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pr10n's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
4.0
thechanelmuse's review against another edition
2.0
Chile…This book should’ve been called A World of Politics: (Mostly) Luckey’s Tale, the Birth of Oculus, Facebook’s Acquisition, Team Trump and Investigations in the Age of Virtual Reality Technology.
dalefu's review against another edition
3.0
I might have rated this higher if it didn't take so long to get going, but I only really got invested during the final third.
VR has always seemed to me to be a niche product with a niche market, and like most niche markets they are passionate about their field, with an almost cult-like devotion. VR is definitely more mainstream now than it has ever been, but it's still a far way off from mass adoption. Call me a luddite, but I've never felt true mass adoption was in the cards for VR. I think the far more likely outcome is the market for VR in its current form plateaus, and other technologies eventually replace it, cannibalizing the tech and its market in the process. I just don't see a future where gaming is primarily done standing up and swinging our arms around, let alone with a device strapped to our face. I think the final application of the tech is likely to look very different than its current iteration, and be much broader than just cool video games.
All this to say, I've never been a big believer in VR. Instead of reading this as a story about a few visionaries changing the world, I simply saw it as a few people who couldn't find the product they wanted, and so made it themselves. Along the way they discovered a market of likeminded people willing to spend their money. Hardly revolutionary, but still has potential for an interesting read!
Unfortunately that wasn't the case for most of this book. It wasn't until the final third, when the "drama" began that I found it truly interesting. Going into this book I knew very little about the backstory of VR. I knew Oculus had kickstarted a new modern resurgence of interest in VR, and eventually sold to Facebook, which angered a lot of people. That's it. I knew nothing about the people involved, or their politics. By the halfway point of the book I could already tell I didn't like this Palmer guy, so when I got to the part where he sold to Facebook and deluded himself into thinking it wasn't greed, my opinion was only confirmed. I can confidently say I didn't go into this book with my mind made up about the founder of Oculus.
I had no idea a hard turn was coming, and the final third of the book was mired in politics. Suddenly I was reading about Palmer's political donations, and the blowback that came as a result. I'm no fan of Trump, and don't often have much sympathy for his voters. I do think it's a bit concerning, however, that it seems Palmer was fired over his political views, views which half that country shares.
As thought provoking as the final third of the book was, however, I can't say it really held a candle to the author's previous work, Console Wars.
VR has always seemed to me to be a niche product with a niche market, and like most niche markets they are passionate about their field, with an almost cult-like devotion. VR is definitely more mainstream now than it has ever been, but it's still a far way off from mass adoption. Call me a luddite, but I've never felt true mass adoption was in the cards for VR. I think the far more likely outcome is the market for VR in its current form plateaus, and other technologies eventually replace it, cannibalizing the tech and its market in the process. I just don't see a future where gaming is primarily done standing up and swinging our arms around, let alone with a device strapped to our face. I think the final application of the tech is likely to look very different than its current iteration, and be much broader than just cool video games.
All this to say, I've never been a big believer in VR. Instead of reading this as a story about a few visionaries changing the world, I simply saw it as a few people who couldn't find the product they wanted, and so made it themselves. Along the way they discovered a market of likeminded people willing to spend their money. Hardly revolutionary, but still has potential for an interesting read!
Unfortunately that wasn't the case for most of this book. It wasn't until the final third, when the "drama" began that I found it truly interesting. Going into this book I knew very little about the backstory of VR. I knew Oculus had kickstarted a new modern resurgence of interest in VR, and eventually sold to Facebook, which angered a lot of people. That's it. I knew nothing about the people involved, or their politics. By the halfway point of the book I could already tell I didn't like this Palmer guy, so when I got to the part where he sold to Facebook and deluded himself into thinking it wasn't greed, my opinion was only confirmed. I can confidently say I didn't go into this book with my mind made up about the founder of Oculus.
I had no idea a hard turn was coming, and the final third of the book was mired in politics. Suddenly I was reading about Palmer's political donations, and the blowback that came as a result. I'm no fan of Trump, and don't often have much sympathy for his voters. I do think it's a bit concerning, however, that it seems Palmer was fired over his political views, views which half that country shares.
