Virtual Reality

[ChadTower]

Dude!  If you watch the vids it's just a fancy keyboard encoder.  Who is going to be the first to get one and make a MAME cab out of it?!   

[lilshawn]

Dude!  If you watch the vids it's just a fancy keyboard encoder.  Who is going to be the first to get one and make a MAME cab out of it?!   

no doubt. i'm not real keen on the peg slot. i think it would feel clunky while walking. 

maybe it's actually better than i'm imagining.

[fallacy]

I think the omni is awesome!  Granted it’s pretty simplistic… but using that combined with the new Kinect we are talking holodec type ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.

[lilshawn]

ive seen something like this only using rollers like 2 years ago.

[Gray_Area]

Looks like a bad week for SoCal. Maybe old boy was....occulted by his rift!  Maybe in New York during rush hour, but how can you not hear screaching and speeding and siren-y vehicles coming?

736 Backers   $283,927 pledged of $150,000 goal    48 days to go

Over double that, now. The shoes thing is interesting.....An extra piece of gear, I dunno.  I was thinking of other things than combat sims, and they are the only ones I've seen to point those used out. That's going to make it more appealing to other kinds of business.

[Howard_Casto]

It looks like the OR is getting a 1080p upgrade, so I'm going to have to take a lot of what I said back.  Then again I warned you guys not to buy the dev kits and sure enough, you got screwed on that one. 

Now they just need a reasonable price point for the device and multiple games that OFFICIALLY support the device. 

[ChadTower]

I'll never understand that idea.  How exactly does one get screwed if they paid a set price for something with detailed and accurate specs?  If they want the 1080p version later they can buy it when available.

[Howard_Casto]

Well it's just I doubt the new version is going to cost anymore.  So you paid just as much for an inferior version just to play some hacked in games on it.  Now if you are an actual developer that's one thing, but if you are some of these people that bought it because they just had to have it now.....

[fallacy]

Worth it if you are a fan, probably be over a year between the dev kit and the consumer version. How are you going to say it’s not worth it you are on the build your own arcade form; we all spend god knows how much building and repairing arcade and other related projects, half of which we never even use once we are done. Why because we are geeks and we enjoy it. Who would not want to be their on the ground up for something as cool as this?

[Howard_Casto]

Yes and until the consumer version comes out the only thing you can play on it are hack-jobs of old games.  Like I said. 

Like I've said several times on this thread... not that cool, the resolution is too low.  Now that's fixed but even then, still not THAT cool. 

Speak for yourself... I use everything I build. 

[ChadTower]

Well it's just I doubt the new version is going to cost anymore.  So you paid just as much for an inferior version just to play some hacked in games on it.  Now if you are an actual developer that's one thing, but if you are some of these people that bought it because they just had to have it now.....

And yet to be screwed you have to have lost something.  They got exactly what they paid for and they sound pretty happy with it. 

[lilshawn]

Well it's just I doubt the new version is going to cost anymore.  So you paid just as much for an inferior version just to play some hacked in games on it.  Now if you are an actual developer that's one thing, but if you are some of these people that bought it because they just had to have it now.....

And yet to be screwed you have to have lost something.  They got exactly what they paid for and they sound pretty happy with it.

i'd probably be happy either way. i'm seriously considering saving my nickels to buy one.

[Gray_Area]

And yet to be screwed you have to have lost something.  They got exactly what they paid for and they sound pretty happy with it. 

Well.....unless they were thinking/hoping more games and such would be available for it. That's where Howie's sentiment would come in.

[kahlid74]

Well it's just I doubt the new version is going to cost anymore.  So you paid just as much for an inferior version just to play some hacked in games on it.  Now if you are an actual developer that's one thing, but if you are some of these people that bought it because they just had to have it now.....

I'm not quite sure I would consider myself screwed.  I've been an avid kick starter participant since the site first launched.  I could certainly see people being upset about it but for me I paid money to see what they had and help them continue their forward movement towards something like this.

