Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey departs Facebook

[Shawn Knight]

Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Oculus VR, is leaving Facebook. In a statement to UploadVR, Facebook said Palmer will be dearly missed and that his legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart (no pun intended) the modern VR revolution and helped build an industry, the social networking giant said, adding that they’re thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR.

A spokesperson for Facebook declined to say whether or not Luckey left voluntarily, instead citing a policy of not discussing internal personnel matters.

Facebook purchased Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion.

Luckey has largely remained out of the spotlight after admitting late last year that he helped fund a pro-Trump organization called Nimble America responsible for spreading anti-Clinton memes on the Internet. Early on, he was the face of the modern virtual reality movement and even landed a spot on the cover of Time magazine in August 2015.

Oculus was ordered in February to pay a total of $500 million to settle a 2014 lawsuit levied by ZeniMax Media Inc. after it was determined that Luckey violated a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) he had previously signed with ZeniMax. Luckey specifically was instructed to pay $50 million for false designation.

id Software co-founder John Carmack, currently the CTO at Oculus, recently fired back at ZeniMax with a $22.5 million lawsuit of his own.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/68741-oculus-co-founder-palmer-luckey-departs-facebook.html

 

[kapital98]

Life goes on. This is good for Facebook because they can get a toxic member of their team gone. Luckey gave them what they wanted (well, he also gave them stolen parts too!) and was bad PR. The Oculus Rift has so far been an overall disappointment and it's good to get rid of him. Luckey knew the consequences of giving over control of his business in exchange for a hefty fortune.

Meanwhile, this isn't really bad for Luckey either. He's brand loses some luster after being fired but he's still very young and one of the foremost experts on VR. He can lateral into doing something really cool with VR or else use convince venture capitalists to back his next-big-thing. He has a ton of options.

This may be bad for Luckey in the short term but it's good for pretty much everybody else in every way.

 

[Bubbajim]

The Oculus Rift has so far been an overall disappointment .

Curious as to why you think that the Rift has been an 'overall disappointment'?

 

[Skjetne]

The Oculus Rift has so far been an overall disappointment .

Curious as to why you think that the Rift has been an 'overall disappointment'?

Well to sum up what I can recall from the top of my head;

- Massive delays
- Missing deliveries to 1st. kickstarters
- Lackluster games
- Sold themselves to facebook
- Expensive
- Patent theft

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The Oculus Rift has so far been an overall disappointment .

Curious as to why you think that the Rift has been an 'overall disappointment'?

Well to sum up what I can recall from the top of my head;

- Massive delays
- Missing deliveries to 1st. kickstarters
- Lackluster games
- Sold themselves to facebook
- Expensive
- Patent theft

Dont forget

-facebook attempting to force DRM on their games so that they will only work on the occulus
-HTC vive being a genuinely superior product
-Facebook

 

[Bubbajim]

Dont forget

-facebook attempting to force DRM on their games so that they will only work on the occulus
-HTC vive being a genuinely superior product
-Facebook

Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly agree there have been disappointments, I just don't think that "overall" it's a disappointment. Now that they've figured out the full scale tracking and released their Touch controllers, every Rift owner I know (and certainly the Rift reddit) all seem exceptionally happy with the product. Facebook and Luckey are constant let downs, but the Rift I think is doing relatively well, all things considered.

But I'm a Vive user, and I *know* that that's not disappointing.

 

[kapital98]

Dont forget

-facebook attempting to force DRM on their games so that they will only work on the occulus
-HTC vive being a genuinely superior product
-Facebook

Don't get me wrong, I'd certainly agree there have been disappointments, I just don't think that "overall" it's a disappointment. Now that they've figured out the full scale tracking and released their Touch controllers, every Rift owner I know (and certainly the Rift reddit) all seem exceptionally happy with the product. Facebook and Luckey are constant let downs, but the Rift I think is doing relatively well, all things considered.

But I'm a Vive user, and I *know* that that's not disappointing.

I was getting at the points mentioned above. FB hyped this up far beyond what was possible and then completely botched the release of the Rift. They were in a mad rush to be first on the market and as a result their product was clearly inferior to the HTC Vive (but it did become the face of VR). It took nearly a year for the Rift to become even comparable to the Vive -- and it's still inferior in some ways.

The sales for the Rift have significantly lagged behind both the Vive and PS4VR. This seems pretty shocking considering it was the first on the market and had the most publicity.

I'm a Vive owner and love it. Sure, there are teething problems with VR but it's pretty incredible what it can do.

 

[kapital98]

I'm also a PS4 owner and am pleasantly surprised with how successful PS4VR has become. I'd recommend it to a person looking for VR who already owns a PS4 and wants a stationary experience.

 

[Chris Hanson]

Bad luck to you d-bag. Good riddance.