Understanding “the needs of the VR community”: Ownership Through Representative Leadership in Oculus VR Dina Lamdany Columbia University [email protected] December 22, 2014 1 In 2009, a nineteen­year­old named Palmer Luckey began to build a virtual reality headset called the Oculus. Over the next five years, Luckey and his Oculus, later renamed the Oculus Rift, gained a dedicated following and transformed into a virtual reality company, Oculus VR, that Facebook acquired in 2014 for $2 billion. Upon learning of the acquisition, the existing Oculus community erupted. While many community members1 were eager to celebrate the acquisition, a large—and extremely loud—portion of the community immediately began to accuse the Oculus team of a devastating betrayal. Although much work has been written about collective ownership in open­source software, the anger expressed by many members of the gaming and virtual reality communities after the acquisition of Oculus Rift by Facebook speaks to a different type of ownership—ownership centered around control through representative leadership, rather than individual contributions to a collective project. In this paper I will explore how in the case of the Oculus Rift, such an ownership manifested itself in a fear that Oculus, a product that many community members had felt to be made by, and for, people like them, would be, as a result of the Facebook acquisition, controlled by the whim of actors operating without consideration for their community’s standards and expectations. The Oculus community, a group eager to be directed and controlled by leaders who already had proven their membership, thus reacted with vitriol to the perceived intrusion by outsiders into the sacred world of Oculus’ development. This vitriol was not an expression of a desire to participate in the production of the Oculus, but rather an assertion of control over who should be allowed to develop the Oculus as a representative of the community at large. A Brief History of Oculus Rift In August 2009, Palmer Luckey, username PalmerTech, posted in mtbs3d, an online internet forum for stereoscopic 3D and virtual reality technologies, for the first time. He was looking for advice on buying a head­mounted display, or HMD. Luckey was, at the time, a homeschooled sixteen­year­old and founder of the retro­game­focused internet forum modretro. 1
Both spread­out and ill­defined, the Oculus community spans Kickstarter comments, Reddit, and a plethora of online forums. This paper will not create a typology of the Oculus community, but rather for the purpose of analysis, will take a member of the community to be someone who participated in online discussions about Oculus and spoke with the authority of a community member. 2 In his post, Luckey presented himself to the forum community as someone who belonged; his detailed questions about various technological systems revealed he was to be taken seriously. I am a computer enthusiast, have a lot of practical electrical knowledge with many devices, and also have good computer skills. I am one of the top 15 posters on forums.benheck.com, a game console modding community that focuses on making retro systems into handhelds, and I am also the owner of forums.modretro.com, a newer forum with the same aim.2 Over the next few days, Luckey and a few other members of the forum conversed politely and enthusiastically regarding Luckey’s interest in an HMD. After confirming that existing HMD products did not fit what he wanted, Luckey quickly expressed an interest in building his own. Within that short time period, forum members came to respect Luckey’s input and technical knowledge. After two days, cyberreality, a frequent commenter and moderator on mtbs3d, remarked “@Palmer: Wow dude, looks like you know your stuff,” in response to a detailed post by Luckey describing specs and prices of parts for his potential HMD.3 For the next three years, Luckey regularly, and then sporadically, posted in the forum with updates regarding prototypes he was working on, as well as questions, requests for advice, and suggestions for others related to their projects. Forum members eagerly conversed with Luckey, requesting pictures, explanations, and how­to guides. John Carmack, the co­founder of Id software and a game programmer famous for creating Doom, occasionally chimed in with a piece of advice. In April 2012, Luckey posted that he had made large progress on the HMD, and that he hoped to create a Kickstarter project during the summer to cover manufacturing costs. He asked the community for help in making the Kickstarter project, requesting advice on the video and rewards, and also that someone help with logo design. He motivated the request for help by framing the Kickstarter project as a means to promote the larger virtual reality community: “The help is appreciated! Really excited about this, I think it could be the kind of thing that jumpstarts 2
Luckey, Palmer, “HMD help, and introduction.” August 22, 2009. Message posted to http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4123#p29608 3
