Not a lot of people are happy about Facebook’s acquisition of the Oculus Rift, but Notch might be the most upset of us all. In a blog post Tuesday night after the news broke, Markus “Notch” Persson, the creator of Minecraft and founder of Mojang, announced the cancellation of his team’s efforts to bring Minecraft to the Oculus Rift.
“I definitely want to be a part of VR, but I will not work with Facebook,” says Persson. “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 that makes them seem creepy to me.”
Persson’s fears are echoed by the community that helped crowdfund the VR headset in the first place, a group that was willing to risk their own money to fund an exciting gaming project. Facebook is not a gaming company, and Zuckerberg has already made it clear that the Rift will be much more than a gaming peripheral when it launches.
Persson sees the potential of virtual reality outside of gaming, but he and his team make games. With the enormous public outcry, it will be interesting to see how Oculus VR, a company that has garnered nothing but good will since its original Kickstarter, responds to the detractors.
