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A review by rick2
The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality by Blak J. Harris
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?