cyberreality (August 24, 2009) Re: HMD help, and introduction [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4123&start=15 3 a bigger VR community, and hopefully shows that there is a big demand for wide FOV, truly immersive displays.” In that vein, Luckey made sure to emphasize that the project would not be for his personal profit: “I won't make a penny of profit off this project, the goal is to pay for the costs of parts, manufacturing, shipping, and credit card/Kickstarter fees with about $10 left over for a celebratory pizza and beer.”4 As before, the mtbs3d community responded with advice and support. Beginning in May, as Carmack began to demo Luckey’s prototype running Carmack’s famous game Doom at the Electronic Entertainment Expo and to tech blogs, the number of eyes anticipating the Rift increased exponentially. Over the next few months, Luckey and Carmack continued to show off demos of the Rift. When the Oculus Rift project launched on Kickstarter’s website on August 1, it surpassed its goal of $250,000 in twenty­four hours. By September 1st 2012, it had raised almost $2.5 million from just over 9,500 backers.5 In March 2013, the first developer version (DK1) of the Rift was sent out to Kickstarter backers. With this release, the source code for the Oculus SDK, the developer kit for building games compatible with the Rift, was made open­source under the Apache License6; the DK1 firmware itself was made open­source in September 2014, under the Creative Commons 4.0 License,7 after the DK2, a newer version of the Rift, was announced and shipped in March and July of 2014, respectively.8 In June 2013, Oculus VR raised $16 million in Series A venture capital funding, and in December 2013, Oculus raised more than four times that amount, $75 million, in Series B funding. In March 2014, Oculus VR announced that it was being acquired by Facebook for $2 billion, an announcement that brought with it a rift among those who considered themselves a part of the Oculus community.9 Although many Kickstarter backers and members of various 4
Luckey, Palmer, “Oculus ‘Rift’: An open­source HMD for Kickstarter.” April 15, 2012. Message posted to http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777 5
Oculus, “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” Kickstarter Project (accessed December 20, 2014). 6
Oculus, “Developer Kits are Shipping!” Backer Update for “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” March 29, 2013. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/440293 7
OculusVR, “RiftDK1,” September 13, 2014. Github repository, initial commit. https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1 8
Oculus, “Announcing the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2).” Backer Update for “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” March 19, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/440293 9
Oculus, “Oculus Joins Facebook.” Backer Update for “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” March 26, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/789581 4 Oculus­related forums expressed excitement about the acquisition, many others expressed a sense of anger and disappointment, a phenomenon that many gaming and technology media sources were quick to dub the Oculus Rift “backlash.” Collective Ownership in Open­Source Software Some of the “backlash” against Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus bore a strong resemblance to controversies within the open­source and free software communities over who has the right to contribute to a project used by the community. In particular, it exhibited a shared belief that open, communal development would not only engage a community of developers, but also that such engagement was necessary to create a strong product for that community. One commenter, directly addressing Luckey, wrote: None of us want to work with Facebook. As a result, none of us want your product anymore. We aren't going to build for it, we aren't going to do anything to it. Maybe jailbreak it and replace components when it inevitably starts to become locked down, sure. We don't want a social platform. But we wanted an open product. We wanted a product that would bring everyone into the future. And we don't feel safe anymore. So enjoy your money, because nobody's ever buying your product again.10 The commenter believed that Oculus as an “open product” would be a product for “everyone”—but that an Oculus developed by Facebook would be a product for “nobody.” For this commenter, building Oculus in an “open” way was important because it would motivate developers to work on it and build games for it, and in doing so, shape the product to fit their needs. Without this important communal input on its direction—within a traditional, proprietary model of ownership—the Oculus would turn out wrong. This commenter not only believed that developers would enjoy participating in Oculus’ development, similar to open­source projects, but also that allowing developers’ contributions would make the Oculus better—that a communal eye would push the product towards what it was meant to be. 10
