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Facebook Begins Testing of Oculus VR Advertising

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

 

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https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/16/facebook-to-begin-testing-ads-inside-oculus-virtual-reality-headsets...

https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959
194 REPLIES 194

kevinw729
Honored Visionary

kevinw729_0-1624451089433.png

https://gizmodo.com/facebook-s-first-oculus-ads-partner-is-already-retreati-1847148121/amp

https://vrawards.aixr.org/ "The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Home-Immersive-Entertainment-Frontier/dp/1472426959

Anonymous
Not applicable

My favorite quote from the article:

The post promised that certain device data—like your movements, any audio your mic picks up, or your height, weight, and gender data that you provide—won’t be used for ad targeting. Whether you actually believe what Facebook’s saying is up to you.

 

Oh come on now that's not fair, i mean when was the last time FB went back on anything they said?.......Oh!.........Wait!. lol

CV1/Vive-knuckles)/Dell Vr Visor/Go/Quest II/ PSVR.


@jab wrote:

Instead there is a fundamental problem where consumers are slowly being trained into accepting that giving away information/privacy and being spammed with ads is just how it is. And reading the responses here, some are clearly further along in their 'education' then others.


 

That "training" started generations ago in the real world, with Advertising Billboards all over cities across the globe. I don't recall seeing any protests about excessive advertising along roads, highways, train stations, buses, etc.

 

Advertising infiltrated radio, television, magazines, and even forums.

 

Anyone who lives in this world, and uses computer technology, is being exposed to the same level of "training" as everyone else. Just because someone accepts advertisements on Steam rather than Oculus doesn't mean they are more or less accepting of these things.

 

From my experience, the Facebook and Oculus community has far more transparency and open-minded conversation around these things. Which is the opposite of "being trained" or "boiling a frog."

Great questions @DaftnDirect 

 

Facebook have decided not to place adverts in Blaston? I thought it was the decision of Revolution games??

 

Correct, it was the dev studio who decided not to go forward with the Ads (not Facebook).

 

 

Should a dev not be offered ad revenue, even if that could make the difference between making a paid or free app... or the difference between a £10 app and a £15 app.... or the difference between making a VR app or a pancake app?

 

They certainly should. And we will see this happen in standard gaming soon with Epic Games leading the charge. So that difference between VR vs Pancake won't matter by 2023, when Ads will be inside multiple games.

 

We have to keep in mind that Mobile Gaming continues to dominate the gaming industry overall. The Mobile Gaming industry brings in more revenue than Console and PC gaming "combined." A fact that has been observed for years. And there is no mistaking that Ad Revenue plays a huge role in this. Video Game developers are far more enticed to make a game for a Mobile Platform compared to Console or PC considering the monetary return options.

 

We have to remember that Game Developers can't pay their bills based on forum posts or upvotes! lol

 

Epic Games has the right idea with their drive towards increasing their revenue in light of an industry where Mobile Gaming revenue is most dominant.

 

 

Should devs of future premium content be encouraged to make a VR game through direct funding from FB and not by any other way?

 

Great question, and I think we have seen what happens in this situation. Using this forum as an example, when Facebook has taken the direct funding approach, they are criticized for being a "loss leader" and proclamations are made that Facebook's success is artificial since they are using their vast social media revenue pool to fund VR (as opposed to relying solely on the consumer market).

 

Granted, those criticisms were eventually proven false as seen by Facebook's dominance in the VR market with Quest 2 outselling all HMD's and holding the top position on SteamVR. But the point is that it doesn't seem to matter if Facebook takes a "loss leader" approach or an "ad revenue" approach; as the goal post will simply be moved in order to invent a rationale for protest.

 

 

Should FB buy more developers to increase content? who pays for that?

 

This is a great model, but it also ends up as the target of contrived criticism. We saw this when Facebook purchased Beat Saber. After that acquisition, and Beat Saber was pulled from VR Arcades (creating an even larger loss in that struggling industry), the protests begin anew around the supposed idea that Facebook is trying to create a "walled garden" empire, etc.

 

 

 

Should FB stop subsidising their headsets?

 

That's a difficult topic. On one hand, we have a userbase who is still spending over 1,000 for VR HMDs (e.g. Index) in order to play the same games over and over (e.g. Alyx). And on the other hand, we have a userbase who is spending under $500 (Quest) in order to engage in a vast amount of VR Experiences (gaming and beyond) across the whole VR software ecosystem between stand-alone and PCVR.

 

So if we ask the first group that question, then the answer will likely be, "Yes. Facebook should charge full price for their headset instead of creating a discount model." 

