The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality
The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality
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Overview
From iconic books like Neuromancer to blockbuster films like The Matrix, virtual reality has long been hailed as the ultimate technology. But outside of a few research labs and military training facilities, this tantalizing vision of the future was nothing but science fiction. Until 2012, when Oculus founder Palmer Luckey—then just a rebellious teenage dreamer living alone in a camper trailer—invents a device that has the potential to change everything.
With the help of a videogame legend, a serial entrepreneur and many other colorful characters, Luckey’s scrappy startup kickstarts a revolution and sets out to bring VR to the masses. As with most underdog stories, things don’t quite go according to plan. But what happens next turns out to be the ultimate entrepreneurial journey: a tale of battles won and lost, lessons learned and neverending twists and turns—including an unlikely multi-billion-dollar acquisition by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, which shakes up the landscape in Silicon Valley and gives Oculus the chance to forever change our reality.
Drawing on over a hundred interviews with the key players driving this revolution, The History of the Future weaves together a rich, cinematic narrative that captures the breakthroughs, breakdowns and human drama of trying to change the world. The result is a super accessible and supremely entertaining look at the birth of a game-changing new industry.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781538551127 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
Publication date: | 02/19/2019 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Foreword Ernest Cline xi
Author's Note xix
Prologue 1
Part 1 The Revolution Virtual 5
Chapter 1 The Boy Who Lived to Mod 7
Chapter 2 Carmack the Magnificent 22
Chapter 3 A Tale of Two Trade Shows 32
Chapter 4 The Scaleform Mafia 40
Chapter 5 STK 57
Chapter 6 Pivots, Prototypes, and Partnerships 70
Chapter 7 Freedom Is Happiness 76
Chapter 8 That Fateful Promise 84
Chapter 9 Mount Up 94
Chapter 10 Valve! 114
Chapter 11 Kicrstarter 130
Part 2 How to Build a Company 141
Chapter 12 The King of Pop Software 143
Chapter 13 Showtime 152
Chapter 14 The Anomalies 160
Chapter 15 The Hong Kong Shuffle 178
Chapter 16 Just Kids 189
Chapter 17 Oculus vs. Ouya 198
Chapter 18 Good, Better, and Best at the 2013 CES 205
Chapter 19 Proverbs 29, Verse 18 229
Chapter 20 Wall-To-Wall Drama 242
Chapter 21 GDC 261
Part 3 The Good Old Days 267
Chapter 22 Move Slow and Build Things (Aka Facebook 2.0) 269
Chapter 23 Nine Stories 273
Chapter 24 The Future of Gaming 284
Chapter 25 Andrew Reisse 289
Chapter 26 Ideas So Crazy They Just Might 295
Chapter 27 The Room 307
Chapter 28 Jockeying for Position 312
Chapter 29 Zuckerbro Intrigued 324
Chapter 30 Blue's Clues 336
Chapter 31 The Backlash 352
Chapter 32 The New Normal 358
Chapter 33 Enter HTC 366
Chapter 34 Out of the Woodwork 368
Chapter 35 Charging Forward 373
Chapter 36 Canaries in the Coal Mine 379
Part 4 Politics 387
Chapter 37 Twelve Days in 2015 389
Chapter 38 Awaken the Sleeping Giants 400
Chapter 39 Lockdown 408
Chapter 40 Entitlement Checks 416
Chapter 41 The Devil is in the Details 431
Chapter 42 Nimble 443
Chapter 43 Internet Drama 447
Chapter 44 The Daily Beast 454
Chapter 45 Exile 473
Chapter 46 The Heist, the Comedy and the Fantasy vs. the Documentary 488
Chapter 47 The Verdict 506
Chapter 48 The Seemingly Impossible Challenge 512
Chapter 49 Employee Number One 521
Chapter 50 He's Back 527
Epilogue 535
Acknowledgments 557
Notes 559