An online virtual reality game in which one billion players will participate is in his company's and Facebook for the future, said the CEO and co-founder of Oculus (famous for the Oculus Rift virtual reality set), Brendan Iribe, between serious and humorous, at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.
«It will be an MMO (massively multiplayer online game) where we want to put a billion players into virtual reality» said, according to a publication by The Verge, Iribe. Although, as noted, he admitted that an MMO of one billion players would require «a much larger network than exists today in the world», he noted that Facebook's network – which he recently acquired the company of – is a very good point from which one could start, estimating that something like this could become a «metaverse» (metaverse), which would unite various digital virtual worlds.
Iribe emphasized that Oculus remains oriented towards gaming, which was also the driving force behind the development of the much‑anticipated and now famous Oculus Rift, however the company realized that such a thing could automatically entail restrictions. «Do you want to build a platform that has one billion users, or only 10, 20 or 50 million;» he asked, noting that specialized gaming systems do not have the same reach as the now «world» of portable devices.
Even though something like this currently appears as a rather distant vision, the first step for the company is to convince the players that they have a «real conversation» with another person (in virtual reality). Even though game graphics do not yet allow the creation of fully photorealistic faces, even cartoon-style characters can make a difference, according to Iribe. «If you let yourself, you will be able to have a real conversation with another person. This is the ‘Holy Disk Cup’ that we are trying to reach», he said in context.
This particular vision directly refers to long‑ago science‑fiction dreams such as those found in cyberpunk stories by William Gibson (Mona Lisa Overdrive, Neuromancer, Count Zero, Johnny Mnemonic), by Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash) or the famous film trilogy «Matrix». However, it may ultimately be closer to reality than one would expect, since, according to Iribe, Oculus's goal (which continues to operate independently, after its acquisition by Facebook) is to establish virtual reality as the next great «arena/ platform» of high technology- and the collaboration with the «king of social networks» could possibly be the «key» to this.
«We have just started the operation of a research team. They have begun hiring some very talented engineers. And they will get in touch with universities, collaborating with students» added, as reported in a Tech Crunch article. «Seeing where virtual reality is headed over the next 10 years, we will have a lot of face-to-face communication and social interaction» added.
«The portable devices are most likely one of the last platforms based on two-dimensional images. We replace vision and practically create synthetic vision. This will be the final platform. You will be able to convince, to fool your brain that it is in this place».