TheCodexx (March 25, 2014) Re: The future of VR [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgbvrr8 5 Such a response speaks to a history of controversies in the open­source community over community­driven software being sold to private companies. In particular, it speaks to a belief among open­source software developers that community input on a project is not only important for the sake of transparency, but also serves as a critical part of creating products that will be successful and meet the needs of the community. Richard Stallman created the GPL license in response to a controversy involving a software developer named James Gosling who chose to sell his popular version of EMACS, a text editor that many developers had contributed to, to a commercial software vendor. Stallman vehemently opposed Gosling’s decision, believing that any member of the software community must be allowed to share and contribute to the software, both for their personal benefits but also for the benefit of the entire community. Software whose distribution would be controlled by a single entity, who would not share such beliefs, worried Stallman and other community members. GPL addressed Stallman’s concerns by requiring anyone who adds or changes a piece of existing GPL­licensed software to make the new version open and sharable to all as well, thus ensuring that anyone benefitting from the community’s software would only create products that the community could continue to shape to meet its needs and desires.11 This commenter, although not explicitly writing about licensing issues, spoke to the very issue that the GPL license addressed in a binding legal format: enabling developers to contribute freely and openly to shared projects without fear that their contributions would be incorporated into proprietary software that they would one day no longer be able to contribute to and use. For this commenter, as well as for Stallman and others involved in creating GPL, the ability to contribute freely to projects was critical for creating software that the community would want and use: developer input and control was seen as necessary for developing a good product. Facebook’s acquisition, similar to Gosling’s sale, took away the community’s perceived ability to contribute to the project, and thus not only angered many developers, but also convinced them that Oculus would turn out wrong. Representative Ownership 11
As Christopher Kelty wrote in Two Bits, Stallman invented GPL to institutionalize this previously ad­hoc but implicit set of morals and standards. 6 While some members of the Oculus community were angered by Oculus’ acquisition because it would prevent such critical community input, many members of the community were more than happy to have one community member have complete control over the direction of the Oculus: Luckey himself. The import placed on community input as integral for creating a strong product by those who viewed the development of the Oculus through the lens of open­source values was instead placed by many Oculus backers and community members on Luckey’s own leadership and direction for the Oculus: Luckey, as a representative of the community, was seen as able to create the Oculus that the community desired, without needing its members input. Rather than wanting to control the product themselves, many members of the Oculus community longed for a leader who would represent their needs and control Oculus for them: they desired ownership through representative leadership. Such a view of Luckey as the community’s representative was expressed through community members’ early and continued eagerness to give Luckey money to produce the Oculus. When Luckey proposed starting a Rift Kickstarter to the mtbs3d community, he was careful to explain that the Kickstarter would not be for his personal profit. However, many forum participants actually encouraged Luckey to take a cut from the Kickstarter, believing that supporting Luckey financially would help to ensure that the Oculus that they dreamed of would come into existence. One commenter expressed a willingness to pay extra money for the Rift so long as that money would go to Luckey. Addressing Luckey directly, the commenter wrote that “You are one of the few guys in the industry that seems to understand the needs of the VR community, so I think it would benefit everyone here in the long run if you were able to create a viable business out of this.”12 Critically, it was Luckey’s status as someone who could understand the needs of the VR community—as an insider and representative—that motivated this participant to suggest that Luckey turn the HMD into a business. Luckey profiting financially off the Rift was portrayed as important for enabling Luckey to continue his work, and thus for the successful creation of a product that the commenter—and the entire community—wanted to exist: “it would benefit everyone here in the long run.” For the commenter, Luckey’s work embodied a shared, 12
brantlew (April 16, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777#p72525 7 rather than simply his own personal, dream for a product. As a result, Luckey’s profiting off the Rift was seen as actually benefitting the entire community directly because it enabled their dream to move forward at the hands of a trusted insider. Similarly, another commenter expressed concern for Luckey’s financial status in the context of enabling his further work on the Rift. The commenter wrote, “You really need to charge more to earn some kind of profit for yourself Palmer! It's extraordinarily cool of you to keep this rock­bottom on the pricing tier but you absolutely deserve to make something from your efforts. This could be the start of something much bigger and you needn't limit yourself unnecessarily.”13 For this commenter, Luckey deserved to earn money for the Rift not just as its creator, but as someone who could turn the Rift into