Further more I'm very happy with what I have.  The device is fantastic and feels like "I'm in the game".  It still makes me fell uncomfortable but I'm happy with it.

They are still going to release games that support the set I've got and I'm still going to be happy with this set for a while.  Will I buy the 1080P one?  Probably.

[ChadTower]

Well.....unless they were thinking/hoping more games and such would be available for it. That's where Howie's sentiment would come in.

True, but increasing the device's resolution does nothing to change this.

[RayB]

So, all that's needed is to add Kinect into the mix and you could run around and aim as if in the VR world.

Anyone else think of Sword Art Online when talking about OR?

[fallacy]

Yes of course Sword Art Online is pretty much the Matrix.

VR will be sweet once the resolution is so great that you can pretty much bring up menus in VR space and have it be clear enough to read at the same time wearing some type VR glove that will allow you to select and drag anything in VR space with perfect precision.

[lilshawn]

two words...

Minority Report

[fallacy]

That’s some serious capital, Oculus is not going anywhere.

In case you didn’t see the announcement, we have great news to share: we’ve raised $16 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Spark Capital and Matrix Partners, along with Founders Fund and Formation 8. This level of financial support opens incredible new doors for Oculus, and I’d like to provide a bit of context and backstory.

I have been working on virtual reality technology for years. Starting in a garage, prototyping new hardware, and collaborating with other virtual reality enthusiasts was a blast long before anyone thought VR was poised for a comeback. Hackers, makers, and enthusiasts live on the bleeding edge of tech not because it makes financial sense, but because it is a thrill that you cannot get anywhere else.

I got into VR because it seemed like the obvious path to the best possible gaming experience, but never expected it to take off so quickly. In less than a year, incredible game developers all over the world are building games designed explicitly for virtual reality, and people are beginning to understand that the tech is finally viable. Even with "next generation" consoles on the horizon, VR still came away with dozens of awards and accolades at E3.

We were fortunate enough to be able to pick investors who we thought would be a great fit. They really believe in our vision for the future of VR. These are people who have taken companies from startup to mass market many times, entrepreneurs who have a ton of meaningful experience building hardware and software consumer technology.

As I mentioned before, the funding opens up all sorts of doors for Oculus. It helps us hire the best and brightest minds in VR from around the world. It lets us experiment and prototype with more cutting-edge tech. And it allows us to build a badass, consumer VR gaming platform, the likes of which the world has never seen.

Virtual reality will be one of the most significant technologies of the 21st century. It has the potential to drastically alter the way we play, communicate, and learn. I think that VR can (and will) be as widely used as Facebook or Twitter, and the societal implications will be far greater!

I want to thank everyone for their support. None of this would be possible without you, the people who supported Oculus when it was nothing but a rough prototype and a dream of changing gaming forever!

-- Palmer

[lilshawn]

i guess that means we can start getting the new ones for $99 then?

[ChadTower]

In high tech R+D you can burn through $16mill in one fiscal quarter.  That's not nearly as much as it sounds.

[lilshawn]

In high tech R+D you can burn through $16mill in one fiscal quarter.  That's not nearly as much as it sounds.

most of the RnD leg work has been done already, it's just a matter of splashing some extras on it and call it good-to-go.

mind you, much of the research and development has been done for free by the creators to get it to this point, so i suppose they could start getting paid for their work now.

[ChadTower]

most of the RnD leg work has been done already, it's just a matter of splashing some extras on it and call it good-to-go.

mind you, much of the research and development has been done for free by the creators to get it to this point, so i suppose they could start getting paid for their work now.

Heh, no it hasn't.  They don't have even the first production model built yet.  And they don't have their SDK released yet.  It's all proof of concept early beta stuff.  That is a whole lot of R+D away from calling it good to go.  At this point they have something attractive enough to get themselves VC backing.  That's all they have.

[lilshawn]

most of the RnD leg work has been done already, it's just a matter of splashing some extras on it and call it good-to-go.

mind you, much of the research and development has been done for free by the creators to get it to this point, so i suppose they could start getting paid for their work now.

