The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality

Overall a great read where 500 pages flew by. A fascinating look into how Luckey greatly contributed to the VR world and was abruptly tossed from it because of politics. A highly recommended read whether you’re into VR or not.

I was an original backer of the Oculus Kickstarter. I remember many of the moments in this book. It's incredible getting to go back and get so much more detail and context from these moments in history. Blake does an absolutely amazing job of presenting an objective and honest recounting of everything that happened.Thank you for making this amazing piece of work!Palmer Lucky, I am sorry you were so wrongfully pushed out of your dream. I still use my Rift every week and I can never thank you enough for making something that inspired so many talented people to come together and make something truly amazing!

I'm a large fan of what Blake did with immortalizing the story behind Sega and Nintendo, as I was a student in marketing, it was a fascinating story that shined a light on a great deal of how the industry had worked during the wild west.Of course, gaming has become more and more corporate and calculated as time has gone on, but there's a new frontier that people are trail-blazing and that is Virtual Reality. This book is a coherent piece of nonfiction, that tells the stories of those that are currently revolutionizing what entertainment and escapism means.I was instantly hooked by Blake's first couple chapters and his writing chops are at full-force yet again with this book. Definitely check it out whenever you can as soon as possible.

This is a great read, providing the reader with an excellent history, told from the people who made it, of how Oculus went from a project being tinkered on in a trailer in Orange County, CA to a Multi-Billion dollar acquisition by Facebook. That story alone is worth the cost of admission, but the book then goes into great detail on how Oculus changed under its parent company and the hysteria surrounding Palmer Lucky's political beliefs. The reader is taken on a journey, with no judgment from the author and instead an earnest view of the facts as presented by the sources interviewed.

A lot of time (half or two thirds of the book) was spent setting up the founding process, and everyone involved in it. This was solid and read like a good founding story, getting to know the different characters involved, their desires and goals, etc, and setting up for an impending confrontation (is it the competing release of the HTC Vive, is it the launch day issues of the Oculus Rift, is it the blow back on lack of hand tracking on initial release that was teased earlier in the book?). In the end, little to no time was spent discussing the actual launch of the Rift CV1, the drama around the competing "room scale" Vive, and the people who waited months after the official launch to receive their headset. Instead the book sympathetically covers the rise and fall of the creator of r/The_Donald and how Luckey became involved with Nimble America and the ensuing drama that ultimately ended his time with Oculus.This is not to say that drama isn't worth covering, but I question whether Luckey's personal issues are relevant to a book ostensibly about the history of the modern VR movement (even with its point of view rooted in the creation and acquisition of Oculus by Facebook).In the end the book was about Palmer Luckey to the exclusion of important moments in the history of Oculus and the modern day VR resurgence. This was not the book I thought I was purchasing with the title "The History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality". Not one star, because I truly enjoyed the first half of the book.

Incredible story, very well-written and engaging. Does an excellent job of opening your mind to beliefs you may strongly hold. They'll make a movie of this, mark my word.

Very informative and engaging. After following these events as they happened, it was fascinating to see the other side of the story, behind the scenes. You can tell how much work went into gathering all the source materials and letting them shine, which gives the book credibility. In this book Palmer’s side of the story, and the actual facts, long surpressed by Facebook and the media, finally come to light.The writing is suspenseful and engaging the whole way through. Two criticisms to fix for the 2nd edition: (1) Lots of typos and little errors; (2) please un-concatenate “super” from accompanying adjectives (“supersmart”, “superpissed”, “supercool”, etc.). It’s superannoying! But those are nits relative to the impact and enjoyment of this book. Still a must-read.

I've been following VR for a while now and this book gives a great insight into its early development. Very interesting story with plenty of drama and interesting characters. The author gives a very balanced and nuanced view of some controversial topics.

Fascinating read for those interested in the early days of Oculus

This reads like a movie script. Very engaging and nice gentle intro to all the characters without getting bamboozled with too much detail.

Nicely written story about Oculus and well written. But this followed Bad Blood which has an unbelievable story so this is weak in comparison. Still a good read if you love VR.

If you are interested in VR then this is a great book.

Really well written - you feel you are part of this exciting story!