The Oculus Rage

The Oculus Rift was bought over by Facebook, and people are livid. What started as a Kickstarter gaming project grew in popularity and interest, eventually attracting even the social network giant. But people, whom I have to assume are mostly gamers, are upset with the turn of events. I wondered what the matter was, and why would people care who owns Oculus as long as the backers get their set at their end of their day? But this article at Gamespot helped me understand why this was so.

And the issue is with the nature of Kickstarter.  I have no idea how the makers of the Oculus Rift made their pitch to their backers, but most people would feel a sense of ownership of the product, having been part of the startup project, even if all being a backer entitled you to was the game or item, plus any bonuses for giving more money. Many feel that using Kickstarter was an alternative to funding a project without having to submit to a larger corporation, and is the desire of the developers to keep the product 'untainted', and indeed, we do see some game developers pitching their Kickstarter that way, like Project Goddus. However, I was not involved in the Oculus Kickstarter project as a backer, so I'm not sure if this was their pitch and if it wasn't, then it is not reasonable for backers to be against the acquisition.

Not that it matters of course. Because being a backer does not make us a shareholder in spite of the sense of ownership. When we look at the backing tiers in a project, nowhere does it say we are purchasing shares, and usually, it's just the product with bonuses the higher we go.

And this might be an issue, considering how Kickstarter projects are pitched - 'help us make this', 'work with us to create this'. Perhaps just saying 'buy this' might be better, but since there's no product, they can't say that either. As backers, we should learn to accept the fact that we are just paying for the possibility of playing or owning and nothing else. If we get to give input in the design, great, but otherwise, it might just as well be a pre-order.