If you asked me yesterday to start listing companies that might purchase virtual reality wunderkind Oculus, Valve would have probably topped the list; the companies have previously talked up their close relationship, after all. Microsoft would have been a strong contender, too, likely to throw around its cash to give its consoles and mobile products an instant leg-up in the brewing VR wars. Google has also shown interest in augmented reality, and Amazon is making noise about a game console, so they both would be dark horse candidates for buyers as well.

But Facebook? The social networking giant wouldn't have even made my top ten list of potential Oculus buyers before today. No matter, though; the company did actually purchase Oculus for $2 billion, despite my theoretical list-making skills.

In discussing the purchase after the announcement, Facebook was very clear that this wasn't an attempt to buy its way into the gaming space. Instead, it's an attempt to bring the future of virtual reality closer to Facebook's established social networking space. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he thinks virtual and augmented reality systems are leading candidates to be the next major computing platform, supplanting the mobile applications that have already largely crowded out the Web and traditional PCs. Facebook was a bit slow to fully embrace the transition to today's mobile-centric world, but it seems to have finally managed to play catch up and establish its own mobile foothold. The firm obviously doesn't want to be left behind in what it sees as the next major computing platform transition.

At this point, it's a bit hard to imagine virtual reality headsets creating a revolution in technology that's on par with the seismic shift that smartphones and tablets have created during the last few years. Then again, it was hard for many to envision the central role that mobile technology would play in our lives back in early 2007, when the iPhone looked to some like a foolish overreach from the makers of a popular MP3 player.

But not every potential technological revolution plays out according to the hype; gamers in particular can remember the overzealous promises surrounding things like stereoscopic 3D displays four years ago, or motion controls seven years ago, or, um, virtual reality 20 years ago. Not that all of those "hot new things" were total flops, but they ended up being closer to gimmicks than to revolutionary new products that changed the way we experience entertainment forever.

Facebook obviously thinks VR is different this time around. On today's call, both Facebook and Oculus were quick to talk up how the headset could cause a revolution in how we communicate with people virtually, by allowing us to look directly at the person we're talking to as a virtual three-dimensional avatar—without "looking through a screen or a TV window" as Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe put it. Being able to make eye contact with a 3D version of your best friend that lives thousands of miles away, while you both seem to stand in an impossible virtual realm, will surely be much more intriguing than just typing to each other in a chat window, right?

Microsoft tested out this very theory with its Avatar Kinect app for the Xbox 360 back in 2011. That app, you may remember, relied on the Kinect to capture real-world body movements and facial expressions, which were used to control on-screen avatars that could just hang out and chat in some fantastical settings. The results were less than inspiring in our tests, but Microsoft didn't have the advantage of a head-mounted display providing robust head tracking to give a full, first-person view of the scene.

In fact, there was one gaming demo at GDC last week that now makes me think Facebook and Oculus might be on to something with the idea of connecting via VR avatars: Couch Knights. The game itself is an almost laughably simple tech demo, letting two players control miniature ninjas fighting in a virtual living room. What made the demo special was the ability to crane my head to the left to see the avatar of fellow player and Ars writer Sam Machkovech sitting next to me on a virtual couch. The magic really set in when I was able to see him turn his avatar's head toward me to meet my glance.

Sam and I had some fun with this feature during our five-minute demo. When I scored a point on him, I leaned my head in threateningly, "How you like me now?"-style, and I was gratified to see his avatar flinch back at the provocation. When I lost a point, I lowered my head and shook it sadly and melodramatically side-to-side as Sam gave me a slow nod of satisfaction.

Even without the ability to control our virtual facial expressions or move any part of our avatars' bodies below the shoulders, we were still able to get across some functional and hilarious non-verbal communication within the virtual environment. I'm not sure this is anywhere close to being the killer app VR needs to appeal to more than just gaming nerds, but with a few improvements to the verisimilitude, there's at least some potential to this kind of shared space communication.

That's going to require some additional technology not present in today's developer kits, which are still rough in many ways. For VR to make a Facebook-sized mass market play, headset display resolutions are going to have to get higher, full-body motion, and facial sensing is going to have to get more robust, and the connection between headset and computer should ideally become wireless (or perhaps tethered to a pocket-sized device running the apps).

