Some bad news dropped for VR gamers last night — an Oculus Facebook login will be required to use the Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, and the virtual reality company’s other products going forward — and Palmer Luckey has responded to the controversy.
Here’s a bit of background for you non-VR gamers out there: Oculus was the first company to make serious moves into the virtual reality space with the Oculus Rift headset. As the company grew larger, it was eventually acquired by Facebook for an absolutely stunning $2 billion price tag — that’s as much money as Microsoft paid to acquire Minecraft developer Mojang five years ago.
Following the acquisition, some users were concerned that Facebook would want more and more social media integration with Oculus’ products, but the company consistently promised that that wouldn’t be the case. Now, it seems that Oculus has reneged on that promise going forward — and they’re rightfully getting ratioed to hell and back on Twitter.
If you’re an existing user and already have an Oculus account, you’ll have the option to log in with Facebook and merge your Oculus and Facebook accounts.
If you’re an existing user and choose not to merge your accounts, you can continue using your Oculus account for two years.
— Meta Quest (@MetaQuestVR) August 18, 2020
Giving people a single way to log into Oculus—using their Facebook account and password— will make it easier to find, connect, and play with friends in VR. Visit https://t.co/SMeDOXgehN to learn more.
— Meta Quest (@MetaQuestVR) August 18, 2020
Thus far, a number of current owners are furious about the upcoming Oculus Facebook login requirement. Regular gamers and developers alike are upset at the change in this situation — especially because Oculus founder Palmer Luckey had promised that this wouldn’t happen.
“I guarantee that you won’t need to log into your Facebook account every time you wanna use the Oculus Rift,” Luckey said six years ago.
The furor has been so intense that he took time to address the criticism on Reddit.
“I am already getting heat from users and media outlets who say this policy change proves I was lying when I consistently said this wouldn’t happen, or at least that it was a guarantee I wasn’t in a position to make,” Luckey said on Reddit. “I want to make clear that those promises were approved by Facebook in that moment and on an ongoing basis, and I really believed it would continue to be the case for a variety of reasons. In hindsight, the downvotes from people with more real-world experience than me were definitely justified.”
With the outrage growing, many users are already requesting refunds at the apparent change. The Oculus Facebook login requirement seems like a pretty bad move after keeping Palmer Luckey’s promise for years… and it looks like the competition won’t be shy about capitalizing on Oculus’ mistake.
Oh, we're up.
— HTC VIVE (@htcvive) August 18, 2020