Heh, no it hasn't.  They don't have even the first production model built yet.  And they don't have their SDK released yet.  It's all proof of concept early beta stuff.  That is a whole lot of R+D away from calling it good to go.  At this point they have something attractive enough to get themselves VC backing.  That's all they have.

fair enough, it does still have a way to go... a little further from just a proof of concept though. i mean, they have a number of them built...they seem to work...they are listening to feedback and doing some tweaks and upgrades.

i guess we don't want a repeat of this again...

[ChadTower]

You just described a proof of concept model.  Build a small handful and test it out with a limited number of users.  They have yet to reach what would be described as an official beta product.  Beta will involve final specs on all of the major design elements.  The fact that they just announced a change in resolution, which is pretty damn major, shows that POC feedback must have told them the existing resolution wasn't good enough.  There's no way they would do something like that this far into the design unless they couldn't sell the existing design.  If it were a case of "well, this will sell, but we'd really like to see 1080p" then they'd move forward with the existing design and begin planning for an upgraded 2.0 version after that.

It's probably also not a coincedence that they finally got their VC at just about the same time they announced 1080p.  I'm guessing that the VC was predicated upon getting to that benchmark in the lab.

[fallacy]

You just described a proof of concept model.  Build a small handful and test it out with a limited number of users.  They have yet to reach what would be described as an official beta product.  Beta will involve final specs on all of the major design elements.  The fact that they just announced a change in resulation, which is pretty damn major, shows that POC feedback must have told them the existing resolution wasn't good enough.  There's no way they would do something like that this far into the design unless they couldn't sell the existing design.  If it were a case of "well, this will sell, but we'd really like to see 1080p" then they'd move forward with the existing design and begin planning for an upgraded 2.0 version after that.

It's probably also not a coincedence that they finally got their VC at just about the same time they announced 1080p.  I'm guessing that the VC was predicated upon getting to that benchmark in the lab.

You don’t know what you are talking about. It was always their plan to raise the resolution on the consumer version; they did not need consumer feedback for that.  They left the resolution low because the parts were readily available and they wanted to get the developer kit out in the hands of developers as quick as possible.

I don’t see why this is so hard to understand; VR is Two parts, %50 hardware, %50 software. Without both working exactly right VR does not work...period. Unfortunately Software cannot be developed until they have the hardware… hence the part about getting the hardware in the hands of software developers as quickly as possible. It is not going to help VR's case spending an extra 6 months to a year re-designing and re-ordering and manufacturing better parts to have a better first go Oculas Rift; ow wait! %50 of the puzzle is still missing!

Do you people not understand what a Developer kit means? It means it was made for the Software Developers …WTF

[ChadTower]

Do you people not understand what a Developer kit means? It means it was made for the Software Developers …WTF

A production SDK is the same hardware as the production consumer item plus any hardware extras that may facilitate the software development process plus a fully tested and released software development library.

None of what they have sent out is production ready.  Calling it production does not make it so.  What they have sent out is at best alpha hardware so certain partners can get a feel for the device.  It is not more than that.

[fallacy]

No dude I am pretty sure you calling it alpha hardware does not make it so.

[kahlid74]

So some CCP developers were in the early kickstarter round of Occulus and have now modded Eve as Eve-VR.  3v3 fighter game: http://www.tentonhammer.com/events/e3/2013/eve/eve-vr-virtual-reality-project

Sounds pretty awesome and has a novel idea for dealing with the motion sickness issues.  When you look down you see stationary legs, help the brain to adjust similar to being in a car.

I'm super excited to get my hands on it as my Occulus needs a good rocking again.

[Gray_Area]

  What they have sent out is at best alpha hardware so certain partners can get a feel for the device.  It is not more than that.

Wait.....I thought it went backwards.......Beta meant it was still being developed/might have bugs, and that Alpha was the mature product.....