As thought provoking as the final third of the book was, however, I can't say it really held a candle to the author's previous work, Console Wars.
christy_eastmond's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
1.0
Not interesting for someone who is not a gamer. There is also a lot of objectionable language.
nick_latanick's review against another edition
4.0
Dryer than Blake's previous book, lots of business details that aren't very interesting from a story telling perspective. Most of the book end up feeling like exposition for the last few chapters, which I guess makes sense since Palmer's story isn't over.
rick2's review against another edition
3.0
But conflicted about this one. On one hand, it’s a compelling and entertaining narrative about the rise of Palmer Luckey and Oculus. VR is an interesting industry and I’m glad to have learned a bit more about the sweep of history over the last decade. The book chronicles the rise and fall of Palmer in a compelling and dramatic way.
I thought the first third of the book was amazing, the middle third relating to the buyout by Facebook was ok, and the last third was thinly veiled reputation management.
The author describes the tech well and the initial days of Oculus make for a compelling “us against the world” story. It was well done and there was an impressive level of access.
But that level of access leads me to my concerns. This reads like a very flattering depiction of a series of events that may not warrant it. My impression is that the author had very close access to the main characters of this book, and did what any normal person would do, he liked and accepted their worldview. However, taking a slight step back from this book, I think that the result is a book that needs to be read critically. For example, The book closes by describing the lawsuit between ZeniMax and Oculus. ZeniMax claims damages, breaking an NDA, and theft of IP. The portrayal of this is as if Oculus were victims in the whole affair, and “look how ridiculous the trial and result were.” Now if the only source of truth is this book, it does seem absurd to award hundreds of millions of dollars to ZeniMax. Then why did they do it? For all the flaws in our court system, it seems to me that the most likely answer is that Oculus and co broke their NDA and infringed on copyright laws.
And so. How do you trust a book that seems to be focused on portraying the main subject sympathetically rather then accurately? Another example, no doubt the PR fiasco due to Luckey’s involvement in a right wing PAC was unfortunate, but I felt like I was reading a multi chapter justification of what happened. Where was this author when I was explaining to my parents in high school why I had a bong in my backpack?
I thought the first third of the book was amazing, the middle third relating to the buyout by Facebook was ok, and the last third was thinly veiled reputation management.
The author describes the tech well and the initial days of Oculus make for a compelling “us against the world” story. It was well done and there was an impressive level of access.
But that level of access leads me to my concerns. This reads like a very flattering depiction of a series of events that may not warrant it. My impression is that the author had very close access to the main characters of this book, and did what any normal person would do, he liked and accepted their worldview. However, taking a slight step back from this book, I think that the result is a book that needs to be read critically. For example, The book closes by describing the lawsuit between ZeniMax and Oculus. ZeniMax claims damages, breaking an NDA, and theft of IP. The portrayal of this is as if Oculus were victims in the whole affair, and “look how ridiculous the trial and result were.” Now if the only source of truth is this book, it does seem absurd to award hundreds of millions of dollars to ZeniMax. Then why did they do it? For all the flaws in our court system, it seems to me that the most likely answer is that Oculus and co broke their NDA and infringed on copyright laws.
And so. How do you trust a book that seems to be focused on portraying the main subject sympathetically rather then accurately? Another example, no doubt the PR fiasco due to Luckey’s involvement in a right wing PAC was unfortunate, but I felt like I was reading a multi chapter justification of what happened. Where was this author when I was explaining to my parents in high school why I had a bong in my backpack?
mkesten's review against another edition
2.0
“The History of the Future” is either the worst name for this book, or perhaps a tongue-in-cheek reference to one character’s reference to the impact virtual reality is expected to have on the gaming industry over the next few decades.
This book is not a history of the future.
For a few bright, shining years a very young man, Palmer Lucky, headed his own tech start-up in the promising field of virtual reality gaming. Virtual reality is really a synthetic, immersive gaming environment in 3D. Lucky and his colleagues sold the company, Oculus, for billions to facebook.
On the advice trusted venture capitalists, Mark Zuckerberg made one of his big bets in buying Oculus believing that it was the best of several attempts to bring virtual reality mainstream.