something “much bigger”—closer to some non­specified but implied shared dream of virtual reality. Luckey’s status as a virtual reality insider, and as someone who would look out for the needs of the larger virtual reality community, thus endowed him with a base of supporters who equated progress on the Rift was progress for a nebulously defined but shared dream of virtual reality. Such supporters, although often priding themselves on the idea of Oculus as a community­driven product, felt ownership over Oculus not as a product that they owner or personally contributed to, but rather that represented their needs and desires. Carmack as Representative The willingness of the Oculus community to trust Luckey to represent their shared vision for the product is perhaps unsurprising, given the fact that Luckey was Oculus’ original creator. However, many community members’ initial and sustained positive reactions to John Carmack’s involvement with Oculus, even in light of his involvement in a few public mishaps, indicated a willingness to trust specific individuals who they felt would represent their desires for a product that extended beyond Luckey. Among many self­identified members of the Oculus community, John Carmack’s continually increasing role in the creation and advertising of Oculus was met with sustained trust, even in situations that, if involving another individual, might have led them to anger. As Carmack began to advertise the Oculus at conferences and in interviews with media, much of the 13
Bishop51 (April 16, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777#p72540 8 original Rift­related press attributed the prototype to Carmack’s hand. While many of Luckey’s followers pointed out the mistaken attributions in the forum, Carmack was not treated with mistrust. Instead, he was thanked repeatedly for helping the Rift to gain exposure. After a misattribution by IGN, one commenter wrote: Once again, the RIFT is getting press, but the press is thinking the headset is made by John: http://au.ign.com/videos/2012/06/06/ign­reacts­john­carmack­makes­virtual­reality­actua
lly­cool­with­new­head­tracking­device­e3­2012 Either way, it's amazing how much acceptance this is getting just because of who is promoting it. I guess that the work John has done to make Doom render correctly for the display has a lot to do with it. GOOD JOB GUYS!!!14 Rather than blaming Carmack for not emphasizing Luckey enough, the commenter trusted that Carmack had made a sufficient effort, and that fault lay only with the press. In place of anger, the commenter expressed gratitude to Carmack for promoting the Oculus and adjusting Doom to render with it. The lack of anger may have to do with the fact that Carmack warned the community that he expected the press to mistakenly attribute the Rift to him, rather than Luckey: Carmack had earlier written in mtbs3d that “I am trying hard to make sure they all understand that the display is Palmer's, but I'm sure there will be some mis­representations that I built the whole thing.”15 However, the lack of negative response may also be largely tied to a desire for the Oculus to penetrate the gaming and virtual reality communities, and a belief that Carmack would enable it to do so. In emphasizing “how much acceptance this is getting because of who is promoting it” rather than critiquing Carmack, the commenter expressed a belief that the need for acceptance within these communities trumped the need for proper attribution. Carmack, as an important figure within the existing gaming community, was critical for achieving such acceptance, and 14
android78 (June 6, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777&hilit=ZeniMax&start=200#p74066 15
Carmack, John (April 4, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777&start=120#p73867 9 thus could be forgiven for any mishaps along the way: Carmack’s leveraging of his existing credibility within the gaming community for the sake of the Oculus indicated that his goals were aligned with that of the existing Oculus community, and therefore that he could be trusted to serve as a representative of the community’s needs. Such a tacit trust was tied to Carmack’s history of involvement, and status as a trusted authority, in the gaming community. Many forum members mentioned that the only reason they knew about Oculus was through Carmack’s promotions, and that they had quickly become interested in Oculus because they trusted Carmack’s opinions. One commenter wrote “When John Carmack touts something as being cool, or the future of gaming, people tend to listen, and so do I. Having him support what looks to be some great hardware from Palmer with his expertise can most likely only be described as a match made in heaven.”16 Thus Carmack was quickly accepted and celebrated for his role in promoting and supporting the Rift—serving as a representative, rather than as an antagonist to, the existing community. This sustained faith in Carmack as a representative of the community’ interests continued even after he played a role in Oculus’ decision to be acquired by Facebook in 2014. Carmack joined Oculus officially as CTO in August 2013, and thus by 2014, presumably would have played a role in decisions such as the acquisition. However, for many community members, a trust in Carmack as their representative continued, somewhat paradoxically existing outside of both any involvement he had in the decision and his sustained willingness to work on Oculus at Facebook. In a Reddit thread responding to the acquisition, one Reddit commenter wrote, “I wouldn't be surprised if Carmack leaves within the next two years. Would be awesome if he leaves and starts his own VR company. That's something I could support.”17 The commenter implied that Carmack must have been as upset as he or she was at Oculus’ acquisition, indicating his or her belief that at his core, outside of being an Oculus executive, Carmack was, and would continue to be, a true game developer at heart: one of them. Another dismayed commenter exclaimed “John Carmack left id for this,” implying that Oculus’ acquisition by Facebook was a 16