It's important to remember in envisioning this advancement that we're not even at version 1.0 of a product that Oculus might be comfortable releasing to consumers, though. Facebook says it could take "five or ten years" for VR to get to the place it needs to be, and every conversation I've had with the people behind Oculus leads me to believe they want to spend that time perfecting the VR experience with constant updates using the latest parts. Seeing the advancements from the original Rift development kit to the new Developer Kit 2 has me nearly giddy at the prospect of how convincing the VR experience will be in a few more generational cycles.

Life under an evil empire

This all assumes, of course, that Oculus is allowed to keep on advancing the state of the VR art as it has in the recent past. A loud and adamant contingent of Internet commenters has reacted with dismay to Facebook's purchase, arguing that this is the end of the vibrant, perfection-obsessed VR company we've known up until this point. To hear the doomsayers tell it, Facebook will inevitably close off the formerly open Rift platform and layer it with so many Facebook-style ads, login requirements, tracking cookies, and general annoyances that the headset will be practically unusable by anyone who values their privacy. Either that, or Facebook will force Oculus into a cheap, lowest common-denominator headset with plenty of media and social features and only nominal gaming support.

Of course, we can't know for sure what will happen to Oculus under Facebook, but I'm skeptical that anything close to the worst of the doomsaying will come to pass. For one, we got a lot of similar doomsaying when Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion last year, but we have yet to see any of the actual doom; you can still use the photo sharing app without a Facebook account, and you can share your photos to Twitter or other social networks with ease.

Facebook has hinted toward a similarly open, hands-off approach for Oculus. Zuckerberg said Oculus' plans in the gaming space "won't be changing" and that the company will continue to operate independently as a subsidiary. Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey said on reddit that "very little [would change] day-to-day at Oculus" following the acquisition. He later promised reddit questioners that there will be "no specific Facebook tech tie-ins" in the consumer version of the Rift, and he said that "if anything, our hardware and software will get even more open, and Facebook is on board with that."

"Why would we want to sell to someone like MS or Apple?" Luckey wrote. "So they can tear the company apart and use the pieces to build out their own vision of virtual reality, one that fits whatever current strategy they have? Not a chance. ... I guarantee that you won't need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift."

Of course, that is what the newlywed companies would say to avoid spooking Oculus' established fan base and credibility in the gaming space. And even if Oculus believes what it's saying now, corporate plans change, and in a couple of years Facebook could tighten the screws in an effort to extract more money out of its acquisition.

I personally don't see that as a huge risk, though. Zuckerberg sounded genuinely excited about the enthusiasm that the Rift has already generated among gamers, and he seemed loath to throw that excitement away by meddling. He also said he sees the gaming "vertical" as an important method for convincing early adopters to purchase an Oculus head-mounted display, creating the "network effects" needed for further social VR applications.

Sure, developing for these social needs may distract a bit from Oculus' former laser-like focus on the gaming space, but I don't think we're likely to see a wholesale pivot away from gaming as a main focus for the company. The bigger risk to the Rift's gaming potential comes from developers beating a Mojang-style dash for the exits in the wake of the acquisition.

And if you acknowledge the heavy-handed potential negatives of a Facebook acquisition, you also have to acknowledge the positives of Oculus being backed by a big, cash-rich conglomerate. Luckey himself laid out a few of the big advantages on reddit, including having enough money to make custom hardware (rather than prototypes based off of mobile phone parts), to hire necessary staff, and to make "a huge investment in content." Luckey also says that the deal "specifically lets us greatly lower the price of the Rift" and gives Oculus the resources to support indie developers better. And no less than the sainted John Carmack tweeted that he has "a deep respect for the technical scale that FB operates at. The cyberspace we want for VR will be at this scale."

Again, we can't know for sure if Oculus and Facebook will be able to live up to these promises in the long term. But Oculus was not hurting for investor interest, and it could probably have had its pick of what company to choose for its big "sellout" moment. Given that, it's hard to believe Oculus would go with a company that wasn't willing to give it solid assurances of independence and the ability to continue on toward its previously stated goals.

Judging by the Internet reaction, many people who were previously intrigued by Oculus are now considering ignoring the company entirely, to avoid giving any support to Facebook's evil empire. Whether or not people actually stand by those anti-Facebook convictions, it seems premature to write off Oculus as a whole until and unless we see some tangible effect on the company due to the acquisition. To give up on the company in a knee-jerk reaction now is to completely throw away some of the most exciting technological developments the troubled virtual reality field has ever seen.