Given Zuckerberg’s resources, it was not a bad bet in my estimation.
Virtual reality has phenomenal upside, even for non-gamers like me. Humans use unconscionable amounts of resources to motor themselves around the planet to do things that could fairly be done in a virtual environment. Go to and from work. Visit the doctor. Go to school. Visit aged relatives. Attend a business meeting. Attend a concert. And the list goes on.
On one hand, this book is a story of a start-up. It is also the story of the rise and fall of a naïf and a sidebar to the story of Donald Trump...I kid you not! Lucky made the mistake of contributing to a non-profit supporting the election of Donald Trump that was labelled racist, white supremacist, misogynist, and anti-Semitic. When news of his involvement leaked, his future with the company and facebook was doomed.
More interesting to me, however, were the arguments Mark Zuckerberg made to Oculus. The biggest, of course, was the price Zuck was willing to pay. But Zuck also wooed them with the exclusivity of building the only interface with a facebook “experience,” and thus an attraction to developers and an automatic lock on potentially one billion users.
Zuckerberg seemed to be pitching some kind of a VR facebook experience, but the developers at Oculus were thinking of hitting a home run with a gamer experience. It seems that that buyer and seller were in different ball parks.
And this in a multi-billion dollar deal.
At face value it looks like the sellers really didn’t look closely enough at their suitor because immediately after the acquisition the principals were scratching their heads over attempts by facebook to integrate them physically in their workspace and culture.
For example, everybody at facebook used Apple computers, whereas the hardcore Oculus gamers were mostly PC users.
Also, the Oculus guys saw the advantages of leaving their games open to be used on other platforms. Zuck nixed that.
Oculus’ early fans were horrified that the platform was being developed by the evil facebook. The culture of facebook was and is so foreign to gamers. And we’re not just talking semantics.
Gamers really are different. And the games market is so huge that it’s really difficult to reorient them from the consoles and open source culture they come from. As big as facebook is, Zuck really bumped up into an immovable force.
In the couple of years since the facebook acquisition, Oculus devices have sold moderately well behind market leader SONY, and ahead of HTC. They are selling in the millions, good but not the killer app they expected.
This story is far from over.
This book is not a history of the future.
For a few bright, shining years a very young man, Palmer Lucky, headed his own tech start-up in the promising field of virtual reality gaming. Virtual reality is really a synthetic, immersive gaming environment in 3D. Lucky and his colleagues sold the company, Oculus, for billions to facebook.
On the advice trusted venture capitalists, Mark Zuckerberg made one of his big bets in buying Oculus believing that it was the best of several attempts to bring virtual reality mainstream.
Given Zuckerberg’s resources, it was not a bad bet in my estimation.
Virtual reality has phenomenal upside, even for non-gamers like me. Humans use unconscionable amounts of resources to motor themselves around the planet to do things that could fairly be done in a virtual environment. Go to and from work. Visit the doctor. Go to school. Visit aged relatives. Attend a business meeting. Attend a concert. And the list goes on.
On one hand, this book is a story of a start-up. It is also the story of the rise and fall of a naïf and a sidebar to the story of Donald Trump...I kid you not! Lucky made the mistake of contributing to a non-profit supporting the election of Donald Trump that was labelled racist, white supremacist, misogynist, and anti-Semitic. When news of his involvement leaked, his future with the company and facebook was doomed.
More interesting to me, however, were the arguments Mark Zuckerberg made to Oculus. The biggest, of course, was the price Zuck was willing to pay. But Zuck also wooed them with the exclusivity of building the only interface with a facebook “experience,” and thus an attraction to developers and an automatic lock on potentially one billion users.
Zuckerberg seemed to be pitching some kind of a VR facebook experience, but the developers at Oculus were thinking of hitting a home run with a gamer experience. It seems that that buyer and seller were in different ball parks.
And this in a multi-billion dollar deal.
At face value it looks like the sellers really didn’t look closely enough at their suitor because immediately after the acquisition the principals were scratching their heads over attempts by facebook to integrate them physically in their workspace and culture.