MSat (June 8, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777&start=240&hilit=ZeniMax#p74206 17
EChondo (March 26 2014) Re: The future of VR [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgc9knw 10 betrayal of Carmack’s trust in the company, just as it was a betrayal or his or her own.18 Such comments reveal the extent to which many members of the community trusted Carmack to represent their interests and feelings, so much so that they expected Carmack to be upset by a decision in which he had in fact played a role, but that had betrayed nonetheless the community’s trust. Maintaining Representative Control through Funding Thus, for many community members, the integrity of Oculus was secure so long as Luckey and Carmack, as representative figures of the Oculus community, could maintain control over the direction of Oculus. This desire for direction only by individuals who could represent the perceived needs of the existing community can be seen within the reactions to Oculus’ first venture capital round, a Series A round for $16 million in 2013. The community’s celebratory response existed in sharp contrast to the sense of betrayal expressed after the Facebook acquisition, and underscored the ways in which the conflict over Oculus’ ownership was in large part a struggle to control the direction of the product through properly representative leadership. Because the funding round did not change the Oculus community’s perception of who was in control of the product, the community was willing to excitedly celebrate with the Oculus team: no breach of trust had occurred. Amid the resoundingly positive community response, one of the few instances of negativity arose in the case of a commenter who feared that the new money might enable outsiders to have input on the development of the Oculus. This commenter wrote that he or she was afraid that because Spark would own 53% of Oculus, down the line the “if they hit a rough patch or stutter at launch of the consumer model, Spark can bail and possibly force a sale that isn't good for us or the industry.”19 This comment indicated a distrust in Spark as a firm that may not inherently care about the Oculus community or virtual reality industry at large: Being profit­driven, investors might one day have incentives to end Oculus’ life, rather than allowing it to grow into the product the community dreamed of, and as such, were not to be trusted. Spark, 18
maniacalmania (March 25 2014) Re: The ruture of VR [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgbx9tw 19
actuallyatwork (June 17, 2013) Re: Oculus getting $16M from Spark Capital (who also funded Twitter and Tumblr)? [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1gjh4z/oculus_getting_16m_from_spark_capital_who_also/cakszqr 11 unlike Luckey and Carmack, would not represent the needs of the Oculus community, and thus their new role was not one to celebrate. Critically, this commenter later took back and edited the original post, after another commenter explained that Spark Capital’s equity would be closer to 35%, and that as a result, “the founders will retain control.”20 Here, the percent equity was not important for its monetary value, but rather as an indicator of who would be allowed to control the product vision: so long as Luckey and the team would be able to do so, the product would be safe. Thus, both comments emphasize the importance placed on ceding control of the product vision only to those assumed to share a specific set of values and goals for it. In contrast, most of the responses on both Kickstarter and Reddit focused on the positive effect that Oculus’ venture funding would have on the development of the Rift, and thus on the community’s prospects for being able to acquire the Rift soon. For example, a comment such as “Congratulations :) I'm sure you'll put your new capital to good use! Seriously, this is the first time I've ever believed VR HMDs could be consumer viable”21 indicates both a sense of approval of the decision to raise venture money, and the importance placed on the future of the device itself. These positive responses exemplified the community’s confidence that the venture funding would enable Oculus’ development to continue successfully, since the Oculus team would maintain control over the direction of the product. Many comments, such as that above, referred to the funding as “new money,” or “new capital,” and speculated at how the Oculus team would spend it; few commenters formally acknowledged that with new money would come a new group of investors who would have input on the product. These reactions indicated a belief that the Oculus team controlled both the money and development that would be paid for with it. As such, faith and support for the Oculus team could continue as before, since no fracture was perceived in the trust model that the community had been operating under. Facebook as an Outsider 20
