Oculus and Facebook "Want to Put a Billion People" in an MMO

And you thought Azeroth was crowded? Just kidding, you probably never thought that.

A few weeks back, Oculus VR was purchased by Facebook for a gigantic sum of $2 billion. What is the virtual reality company and the social media network looking to do with the future?

Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt today about one of the company's big goals. They aim to, as The Verge has it, create a massively multiplayer experience. Or, as Iribe put it, "This is going to be an MMO where we want to put a billion people in VR."

One billion people in virtual reality? This is the part where nerds like me who read Ready Player One and Snow Crash are either extremely excited or extremely creeped out. Both books present a world lived in virtual reality, and that's exactly what could happen in the not-too-distant future if this works out.

Of course, getting one billion people into virtual reality will take an incredible amount of energy. We're talking about developing tech that's high end enough to be exciting but low end enough to be reasonably priced. Not meeting those two demands would certainly mean that one seventh of the world's population likely won't bite.

After Facebook acquired Oculus, Eric Frederiksen and I discussed whether or not gamers should be put off by the notion of the two companies working together. Do you think this news of aiming to hoist up a one billion member MMO is good or bad for gamers?