The people at Oculus VR are doubtless pretty psyched that ufa888 Facebook just bought their company for $2 billion. Some game developers, not so much. https://kotaku.com/facebook-buys-oculus-rift-for-2-billion-1551487939 Among the displeased is Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson, who tweeted that in light of the Facebook acquisition, he’s cancelled a deal he and his company Mojang were working on to bring Minecraft to Oculus VR.(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); We were in talks about maybe bringing a version of Minecraft to Oculus. I just cancelled that deal. Facebook creeps me out. — notch (@notch) March 25, 2014 Notch was also sure to point out that there IS an existing mod that lets you play Minecraft in Oculus Rift – it looks cool, though it’s not official. (Top image is taken from that mod.) https://kotaku.com/the-oculus-rift-makes-minecraft-a-giant-blocky-head-tr-498437305 It’s worth keeping in mind that VR Minecraft could well still happen; in fact, it probably will. After all, there are always non-Oculus options for Mojang to pursue. We’ve hit Mojang up to see if we can find out more about what happened, and will update this post if and when we hear back. Update: In a lengthy new blog post, Persson has explained why he’s decided to part ways with Oculus. Here’s the bottom part, where he discusses the Facebook deal: Of course, [Oculus] wanted Minecraft. I said that it doesn’t really fit the platform, since it’s very motion based, runs on java (that has a hard time delivering rock solid 90 fps, especially since the players build their own potentially hugely complex levels), and relies a lot on GUI. But perhaps it would be cool to do a slimmed down version of Minecraft for the Oculus. Something free, similar to the Minecraft PI Edition, perhaps? So I suggested that, and our people started talking to their people to see if something could be done. And then, not two weeks later, Facebook buys them. 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 riches777 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. 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 g2g1bet that makes them seem creepy to me. And I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition. I have the greatest respect for the talented engineers and developers at Oculus. It’s been a long time since I met a more dedicated and talented group of people. I understand this is purely a business deal, and I’d like to congratulate both Facebook and the Oculus owners. But this is where we part ways. Read the rest at Notch’s blog