tillery (June 17, 2013) Re: VR Gets VC [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1gjh4z/oculus_getting_16m_from_spark_capital_who_also/cakt8lx 21
Ryan McClelland (June 17, 2013) Re: VR Gets VC [online forum comment] Retreived from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/512945?cursor=3538901#com
ment­3538900 12 When the Facebook acquisition did cause such a fracture in the community’s trust model, it stemmed from a fear of Facebook as an outsider to the existing Oculus community—as an entity that did not understanding the norms of the existing community, and thus that would shape Oculus into a product that its members would not want. On the day of the Facebook acquisition Markus Persson, otherwise known as Notch, the creator of Minecraft, posted on Twitter that he was cancelling a deal with Oculus to potentially bring Minecraft to Oculus, a tweet that received over 16,000 retweets and 10,000 favorites.22 He detailed this decision in a widely­circulated blog post expressing his disappointment about the acquisition. The post, titled “Virtual Reality is Going to Change the World,” framed virtual reality as an important development for the gaming world, and Facebook as a company who would get it wrong.23 Describing Facebook as a clear outsider in the video game world, Persson wrote that “Facebook is not a company of grass­roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company.” Such language implied that Persson was looking to Oculus not only as a gaming company, but also as a cadre of “grass­roots tech enthusiasts.” Instead, Persson saw Facebook as a company purely centered around the “social”, which he saw as incompatible with the community­driven tech organization he wanted to work with. Significantly, Persson took care to mention that virtual reality software could have massive influence in social applications, but that such applications were not for him: “VR is not bad for social. In fact, I think social could become one of the biggest applications of VR...But I don’t want to work with social, I want to work with games.” The problem with Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus was thus not that Facebook’s domain, the “social,” would not mix with virtual reality, but rather that Facebook’s domain was not Persson’s domain: Facebook was not incompatible with all virtual reality, but rather with Persson’s individual view of what virtual reality should be. Persson’s distrust of Facebook stemmed from a belief that it did not share his values as a game developer, or respect the role of game developers in general: while developers had built 22
Persson, Markus (Notch). “We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just canceled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.” March 25, 2014, 3:25 pm. Tweet. 23
Persson, Markus, “Virtual Reality is Going to Change the World.” Notch.net. March 25, 2014. http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual­reality­is­going­to­change­the­world/ (accessed December 20, 2014). 13 games in the past for the Facebook platform, Facebook had a history of prioritizing social applications over the game developers’ goals. He wrote that “People have made games for Facebook platforms before, and while it worked great for a while, they were stuck in a very unfortunate position when Facebook eventually changed the platform to better fit the social experience they were trying to build.” Thus Persson’s fears about Facebook owning and controlling Oculus were tied to a belief that Facebook had a history of eclipsing the role and visions of game developers with its own goals of promoting social experiences. Facebook’s goals, inherently opposed to those of game developers, could not possibly align with those of the larger community in the way that Luckey and Carmack’s would; an Oculus controlled by Facebook would thus have no guarantees to be an Oculus directed by, or thus representative of, game developers. In emphasizing not only Facebook’s status as an outsider in the video game world as a social media company, but also as a company that did not respect the role of game developers, Persson’s post and its widespread circulation expressed a deep fear among self­proclaimed gamers about the acquisition by Facebook: that as a company, it did not have a stake in representing the needs and priorities of the gaming community, and thus would not produce the Oculus they were waiting for. Non­Representative Oculus Such a desire for an Oculus that would be not just a piece of virtual reality software, but rather virtual reality software for a specific type of person, can be seen clearly in contrast to the responses by members of the Oculus community for whom the Oculus acquisition was not a tragedy at all, but rather a strategic business move, or even a cause to celebrate. Such members of the Oculus community wrote about the acquisition of Oculus, and of Oculus more generally, not solely as a product for the existing Oculus community, but rather as a piece of a larger virtual reality dream. In response to an article in PC Gamer about a tweet by Persson suggesting he was “over being upset” about the acquisition, one commenter wrote: Whatever dude, Oculus cares about VR. They've helped Samsung get their ‘Gear’ up and running. The Facebook deal was a strategic financial move for the greater good of VR. 14 The goal is to make VR mainstream and increase it’s [sic] budget. There's nothing more mainstream and few things wealthier than Facebook. It's business and Oculus so far has done nothing but respect everyone interested. Including the backers. They've done nothing to piss off all you haters. There's no reason to be upset by the buyout. If Oculus has it their way, there will be tons of competition in the VR field, at that point in time if you're still pissed at Oculus, go get yourself a different HMD. Think about the big picture, Oculus sure is.24 For the commenter, Oculus’ acquisition by Facebook was an important move for the entire virtual reality community—not just those interested in Oculus—because it would promote virtual reality to a massive audience. The distinction between this commenter’s response and Persson’s response lies in how they conceptualized Oculus as a technology. For this commenter, Oculus was one of many future virtual reality technologies, while for Persson, Oculus was a virtual reality technology representative of a specific and particular community. As such, while Persson saw Facebook potentially radically changing the vision of Oculus as a danger, this commenter trusted that such changes would be important for virtual reality’s trajectory into the mainstream. This difference in reaction underscores the degree to which Oculus was conceptualized by many community members not just as a piece of virtual reality software, but also as a signifier for a community and its desires. Simultaneously, this difference also hints at the diversity of ways that members of a community can look to the creators of a product as representatives of the larger community’s desires. While some community members imagined an Oculus that was to be made specifically in the vision of the existing community, others hope that the Oculus would serve as a large­scale virtual reality product. As such, the former desired leadership that was representative of the community’s specific, developer­focused dream for virtual reality, and the latter desired leadership that would expand Oculus’ reach. Both groups, however different their dreams for Oculus, felt a sense of ownership that manifested itself not in an individual desire to contribute to 24
Cobsad (2014, October 8), Pc Gamer. Re: Notch is “over being upset,” Minecraft on Oculus may happen after all. [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.pcgamer.com/notch­is­over­being­upset­minecraft­on­oculus­rift­may­happen­after­all/#comment­1626362
185 15 the product, but rather for the direction of the product to be led by a specific set of representative leadership. *** Reminder that I'm STILL a female gamer, and Anita Sarkeesian and her little cronies STILL don't speak for me. #GamerGate #NotYourShield InaraOfTyria, Tweet, December 14, 2014, 8:21pm 25 Hatred got taken off Steam because some prissy journalists threw a tantrum. #GamerGate #NotYourShield Ash_Effect, Tweet, December 15, 2015, 4:03pm 26 In August 2014, “GamerGate” was sparked by a blog post by a female indie game developer’s ex­boyfriend alleging that she had cheated on him with a video game journalist, which many members of various online gaming communities took to be a sign that the alleged relationship had been the cause of a positive review of the developer’s game. Anger over this perceived breach of video game ethics led to a controversy that was both messy and convoluted, with many disparate actors claiming to speak for the “real” GamerGate movement. Many of these actors took a stance in GamerGate by articulating—loudly, and often in on Twitter and in online forums—not only precisely who did not hold membership in the gaming community, but also who had no right to speak for the ethics, needs, or desires of said community. As the tweets above exemplify, many of those who were seen as unworthy representatives were journalists—both mainstream, and video game specialists—and media critics, such as Anita Sarkeesian, because they were seen as external actors intervening in an affair beyond their understanding. Journalists and other members of the media, as well as other individuals who many community members simply did not agree with, were often portrayed as 25
InaraOfTyria, “Reminder that I'm STILL a female gamer, and Anita Sarkeesian and her little cronies STILL don't speak for me. #GamerGate #NotYourShield” December 14, 2014, 8:21pm. Tweet. https://twitter.com/InaraOfTyria/status/544346421760385024 26 Ash_Effect, “Hatred got taken off Steam because some prissy journalists threw a tantrum. #GamerGate #NotYourShield” December 15, 2015, 4:03pm. Tweet. https://twitter.com/Ash_Effect/status/544643930298388480 16 unfit for contributing to the GamerGate conversation because they did not understand, let alone represent, the needs of the community. Such a desire to control who could participate in the conversations surrounding GamerGate and its community by limiting approval to those who had already proven some type of membership parallels the Oculus community’s desire to control precisely who could direct the development of Oculus. In particular, it echoes the struggle to only