Facebook Buys Oculus - And the Future of Virtual Reality

Will the social giant ruin our dreams of what VR could be?

You hear that noise? It’s the death knell of millions of gamers’ dreams, and it’s all because Facebook just dropped $2B to buy Oculus, a little company that's developing an astoundingly excellent home virtual reality system that many gamers believed would herald the next generation of video games and electronic experiences.

In an open letter posted yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg detailed Facebook’s plans for Oculus and their virtual reality headset, called The Rift. While he did pay lip service to the gamers most outraged by the buyout, promising that plans for The Rift and its gaming capabilities wouldn’t change, his long-term intentions of turning the VR headset into a medium to share “full” experiences on Facebook is more than a little concerning in an era where privacy is disappearing, one status update or check-in at a time.

We’ll reserve judgment until Facebook makes good on bringing the little VR-headset-that-could to market. Until then, we’ll watch videos like the one below and dream of a day when virtual behind-the-scenes tours of our cover girl photo shoots can be shared on our Facebook page.