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Famed developer Cliff Bleszinski has criticised Markus Persson for his decision to pull the plug on the Oculus Rift version of Minecraft.
Persson announced the cancellation of the project just moments after news of the Facebook acquisition of Oculus was announced, saying: I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.”
However, in an impassioned blog post criticising much of the negative reaction to the news, Cliffy B has said that such responses are uncalled for.
Notch, your cancelling Minecraft makes you look like a pouty kid who is taking his ball and going home,” he wrote. It’s a bratty and petty move and it saddens me greatly.
The Internet Outrage Machine loves to pile on something like this. People are very rear window in their thinking online ‘Oh now we’re going to get Farmville VR’. Maybe Zuck sees what everyone else has seen – the future – and wants to make sure it’s more than just great games and saw that it would add value to his business?
More importantly, [Oculus] needed an ecosystem. IF their system is going to be (hopefully) a dedicated system instead of a (ugh) peripheral they need their version of whatever the app store would be. Your device is only as good as the store and community around it; if users can’t say shut up and take my money, if developers can’t post their work then the device will ultimately flounder.
Facebook can assist with this sort of thing, as well as having a multi billion user reach. That’s pretty damned important.
At the end of the day the fact that programming god John Carmack and up and coming tech god Palmer Luckey BOTH think this is a good fit SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING.”
Bleszinski also poured scorn on the Oculus Kickstarter backers who have cried foul of the move, rightly pointing out that they lack a fundamental understanding of how the crowdfunding system works and what it entitles them to.
Apparently some folks don’t understand that donating to a Kickstarter gets you whatever reward you’re told when you donate, you don’t get equity, you don’t get to participate in the fruits of a sale of a company like that,” he added.
Oculus crowdsourced traction from enthusiasts and then found the proper partner that can fund them and assist with bringing the platform of VR to the next level. Crowdfunding can only take you so far, especially when you’re doing something this ambitious. ‘I donated money to add value to a company that was eventually sold’. Well, that’s kind of how business works, folks, hate to be the bearer of bad news.”
