Markus “Notch” Persson, creator of Minecraft, tweeted that his company Mojang were in talks for a proposed Oculus virtual reality version of his game, but that he cancelled that deal after news of the Facebook acquisition of Oculus VR broke.
”Facebook creeps me out”, he said.
We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out.
— Markus Persson (@notch) March 25, 2014In a qualifying statement posted on his blog, Persson further outlined his reasons for concern.
“Facebook is not a company of grass-roots tech enthusiasts. Facebook is not a game tech company. Facebook has a history of caring about building user numbers, and nothing but building user numbers. 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.”
“Don’t get me wrong, VR is not bad for social. In fact, I think social could become one of the biggest applications of VR. Being able to sit in a virtual living room and see your friend’s avatar? Business meetings? Virtual cinemas where you feel like you’re actually watching the movie with your friend who is seven time zones away?”
“But I don’t want to work with social, I want to work with games.”
Those hoping to still see Minecraft on virtual reality hardware needn’t be too concerned, however, as Persson is clearly still hoping to bring his game to another platform. He just really doesn’t trust Facebook.
”Fortunately, the rise of Oculus coincided with competitors emerging. None of them are perfect, but competition is a very good thing. If this means there will be more competition, and VR keeps getting better, I am going to be a very happy boy. I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook. Their motives are too unclear and shifting, and they haven’t historically been a stable platform. There’s nothing about their history that makes me trust them, and that makes them seem creepy to me.”
We’ll soon see if other developers share the same concerns.
