We all bring our own perspectives and experience to our day to day lives and our perspectives, and so I make no bones here about the following being the fruits of my own perspective. Please keep that in mind as you read the following and judge its content.

I myself have recently undergone the acquisition of my company, a private company that was well regarded in the field it was operated, by a large multi-billion mult-national. When I read Carmack's comments I feel pulled in two different directions.

On the one hand, I am old enough to have grown up with Castle Wolfenstein and Doom being formative experiences in my life on the computer, and my life in general. I can still remember downloading to the first Quake shareware, playing the original Team Fortress, and installing Navy Seals Quake long before its creator had moved onto Counter-Strike. And so Carmack is like a hero to me, he really did make an impact on my life growing up.

On the other hand, I see in all of his comments the same sort of sentiment that I saw in all of the upper management and senior members of my firm. They all expressed the exact same sorts of sentiments, that the acquisition would allow our company to reach the next level, giving us greater capital to expand our reach. Of course, now that push has come to shove, actually getting some of that money to spend is proving to be a bit more difficult than they had initially imagined or been promised. It turns out that our parent company was perfectly happy to acquire us for the market position that we help and the money that we could bring in without a substantial capital infusion. I know that the immediate argument will be that facebook will be totally different and will no doubt fund oculus to their heart's content, but I guess it is my cynicism showing when I hear these pronouncements through the same filter I now apply to announcements from our own parent company.

Anyway, as I said, we all view our lives through our own filter, and maybe I am totally swayed in my views. But I can't help but seeing the same sort of naive optimism in Carmack that permeated our organization before it came down to dollars and cents, and cheques had to be signed. And maybe, just like some in our senior management, Carmack is now older and less idealistic, and reflects this is the same way that some in my firm did, in their ability to say one thing publicly, and know something else in their heart, as long as the zeroes added up properly. Something funny happens as you get older, I feel it happening in myself, maybe you just don't feel as ready to go out on your shield. But I got the feeling from at least a few people in our acquisition that they knew how things would go, and were happy to say differently because it would work out better for them.

I don't know where John's head is, and so I can't charitably assume negative things, but then again I don't think assuming the best is any more honest or charitable, especially where facebook is concerned. I hope for the future of VR, but when I read the hopelessly positive and/or naive visions of this acquisition I can't help but asking myself "What do they know that I don't?" How can these people be that optimistic, unless they aren't actually that positive. We'll see how it goes, but I don't begrudge anyone feeling pessimistic at this point, especially given the history of tech acquisitions. We'll see how it goes, but in my heart of hearts, I hope for another Oculus and another Palmer, maybe slightly less focused on the bottom line, bringing the promise of VR to us all.