May 5, 2017 - News Post

Yup, Facebook is closing up shop on their VR storytelling studio. That’s a good sign for VR, right?

Games and films were developed in 2d space, and it’s clear that developers are still struggling to discover what works in the 3d realm. That stuggle is clearly going to take more time than I thought. Still, it’s a bit odd to watch an incredibly savvy tech company like Facebook announce that they've run out of ideas.

VR and AR have the potential to transform our world. Not only in entertainment, but productivity and how we interact with our environment.

To get there, we need early adopters. Suckers who can be lured into innovating and transforming the platform. We need a way to make the technology useful NOW in order to pay for the next generation of devices and the generation after that.

Facebook just failed at that task. Oops. I guess it's up to us now.

In any given month, you can find me fiddling in VR for a few hours at a time. It’s pretty cool. I have an Oculus DK2 and a Gear VR, and I use both for development of hobby projects and potential apps. But being an early adopter is an extremely expensive endeavor. I have bills. Facebook has deep pockets, whereas most of us have pockets with holes. Spending an entire paycheck on the latest toy is difficult to justify. When Facebook loses interest, it doesn’t exactly inspire the rest of us.

As a community, we’ll get there. Someone will figure out how to properly use VR, and it’ll almost certainly be in way that will make us all say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

I doubt I’ll be the one to change the face of VR. But maybe you can be. Maybe you’re the genius an entire generation of headset owners is waiting for.

If so, hurry up and innovate. I need something to make fun of in Tuesday’s comic.

-Jeff