Cloud Imperium founder and creator of the upcoming Star Citizen Chris Roberts doesn't think Oculus VR betrayed gamers by “selling out” to Facebook. In a post to Star Citizen's official website , he makes an argument that's familiar at this point: Oculus VR needed a lot more money in order for the Rift to succeed.
“It really needed a lot more funding than it has raised from its past two VC rounds ,” he said. “Hardware is expensive: it's one thing to perfect the technology, but before you can sell a single Rift, you need to spend hundreds of millions on manufacturing and building a supply chain if you intend to make the Rift (and Virtual Reality) relevant for the mass market.”
For example, he says that Microsoft invested well over a billion dollars just to launch Xbox One this fall, and hopes that Facebook's funding will allow Oculus to compete on a similar, mass-market scale.
While he isn't opposed to the acquisition, Roberts said that his own company has no interest in following a similar path. “We don't need to go to anyone with deep pockets to make OUR dream a reality,” he said, explaining that their development costs are not nearly as high as Oculus VR's.
Those development costs, as you may have heard, are funded by fans, who so far have raised a staggering $41 million.