[RayB]

Prototype - concept
Alpha - engine, core features, temp art
Beta - "complete", may still need polish, has bugs
Gold / Production - Sell it!

[ChadTower]

Exactly.  And if they're getting enough feedback about the resolution that they felt the need to make that drastic a change before going to Production... that was either Alpha or a failed Beta.

[Howard_Casto]

Which is perfectly alright, and acceptable... if you are a developer. But we have idgits on this thread that bought the alpha kit to play games on and/or suggested other people do so.  The same goes for kickstarter... people who are NOT developers paid for... a alpha dev kit. I mean seriously, that's not bleeding edge, that's buying a dull razor and attempting to sharpen it by rubbing it against your face!

I think this whole kickstarter thing is going to die real quick if this sort of thing keeps up.  Did you hear about Tim's Schaufer's game?  He only needed 300,000... he got 4 MILLION.  Now one year later he's ran out of money and is suggesting that he'll cut the game into two parts.. the last part that won't be released until well after 2015. So the dude gets way more money than he needed, and he still can't deliver on his promises. 

Maybe, just maybe the reason some of these projects couldn't get traditional funding is the fact that they never made good business sense in the first place. 

KS is fantastic for small, entry, level projects, but bigger stuff really needs traditional backing, not for the actual money, but the supervision and oversight that comes with it. 

[ChadTower]

Maybe, just maybe the reason some of these projects couldn't get traditional funding is the fact that they never made good business sense in the first place. 

KS is fantastic for small, entry, level projects, but bigger stuff really needs traditional backing, not for the actual money, but the supervision and oversight that comes with it.

I completely agree.  The biggest problem I have with Kickstarter now is that it's not a loan.  And the people funding don't expect ROI.  They're just donating to someone else's capital fund.  It is becoming the norm to give stuff like a $5 t shirt for a $50 donation.  $100 gets your name on a white board in the meeting room.  In marker.  There is nothing on the line for the recipients so they have no reason to be efficient with the money.  And if the end result is achieved, and let's face it that's not happening in most Kickstarters that get funded, the recipient has built a business or product on someone else's money but keeps all of the returns. 

The only Kickstarter I have donated more than a couple of bucks to is the PAPA Live Event Streaming project.  I know some of the folks involved personally and it's for the benefit of the hobby.  They were also smart enough to run several multi hour live broadcasts of a major event to prove the concept works before they asked for any money. 

[kahlid74]

Which is perfectly alright, and acceptable... if you are a developer. But we have idgits on this thread that bought the alpha kit to play games on and/or suggested other people do so.  The same goes for kickstarter... people who are NOT developers paid for... a alpha dev kit. I mean seriously, that's not bleeding edge, that's buying a dull razor and attempting to sharpen it by rubbing it against your face!

I think this whole kickstarter thing is going to die real quick if this sort of thing keeps up.  Did you hear about Tim's Schaufer's game?  He only needed 300,000... he got 4 MILLION.  Now one year later he's ran out of money and is suggesting that he'll cut the game into two parts.. the last part that won't be released until well after 2015. So the dude gets way more money than he needed, and he still can't deliver on his promises. 

Maybe, just maybe the reason some of these projects couldn't get traditional funding is the fact that they never made good business sense in the first place. 

KS is fantastic for small, entry, level projects, but bigger stuff really needs traditional backing, not for the actual money, but the supervision and oversight that comes with it.

I don't think I ever force fed people the Occulus but if I did check me at the door.  For me I've easily gotten my money's worth out of my Dev occulus and I'm by no means a developer.  The experience has been fun, exciting, new and different.  It's not a mainstream product yet but it's a great product as is right now.

I read the news about double fine recently and wasn't surprised.  The dude's trying to make a AAA game.  AAA games take quite a large investment and don't translate well to crowd-funding.  Take Star Citizen for example.  Chris Roberts wants to make a AAA game, so he realizes he needs 10+ million to do it.  He's now raised 13+ million through multiple different avenues.  Additionally he's made games in the real game industry and understands scope and project structure.