For example, everybody at facebook used Apple computers, whereas the hardcore Oculus gamers were mostly PC users.
Also, the Oculus guys saw the advantages of leaving their games open to be used on other platforms. Zuck nixed that.
Oculus’ early fans were horrified that the platform was being developed by the evil facebook. The culture of facebook was and is so foreign to gamers. And we’re not just talking semantics.
Gamers really are different. And the games market is so huge that it’s really difficult to reorient them from the consoles and open source culture they come from. As big as facebook is, Zuck really bumped up into an immovable force.
In the couple of years since the facebook acquisition, Oculus devices have sold moderately well behind market leader SONY, and ahead of HTC. They are selling in the millions, good but not the killer app they expected.
This story is far from over.
daphne_the_library_elf's review against another edition
2.0
This is one of the hardest books I've read to rate. I would put it closer to 2.5 stars, but not close enough to other books I rated 3 stars to use 3 instead of 2.
I picked up this book because of both an interest in VR and its history. It wasn't anything I really knew a lot about beyond the names of the big companies, so I knew little about key players. I found the first three parts interesting, but like most of the other mixed or negative reviews I've read, my main issue was with Part IV. It feels too close to propaganda for Luckey to my taste. My main issue as I was listening to the first three parts was that there seemed to be a too-good-to-be-true narrative with Luckey. Harris really seemed to be trying a little to hard to be hammering home the "he's such a nice guy!" narrative, particularly with bits like the he-literally-gave-someone-the-shirt-of-his-back story. It seems a bit disingenuous, especially with Luckey situated firmly as the protagonist and a lot of perspectives from those who didn't directly agree throughout his time at Oculus with him not presented. You don't have to be nice to be treated unfairly, but making someone look a little too nice can cast doubt on whether they really are innocent; it makes it seem like something is missing. This makes me a little dubious that this story is the full truth, or if things were strategically left out to create a clear hero and villains. Definitely an interesting book and I'd be interested in reading more from different sources to help contextualize this one, but I just can't shake that some behavior, opposing viewpoints, or valid concerns are fully overlooked and omitted to cast Luckey as an unquestionable martyr.
I picked up this book because of both an interest in VR and its history. It wasn't anything I really knew a lot about beyond the names of the big companies, so I knew little about key players. I found the first three parts interesting, but like most of the other mixed or negative reviews I've read, my main issue was with Part IV. It feels too close to propaganda for Luckey to my taste. My main issue as I was listening to the first three parts was that there seemed to be a too-good-to-be-true narrative with Luckey. Harris really seemed to be trying a little to hard to be hammering home the "he's such a nice guy!" narrative, particularly with bits like the he-literally-gave-someone-the-shirt-of-his-back story. It seems a bit disingenuous, especially with Luckey situated firmly as the protagonist and a lot of perspectives from those who didn't directly agree throughout his time at Oculus with him not presented. You don't have to be nice to be treated unfairly, but making someone look a little too nice can cast doubt on whether they really are innocent; it makes it seem like something is missing. This makes me a little dubious that this story is the full truth, or if things were strategically left out to create a clear hero and villains. Definitely an interesting book and I'd be interested in reading more from different sources to help contextualize this one, but I just can't shake that some behavior, opposing viewpoints, or valid concerns are fully overlooked and omitted to cast Luckey as an unquestionable martyr.
heatherbirchall's review against another edition
3.0
I could so easily have given this book 4 stars or even 5 because it was so readable. However, the author was so obsessed with Palmer Luckey that he left out so many things that would have been fascinating. There were only about 4 pages about Oculus's competitor, HTC Vive, and wouldn't it have been interesting to make a comparison with Steve Jobs - also kicked out of his company? There were so many protagonists at the start - but then the story was completely about Luckey, and we didn't hear anything more about John Carmack, Michael Abrash or Michael Antonov - to name a few. Were they happy when Facebook acquired Oculus? If you're going to call a book 'The History of the Future' how about enlightening the readers a little about that future. I was unimpressed when I heard the author speak - the book was actually better than I thought it would be, but readability isn't everything. I have a feeling that no-one will be reading this book next year.