 

But there is an obvious bias in this answer caused by the dilemma when one user is playing something like Alyx with an HMD that cost $1,000 while another user is also playing Alyx with an HMD that cost $300... and both users are having near identical experiences.

 

The problem is made worse when the lower cost HMD actually has notable advantages over the higher priced headset; such as: wireless tracking capabilities, improved glare, improved SDE.

 

The fact that Facebook is able to deliver a competitor to high-end PCVR HMDs at such a low cost is going to create issues resulting in a demand (by those favoring the higher cost HMDs) that Facebook stop subsidizing cost. This is because Facebook creates a perception of saturating the market and diminishing the worth of higher priced HMDs as a direct result of cost subsidization.

 

I was once a user who gladly paid upwards of $1,000 for an VR Kit. I paid $600 for the Rift HMD followed by $200 for the Touch Controllers. And I'm glad I did! But there is no reason to continue paying those prices in this day and age. Bringing costs down is vital to help create a societal shift in how we do business together, and socialize together.

 

Simply Put: Criticizing Facebook for using their unique industry advantage that allows for cost subsidization is like... criticizing a boxer for throwing their strongest punches in a fight.

 

Anonymous
Not applicable

@OmegaM4N wrote:

Oh come on now that's not fair, i mean when was the last time FB went back on anything they said?.......Oh!.........Wait!. lol


I imagine it was the last time they updated the FB TOS...

😂

@Zenbane it's a series of questions that I'm not sure I have the answers to... or at least not sure I have the right answers... not even sure there are right answers!

 

We have choices which is the main thing, and we have a level of understanding of the economics of the top players which are each quite different.

 

We also have a hundred times more games and apps than we did only a few years back. I think it's worth repeating that Facebook Connect will in all likelihood announce more VR titles than all the devs put together did at E3 and I don't think that can be separated from their business economy. 

 

I think this it's really interesting circumstances.... and discussion. Time to play some VR though 🙂

VR still isn't self sustainable by a long way, Valve are the other big PCVR manufacturer making games/apps and they're rare things. I think they're still treading water until VR properly takes off and that remains in FB's hands. Valve have done the right thing in having a alternative headset for people to choose as that covered the risk the FB would remove Steam playability but the opposite has happened and Steam is more accessible now than ever., the risk has pretty much gone.

"That "training" started generations ago in the real world, with Advertising Billboards all over cities across the globe. I don't recall seeing any protests about excessive advertising along roads, highways, train stations, buses, etc."

People have criticised marketing for decades...


Agreed @DaftnDirect  - and my answers are far from anything that would define "correctness!" I just think that conversation itself (exploring the answers) is where the fun resides.

 


@DaftnDirect wrote:

I think this it's really interesting circumstances.... and discussion. Time to play some VR though 🙂

VR still isn't self sustainable by a long way, Valve are the other big PCVR manufacturer making games/apps and they're rare things. I think they're still treading water until VR properly takes off and that remains in FB's hands. Valve have done the right thing in having a alternative headset for people to choose as that covered the risk the FB would remove Steam playability but the opposite has happened and Steam is more accessible now than ever., the risk has pretty much gone.


 

Well said. From my perspective, I feel that the other big players in VR, such as HTC and Valve, tend to let Facebook and Oculus "try it first." Similar to how Facebook used Baston to "test the waters" for VR Ads, so too are HTC and Valve letting Oculus "test the waters" for the thing(s) consumers want/need to help make VR sustainable.

 

For example, it wasn't until after the Oculus Store was fully accepted and began to thrive that HTC launched their own exclusive StoreFront. Prior to that, the Vive relied on Steam and Re-Vive.

 

Similarly, we are now seeing the leaked Rumors (and submitted Patent) around Valve going "Inside-Out Tracking" with their next VR HMD. I would argue that it is apparent that Valve is choosing Inside-Out as their next HMD version (instead of a fully wired headset) as a result of the success yielded by Quest 2. Surely, Valve is taking notice that Quest 2 is the leading HMD on Steam compared to their own Index. They have a chance to correct this with an Inside-Out Tracking Index.

 

And honestly, these days I do tend to spend more time on Steam than Oculus Home. Mostly because I have played just about every good title available on Oculus Home lol

cmat100
Adventurer

One small nuance I would add,  and I think this has been frankly ignored, is that advertising is quite different across the pond.  There is a different cultural acceptance.  I remember being in the US and turning the TV off, then throwing the remote at it -  I just couldn't cope with the ads, no warning, cut straight to ads and the sheer amount of ads made programmes unwatchable.

 

A friend of mine emigrated to Boston and watched Dr. Who (BBC via VPN) with the locals, and they were in disbelief that there were no adverts.

 

For me, the Rubicon was crossed with the FB account requirement.....