So I'm a big backer of many things on kickstarter.  I have been burned twice now of the 100+ projects I've backed.  I've got amazing stuff like the WakaWaka hand held solar power generator, the rift, comics, movies, electronics, and games galore.  KS isn't going to die tomorrow and the wealth of projects isn't drying up anytime soon.  Stuff like this happens.  You have to keep your eyes open and see it.  Tim never made a "real" game before this in an environment where structure was ever present.  Now take Wasteland2, Shadowrun Returns and Eternity.  All championed by people who have lived a life in the game industry and have lots of experience to guide them.  I've got hands on with Shadowrun Returns and it's pretty fantastic.  I've got inside looks on Wasteland2 and Eternity and both will rock.

So as long as we don't generalize, KS has issues and will continue to have them but man if you put your guard down and give people a chance, there's some pretty cool stuff you can get your hands on.

[lilshawn]

Feel like sharing? 

Honestly, I wouldn't mind trying one out.  If it's fun as I think it would be, I'd totally buy one.

In reference to kickstarter, as long as you look at what the person/company want to accomplish, have a solid idea/product, and you feel with the amount they have set they can accomplish it. then go for it.

if it looks like they are shooting low and seem to be just looking for extra money to pay for staff and advertising, pass.

if they are shooting WAY high and have a whack idea that doesn't look like it will fly, stay away.

you have to look past the buzz and look at reality... flying cars? sure, you can build it and it would be totally awesome, but it will take a few billion to get it FAA certified.

[kahlid74]

Feel like sharing? 

Honestly, I wouldn't mind trying one out.  If it's fun as I think it would be, I'd totally buy one.

In reference to kickstarter, as long as you look at what the person/company want to accomplish, have a solid idea/product, and you feel with the amount they have set they can accomplish it. then go for it.

if it looks like they are shooting low and seem to be just looking for extra money to pay for staff and advertising, pass.

if they are shooting WAY high and have a whack idea that doesn't look like it will fly, stay away.

you have to look past the buzz and look at reality... flying cars? sure, you can build it and it would be totally awesome, but it will take a few billion to get it FAA certified.

If you live near Milwaukee Wisconsin I wouldn't mind letting you play it but shipping it somewhere probably not.  At least not yet.

[lcmgadgets]

Wow, I just tuned in on this. It sounds awesome! I remember those old VR units at the fair--I found them totally immersive & awesome to play, but, yeah, expensive! I'll definitely b following this!

[lilshawn]

If you live near Milwaukee Wisconsin I wouldn't mind letting you play it but shipping it somewhere probably not.  At least not yet.

I'm in the land of the free* Maybe I'll have to save up my beans and buy one in the future.


*free healthcare. 

[RayB]

I completely agree.  The biggest problem I have with Kickstarter now is that it's not a loan.  And the people funding don't expect ROI.  They're just donating to someone else's capital fund.  It is becoming the norm to give stuff like a $5 t shirt for a $50 donation.  $100 gets your name on a white board in the meeting room.  In marker.  There is nothing on the line for the recipients so they have no reason to be efficient with the money.  And if the end result is achieved, and let's face it that's not happening in most Kickstarters that get funded, the recipient has built a business or product on someone else's money but keeps all of the returns. 

The only Kickstarter I have donated more than a couple of bucks to is the PAPA Live Event Streaming project.  I know some of the folks involved personally and it's for the benefit of the hobby.  They were also smart enough to run several multi hour live broadcasts of a major event to prove the concept works before they asked for any money.

And this is why Kickstarter can't legally operate in Canada. Our laws make it impossible without requiring disbursing shares to the "investors". It's meant to protect people from exactly what you're describing. But at the same time, it's stifling small upstarts who can't participate in this new funding model (well they can by partnering with an American business, but it's extra headache).

Ah well. In other (2 week old) news: John Carmack appointed CTO of Occulus Rift.