allow trusted parties to act in situations in which the vision of the community was in question—whether that be a vision of gaming ethics, or of a virtual reality headset. As such, many of the GamerGate community’s vitriolic responses to perceived outsiders can perhaps be better understood as assertions of ownership over a community, in the form of support only for those people perceived as representative, and anger towards all others. While many of the GamerGate controversy’s most publicized aspects—misogyny and voyeurism, among others—cannot be fully explained through the lens of representative leadership, such a lens may prove helpful in understanding the community’s aggressive efforts to prevent outsiders from participating in the gaming world as more than only indicative of misogyny and immaturity. Instead, it may enable us to look at GamerGate critically, and identify the ways in which misogyny and hate speech served as outlets for a fear and anger that stemmed from conflict over ownership of the community itself. 17 Bibliography actuallyatwork (June 17, 2013) Re: Oculus getting $16M from Spark Capital (who also funded Twitter and Tumblr)? [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1gjh4z/oculus_getting_16m_from_spark_capit
al_who_also/cakszqr android78 (June 6, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777&hilit=ZeniMax&start=2
00#p74066 Bishop51 (April 16, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777#p72540 brantlew (June 6, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777&hilit=ZeniMax&start=2
00#p74078 Carmack, John. (April 4, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777&start=120#p73867 Cobsad (2014, October 8), Re: Notch is “over being upset,” Minecraft on Oculus may happen after all. [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.pcgamer.com/notch­is­over­being­upset­minecraft­on­oculus­rift­may­happen
­after­all/#comment­1626362185 18 cyberreality (August 24, 2009) Re: HMD help, and introduction [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4123&start=15 EChondo (March 26 2014) Re: The future of VR [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgc9knw InaraOfTyria. “Reminder that I'm STILL a female gamer, and Anita Sarkeesian and her little cronies STILL don't speak for me. #GamerGate #NotYourShield” December 14, 2014, 8:21pm. Tweet. https://twitter.com/InaraOfTyria/status/544346421760385024 Ash_Effect, “Hatred got taken off Steam because some prissy journalists threw a tantrum. #GamerGate #NotYourShield” December 15, 2015, 4:03pm. Tweet. https://twitter.com/Ash_Effect/status/544643930298388480 Kelty, Christopher. 2008. Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Duke University Press Books. Luckey, Palmer. “HMD help, and introduction.” August 22, 2009. Message posted to http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4123#p29608 Luckey, Palmer. “Oculus ‘Rift’: An open­source HMD for Kickstarter.” April 15, 2012. Message posted to http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777 Luckey, Palmer. “VR Gets VC.” Backer Update for “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” June 17, 2013. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/51
2945 maniacalmania (March 25 2014) Re: The ruture of VR [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgbx9tw 19 MSat (June 8, 2012) Re: Oculus “Rift”: an open­source HMD for Kickstarter [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=14777&start=240&hilit=ZeniM
ax#p74206 Oculus. “Oculus Joins Facebook.” Backer Update for “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” March 26, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/78
9581 Oculus. “Announcing the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2 (DK2).” Backer Update for “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” March 19, 2014. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/44
0293 Oculus. “Developer Kits are Shipping!” Backer Update for “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” March 29, 2013. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/44
0293 Oculus. “Oculus Rift: Step Into the Game.” Kickstarter Project (accessed December 20, 2014). OculusVR. “RiftDK1,” September 13, 2014. Github repository, initial commit. https://github.com/OculusVR/RiftDK1 Persson, Markus. “Virtual Reality is Going to Change the World.” Notch.net. March 25, 2014. http://notch.net/2014/03/virtual­reality­is­going­to­change­the­world/ (accessed December 20, 2014). 20 Persson, Markus (Notch). “We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just canceled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.” March 25, 2014, 3:25 pm. Tweet. Real O’Neil (June 18,2013) Re: VR Gets VC [online forum comment] Retrieved from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/51
2945?cursor=3535376#comment­3535375 Ryan McClelland (June 17, 2013) Re: VR Gets VC [online forum comment] Retreived from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus­rift­step­into­the­game/posts/51
2945?cursor=3538901#comment­3538900 TheCodexx (March 25, 2014) Re: The future of VR [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/21cy9n/the_future_of_vr/cgbvrr8 tillery (June 17, 2013) Re: VR Gets VC [online forum comment] Retrieved from http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1gjh4z/oculus_getting_16m_from_spark_capit
al_who_also/cakt8lx 21