statement saying it would never
| require a FB login, and that you were ridiculous to suggest
| it would ever have ads.
|
| Had an oculus rift DK1 at the time - deleted my accounts,
| unsubscribed from everything, and bought an HTC vive shortly
| after it came out. Wasn't buying that at the time, and I feel
| vindicated now.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| I don't think they ever put out a formal statement (I'd
| love to be corrected on this). What I do remember is Palmer
| Luckey saying that, but then, it's really on the Oculus
| community to have believed the words of a 22 year old about
| to make millions.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Facebook kept the promise(in airbquotes) though. Whoever
| behind Palmer's Reddit account said he _personally_
| assure that _Rift_ remains usable forever without an
| account, IIRC.
|
| Facebook killed Rift few years later.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Why Vive and not Index? I believe the Vive lineup is carrying
| over the same basic design since original Vive and rather
| ancient for what it costs.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| The Vive Pro 2 is a new headset and probably the best on the
| market. Compatible with the rest of the index hardware. I'm
| holding out hope for an index 2 sometime in 2022 personally.
| amelius wrote:
| Or take action: buy an Oculus, open the package and return it.
| Make sure you state why.
|
| This is one of the few ways to make big corporations actually
| listen.
| rijoja wrote:
| Could you set up a kickstarter and start doing this at scale?
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